Since I didn’t finish the dress until the night before the event, me and my sister took a few minutes away from the others to document my dress at the day itself.
I’m wearing: My new Plaid 1850s Summer dress (part 1, 2 & 3), green silk Bonnet (part 1 & 2), my cage Crinoline, 1880s corset together with chemise, petticoats, bloomers, stockings, lace up boots and a clock on a chain at the belt.
Photo: Maria Petersson
Before I could continue on my 1850s dress bodice, I needed to decide on weather or not to do the gathers (part 1 & 2).
To help decide I posted the question n my facebook wall, and in my historic sewing class, and the answer was unanimous – Do the gathers.
With no time to argue, I got to work, testing the draping on my dressform.
Using three gathering threads to test the draping on the dressform.
The shoulders being tamed and arranged by two treads of gathering stitches that later is to be hidden in the shoulder seam.
I was not totally happy with the first try at waist gathers (using three threads) so I decided to re-do it using threads every 1-1,5 cm or so.
Testing the gathers.
Once I was happy with the technique I pinned and basted the lose front piece to the bodice, carefully matching the tightness of the gathers to hide the darts.
Then I pulled all the treads through and secured them on the back side, before I stitched the whole piece down using hidden slip stitches. 
You can see the right side being finished while the left still have all the threads hanging lose.
And then I left it for a few a few weeks, fully occupied by working on my sisters 1860s outfit, training for my big running competition and preparing for vacation on work.
Once I finished all the other things and finally gotten my (well deserved) vacation I once more took on the task of finishing the bodice.
With only one day left to work on the dress before it was to be used, I need to hurry.
This is how I found the bodice once more the day before the event – When I decided to give it a try, and finish it.
With no time to lose, I pinned and sewed the sleeves together and added them to the bodice using gathering threads at the sleeve head, before turning under 1 cm and hemming them at the wrist
Pattern matching the sleeves
Then I hand stitched the boning channels to the sides, back and darts, and inserted cable tie bones cut to the right length.
I added a placket to the front edge for the clouser, and pined bias-tape to the neck and bottom edge. 
Turning the bias tape at the neck down and securing it at shoulder and back.
I stitched and turned over the bias-tape at the waist, and slip-stitched it to the inside lining to make a smooth and clean finish.
late at night I marked the placement for the hooks and eyes, but I never had the time to finish them before I needed to hurry to catch the buss to the event.
(Instead I pinned it shut)
I also added bias binding to the sleeve edges
Outside and inside of the “finished” bodice:
I didn’t had time to ad the clouser to the front (Edit: Now it’s done).
The finished dress:
The Facts – Bodice & skirt:
What: A 1850s summer daydress
Pattern: I drafted my own using Janet Arnolds ” Pattern of Fashion” and Nora Waughs “Cut of Womens Clothes”.
Fabric & Notions: Thread, 5 m of light weight plaid cotton, 0,5 of regular white cotton, 1 m cotton tape for waistband, bias tape for boning channels & neck/sleeves/bottom edge binding, Boning, hooks and eyes.
Time: About 10-15 hours – I made most of the dress by machine.
Cost: 300 Sek – the fabric was on Sale and everything else came from stash.
Final Thought: I really love this dress!
I feel so pretty yet comfortable in it. I can move, dance and breath on it and even though it’s long sleeved it’s not hot at all, just perfect for summer.
And I did get lots of compliments at its first outing :-).
All that’s need to be fixed for next time is, adding hooks and eyes for clouser and attachment bodice to skirt.
I also really need to re-set the sleeves. Well nothing is ever perfect 😉
(I’ve now re- set the sleeves, added the hooks and eyes needed at the front and made the bodice and skirt sit firmly together)
After finishing the skirt (and the Lady Mary dress) I continued on to the bodice on my 1850s summer dress.
Using some green cotton from my stash I draped a pattern on my dress-form trying to get as close to the original shape as possible.
Then I cut it out, stitched it together and tried it on.
bodice with pinned darts on one side.
I pinned the darts while wearing the mock-up. Then I took it of, marked and stitched them shut.
And put it on again for one more try to see if i got it right.
Looks pretty good I think.
Then I altered the pattern, taking out a few millimeters at every seam to make it a tad smaller, and shortened the back bodice about a cm to make it end at the waist.
And on to cutting out the pattern.
The pattern matching took a while, but whit lots of patients and pinning, I did get it right in the end.
Then I basted the bodice pieces to the interlining (who also served as lining).
center back being basted.
I stitched the center back seam,but was not happy with the bad matching of the pattern.
So I ripped out the seam and used three times as many pins as usual to really get the fabric to lay still while sewing (I could just have basted, but was to lazy at that point).
The result was much better, still not perfect, but I figured it wouldn’t show that much once worn.
Then I marked, pinned and stitched the darts on the bodice front piece copying the markings from the mock-up.
Then it was once more time to lace o the corset to check the fit.
Looks good. the only thing I needed to change was to shorten the back length some more. The vertical crease at the shoulder blades is a consequence of my corset, and will disappear as soon as I get the back boning in.
I really love the look of the bodice at this stage.
Trying it out with the right underwear…
Now it’s time for the front draping.
I used the pattern piece from my pattern draping, now cut in the plaid cotton, and pinned it to the dressform.
My only problem now was to decide if I really wanted the draping or not.
I loved the clean look of the un-draped bodice (and it would be so much easier and faster to finish), but my I think it was the draping who made me love the inspiration dress so much.
What to do?
To be continued….
For the upcoming 1850s “Crinoline day” I decided i needed a new dress (even though I teqnicly have two perfectly functional ones already – Green 1840s and Brown 1850s Paisley)
This time I wanted to focus on the light summer dresses I’ve seen so many examples of lately.
So I picked one of my favourites as my main inspiration and started looking for fabric.
Main inspiration
And to my surprise I found the perfect one straight away, and it was on sale. Yay! 
It’s a sheer cotton with the light feel of voile, and a pretty, light plaid pattern with lots of white to make the dress fit for summer.
At the moment I was rushing to finish my “Downton Mary dress“, so I couldn’t comit to the new project straight away, so to get tings moving I decided to start working on the skirt.
I almost used the same simple tequnices as in my sisters 1860s skirt (which I made a month later) – Cuting three skirt lenght of whole fabric widhts, matching the pattern and stitching them togeter to a huge circle.
Then I stsitched two rows of gthering stistches at the top and pulled to get the right waist measurment. I purpusly used one fabic widht for the front and two for the back, to disturbute the poufiness to the back.
Then I stitched a cotton tape to the gathered waist 
and turn it under by hand to get a small but sturdy waistband.
I used my dressform to measure and pin the skirt lenght 
Trying it out on my dressform
and make sure the back clouser looked good. 
Then I folded, pinned and hemmed the skirt, using 1 cm long heming stitches.
All and all it took about 4 hours and was an evenings welcome break from “Lady Mary”
The finished skirt:
A couple of photos with the skirt, (not) Gabardi blouse and green bonnet:
As you can see I also discovered I needed to shorten the skirt about 5-10 cm – great!
Back to the ironing table…
Nexts up: Construction for the dress bodice…
Fashion Through Herstory 