"Muslin always turns to some account or other"

I wasn't planning to go to the Jane Austen Festival this year. I had something else on that weekend and I figured that Jafa's on every year so I'd give it a miss and come back with some new dresses next year.

And then they announced that it would be the last one. I couldn't miss that.

So two months out, Lady B and I (and Lady B's family) bought tickets for Sunday. After getting some Life out of the way we started sewing with two and a half weeks to go.

Lady B was making herself a ballgown and open robe. I needed a new daydress because I've worn all the ones I have at least twice now. That, and I had the perfect fabric set aside and this would be my last chance to use it. (Without Jafa, I never have to do regency again! 🙂🙃🙂)

My fabric came from Patchwork on Parker in Cootamundra. My mum found it one time when she was there without me and, after a quick SMS consultation, bought 4m – enough for a regency gown. The fabric instantly reminded me of one of my favourite dresses from the BBC Pride and Prejudice.

I had to re-jig my standard regency pattern (adapted, probably now unrecognisably, from figure 37 in The Cut of Women's Clothes) to go with my new 1815 stays. Which meant raising the waistline and lengthening the skirt and widening the bodice to allow for the gathering. I first thought of making it drawstring but decided that actually I would rather get the gathers arranged how I like them, then make them stay there by sewing them to a tape.

The skirt I knife pleated to the bodice – largely by guesswork (ie redoing it over and over while the night got later and later).

I couldn't tell how the dress from the show did up the back. I suspect it may have been buttons, but I don't so much care for buttons (they are uncomfortable to lean against and require the making of buttonholes) so I went with self fabric ties. So, after 10 years and 6 dresses, I finally have the archetypal regency plain, pale muslin dress.

It's really boring.


I also assisted Lady B with fitting her (much fancier) ballgown. Once more, those patternmaking classes paid off and I'm getting a hang the 'art' of it. After imitating my teacher by staring at a pattern going 'hmmm' to myself, and having some wild moments of 'I think it needs this adjustment – no that's ridiculous – but I think it will work", all the issues were successfully solved as they arose. We finished our gowns on Friday night in the hotel room in Sydney (where we were for the other event of the weekend).

Lady B is on the right in her new gown. Photo by Steven Shaw. 

We had both booked in to a 9am session on the Sunday morning and after getting home from Sydney the night before – well, frankly, we were probably better rested than if we'd been at the Saturday ball. The talk was about Jane Austen's faith and representation of the church, and how her value of a sincere personal faith came through in her letters and novels.

Then came the picnic where we were joined by Lady B's family.

Happily my spencer suits my dress very nicely. The fit worked surprisingly well given that it was made for different stays.

Then back for a class on making fly fringe:

And time to get ready for the ball where I re-wore my 1830s silk ballgown.

Photo by Steven Shaw

I was especially happy with how my hairstyles turned out for the day.

I Won't Give In

Having got my 1830s ballgown finished well ahead of Jafa I decided now was the time to make that new regency ballgown I hadn't got to yet. This dress has been a long time coming. I’ve had the fabric for years and been planning it for longer. I originally had it planned for Jafa 2015 but that was derailed by a) needing new stays and b) my sewing machine dying. So I added it to my plans for 2016 (notice how only one other of those plans has actually happened).

The ball gown is based on a fashion plate in Fashions in the Era of Jane Austen. The dress is described in the book as being crimson satin under silver-stripe French gauze, edged in satin and “the body of the dress has open fronds [sic] with stomacher”.

I was unable to find a silver-striped fabric but instead I have a plain white ‘silky’ chiffon to go over red faille – they’re not the fabric types listed but they are both lovely. I have a white satin single-fold bias and multi-purpose red ribbons for the edging. The flowers I've got are foam which... will do.

The new stays mentioned above turned out to be perfect for 1830s but rubbish for 1815. I did a couple of muslins for this gown, couldn't make them work and gave up. I consoled myself with an 1830s day dress.

Jafa 2017 came and went and as 2018's event started looming on the horizon I decided to have another attempt at regency stays. Success. Now, finally with the right undergarments, I attempted another muslin.

And to my great surprise it was pretty close.

All this time I had been looking at the bodice design and couldn't work out how it was meant to work. I considered bib front and wrap but neither seemed to really fit the fashion plate – especially the way the skirt peaks up in the centre front waistline under the trim of the bodice. Also, whoever heard of a stomacher on a regency gown?

I eventually decided (after nearly giving up on the whole thing once again) that 'open fronds' was probably meant to be 'open fronts' – Google at least returns results with that phrase. So I made a sort of half-bib front underbodice attached to the skirt with two 'fronts' that close over the top.

The front on the bib side is sewn into the waistline for part of the way. I gathered the pieces slightly along the top and bottom to smooth out the curved shape. I was very pleased to find they sat exactly on the curved waistband – shaping the fronts was an inexact science. The fronts hook together in the centre over the stomacher which is sewn to the underbodice.

It looks quite nice not having a back opening.

I made a channel for the waist tie (the most important part of any regency dress) from the front waist seam allowance. The cord goes around behind me and then through an eyelet in the underbodice to tie at the side.

I didn't try to make my shoulder straps exactly the same as the picture, instead using a substantial enough design that had a slight risk that the thing might actually stay on my shoulders. For the sleeve pattern I started with Sleeve C from Period Costumes for the Stage and Screen but cut quite a lot out of the middle so now it is a smaller puff.

