Piping and ruffles

After the sleeves, putting together the rest of an 1830s gown seemed simple. The bodice came together pretty much over a weekend. Every piece is flat lined. All the seams are piped on the outside and finished with Hong Kong binding on the inside. I tried to follow the correct historical construction as much as I could. I found Koshka-the-Cat's series on an extant bodice helpful when choosing techniques.

I piped each bodice front and then put another row of piping around the neck after the fronts were together. Getting the angle of the front-to-neckline corner on both fronts even was painful and required repeated unpicking.

I got most of the machine sewing done on the bodice on the Saturday and that left Sunday for handsewing – I sewed early in the morning, during the sermon at church, through my Dungeons and Dragons game in the afternoon, and into the evening when I got home. It felt like it was done very quickly but there was actually a significant lot of sewing time there. I whipstitched down the piping edge (neck) and the binding (waist). At least, I think it's whipstitch – it doesn't look exactly like other examples. For the boning channels I turned over the centre front seam allowances and the bust darts (as shown on this site). I used cable ties for boning and handstitched the channel seams over the cable ties so as to make sure the channels were wide enough.

The bodice does up with hooks and eyes. The top and bottom hook are closer the edge than the rest as was often done at the time. Having the hooks and eyes arranged this way made the closure feel a lot more secure than I usually find with hooks and eyes.

I decided I didn't like the diagonal decorations on the original bodice. So instead I used a ruffle based on a dress in the Victoria & Albert museum.

Original decoration.

Inspiration decoration.

My decoration.

I gathered the ruffle over a tape then handsewed it to the bodice.

I think it turned out rather nice.