1880 Victorian Day Dress

I love finishing projects. The sweet feeling of success. The Victorian is especially sweet, because it's a fairly involved project with a lot of pieces, and very fitted tailoring, so it was a little challenging, and a little nerve wracking, and a lot of fun. First, because the pattern requires very accurate measuring and sizing, as opposed to modern patterns, I took my measurements while corseted, then traced the appropriate pattern pieces, and adjusted them to my measurements. Then, I made a mockup out of muslin to test the fit. I'm glad I did, because the first mockup was a little too small! I remeasured myself, and decided to try the next size up.  The second mockup fit perfectly.

Mockup, front view

Then, I took the same pattern pieces, and cut out the fashion fabric, a gorgeous amethyst satin. I cut the lapels and cuffs out of black satin.  Then, I cut out the pieces in cotton duck to interline the jacket, to give it body. Otherwise, the satin would drape like a blouse, not like a jacket. Finally, I cut out the pieces in a dove gray cotton to line the jacket.  I matched up each piece of duck to it's satin counterpart, and basted them together.  Once all of the duck and satin parts were basted together, I began sewing the jacket together. It went together surprisingly easy; I finished it in two sittings.  Once that was done, I made another jacket out of the dove grey lining.  The lapel pieces are sewn to the lining, so when the lining is attached to the jacket, the jacket neckline folds back to show the lapels.  The collar was a bit of a pain; it took me three tries to get it right. Finally, I did get it right, and I basted it to the jacket.  Then, I matched the completed lining to the jacket, and bag-lined it.  Turned it, pressed it, and was VERY happy with how it turned out. Unlike the 1770 frock coat, the lining fit perfectly the first time; no pulling, no sagging.  With the jacket essentially done, I moved on to the skirts. I put together the overskirt first. It's a basic 4 panel design; the front and back are assembled separately, and each is pleated at the sides.  I chose to underline the satin in broadcloth to give it more body, so the pleats would hang better. Once I finished the skirt, it hung very sadly, and that really bummed me out.  I toyed with the idea of changing fabrics to something crisper, like a taffeta, but I really didn't want to scrap the jacket and redo it in a new fabric, so I decided to keep the faith, and work on the other skirts before I made any decisions. The petticoat is a basic 5 panel, gored skirt with a layered tulle bustle.  I made the petticoat from broadcloth. The most time consuming part was the tulle; and I drug my feet on the process, so this skirt took two sittings to complete.  The bustle starts with one row of tulle, lightly gathered to fit the back panel at the waist.  Then, to add fullness, which should graduate to slim fitting at the waist to more heavily bustled behind the knees, additional layers of tulle are sewn on underneath.

First and second rows of tulle

Three rows of tulle

All five rows of tulle

Then, the tulle is encased in between two layers of the cotton, to form a bustle that then gets attached to the front and sides of the skirt.  This is done to keep the tulle from touching skin, because it is really, really itchy and uncomfortable.

Enclosing the tulle in between the two back pieces

I attached the sides and front, which I'd already hemmed, attached the waistband, added a hook and eye closure, and that was it! I was a little shocked at how fast it went together.

Finished petticoat

(I have no idea why the bald dog does that. Every time I try to take pictures, he runs into the frame, and sits with the dressmaker's dummy. It's very weird. I'd say he has clothing envy, except he wears clothes 99% of the time. I think he just thinks there should be bald dogs in all pictures.)

The underskirt, which goes over the petticoat, is a simple five panel gored skirt with a waistband and side enclosure. The interesting thing about this skirt is that while it's gored to make it slim fitting around the hips and down the front, the Victorians hadn't given up on their love of the bustle, and so the skirt has ties in the back to pull all of the fullness to the back.  There is one set of ties high on the back of the leg, and another set just above the knee.  With the ties in and tied, the skirt looks awesome.

Underskirt, over the petticoat

The overskirt, the third and final skirt, goes over the underskirt.  I had spent the last several weeks sweating over whether or not it would hang correctly because of the less crisp satin; so I was really worried about seeing it over the underskirt.  I sewed the ties in, and added the hook and eye closures, crossed my fingers, and put the overskirt on over the other skirts.

Overskirt, with ties sewn in

WAHOO!!! It hung perfectly!!!! I was absolutely thrilled!!! All of the skirts were now completely finished, all the remained was to handsew the lining of the jacket at the armscyes, add buttonholes, buttons, and tack down the pleats in the back.  The finish line was in sight!!! Since my old machine breathed it's last breath and died in the middle of the overskirt, during the lining process, I had to run out and buy a new one. A fancy one that I apparently struggle to operate.  Making buttonholes on it scared the hell out of me, because if I screwed up the buttonholes, I could potentially jack up the jacket bad enough for it to be unwearable. I ran a few practice buttonholes on a scrap of fabric, crossed my fingers, and finally tried one on the jacket.  CRAP!!! Sure enough, I backwards the order of the buttonhole, and the thread jammed. I picked out about four thousand stitches, consulted the manual again, and finally got things straightened out. I had found the cutest buttons, black with silver trim, and silver floral detailing. I matched them up with the buttonholes, and sewed them all on.

Aren't they super cute?

This pictures shows the buttons, buttonholes, and the lining: Finally! I was DONE!!! All that remained was to try the whole get up on!!!

Jesse kept trying to photobomb the picture....

Yay! I'm so super glad it's done. : ) I have a few more projects lined up that I am really excited about, so I am glad to be done with this one!  : )