For the skirt I used my standard pattern (based on figure 37 in The Cut of Women's Clothes), which I love, but moved the side seams further to the front and removed the centre back seam. And I added the peak to the skirt front. I used French seams on the tulle skirt. I should probably stop harbouring suspicion towards French seams at some point soon as they turned out quite neatly.

The white satin is sewed on by machine and the red ribbon (which covers the machine stitches) is sewn by hand (I got so sick of it). I figured out a neater way of doing it about halfway through but that was too late. I don't love this design, because regency, so I was not as careful or fussy as I might have been otherwise.

Or at least, I didn't love it until I got to wearing it. It turned out so well and I felt amazing. Other people at the festival enjoyed it too; I got stopped for lots of photos and two people recognised it from the fashion plate. I didn't always love it, but I love it now so very dearly.

There were many gorgeous ballgowns on the dance floor.

Achievement unlocked: Silk ball gown

The Jane Austen festival this year was very exciting for me as I had two new ball gowns. I mean there were also wonderful people and fun activities and interesting workshops but the clothes are what it’s really all about.

Friday was a day of re-wears with my blue day dress and Joker evening ensemble. I also dressed a couple of friends.

On Saturday I was enrolled in two workshops: death head buttons and mourning jewellery. I decided to goth it up in my demi-mourning ball gown in honour of the day’s morbid theme. The fashion plate on which the dress is based actually has it with a chemisette and hat so it may well have been meant to be a day dress in the first place.

This year was the warmest and coldest and windiest Jafa I’ve been to so I got to actually wear my spencer for a significant amount of time. But my hat stayed in the car.

In the evening I wore the 1815 ball gown that I’ve been trying to get made for years. I had decided not to attempt it this year but when I got my silk gown done with plenty of time to spare I thought I’d give it another go. Three weeks later it was done and I love it.

On Sunday I re-wore my 1830s day dress but with my new bonnet. The bonnet is very comfortable and stayed on my head very easily.

 I did my hair myself and am very happy with how it turned out.

On Sunday night I debuted my silk 1830s ball gown. It was fabulous to wear. (It took me a while to stop grinning.)

Last year I did a major shopping spree on American Duchess. At Jafa I wore three pairs of their stockings. The Victorian Silk Stockings wore through the toe on the first day (sadness), but the other two lasted fine. All were comfortable and stayed in place pretty well.

Shoe-wise, I wore Dashwoods most of the time. I sewed on ribbons to secure them to my feet and used the non-slip soles to stop them making like roller skates. With these additions they were great for dancing in. I barely noticed them even though this is the first time I’ve worn them. I wore Gettysburgs for the picnic which were also perfectly satisfactory.

This festival was remarkable in that I got so much made for it in time. Turns out this can happen if you start preparing six months out. I made:

• Stays
• A chemisette
• A long petticoat (cos I sold the one I made last year)
• Two chemises. One for me and one for lending (a designated lending chemise is a useful thing to have. I had had a chemise I made for myself in the role before – don’t think I ever actually wore it – but it needed replacing, having gone the way of oft-lent things.)
• 1830s bonnet
• 1830s ball gown and belt
• 1815 ball gown

We had people staying with us in the week before Jafa so I had to get everything I would need out of the spare room. It was actually very convenient to work out everything I needed in advance and have it laid out ready. Of course by the end of the week my room looked like it had been hit by an early 19th century hurricane – but it made getting ready each day a lot less stressful.

A quick stay

In the tail end of last year I made a new set of regency stays. I seem to have made a ludicrous number of regency stays but they never quite turned out right. After some adjustments, the last long stays I made became quite good to wear but they definitely had a later silhouette. They’re great for 1830s but the next gown on my list is from 1815 and it needs a rather more abrupt shape with a higher waistline and rounder bust.

1815 and 1824.

I started out with my 1820s-30s long stays pattern (adapted from figure 36 in Corsets and Crinolines). Based on the previous one I made I altered the shape a bit to increase the lacing gap and make more room for my hips. I added a second bust gusset and made the starting point of the bust gussets higher. This had the effect of raising my (empire) waistline by nearly an inch. I also made the gussets rounder rather than completely triangular. The end result is much more the silhouette I was aiming for.

I used the welt method to construct the stays as it halves the required number of seams to sew and keeps the inner and outer layers correctly aligned. I did a little bit of quilting under the bust but mostly left the stays plain. I wanted to finish these pretty quickly so I could get on to making my dress (which I had originally planned to be done in time for Jafa last year. Lol.) I may add some more quilting or cording later if it seems to need some more support.

The stays are made from coutil and drill, with a wooden ruler for a busk and cable ties for boning. I stitched the eyelets by hand. This is the first time I’ve used a proper tailor’s awl to do hand-sewn eyelets. I was able to get much larger eyelets this way so these stays will be a lot easier to lace than my others. The fit of these stays is not exactly right - the lacing gap is smaller at the top than I'd like and there’s still not quite enough room in the hips but I don’t think any of this will cause problems when wearing it.

Old and new.

I did a new mock-up of my ballgown bodice and it fit almost right first go. With my previous stays nothing I did could make the bodice have the right look. These new ones fit the earlier silhouette much better.

So, regency stays were the last thing I made in 2017 and a Regency chemisette in muslin was the first thing I made in 2018. I used view D from the Simplicity 4052 (by Sense and Sensibility). Again I was working at speed, with a view to getting a small project out of the way as soon as possible, so some of my technique was perhaps not the best. Still, it turned out quite well, even the cheat square shoulder adjustment I did while cutting the fabric.