Victorian Themed

When I first saw this vintage reproduction, I was torn.  View A of McCalls 8490 is atrocious on the model, but looks decent in the illustration.  Is it just the use of a stiff cotton that is at issue, or could the drafting be to blame?  View C was definitely the safer choice since the blouse looks great on the same model.

The pattern would work with any one of the many rayons I have stashed away.  But it was the middle of Winter, and making a rayon blouse did not strike my fancy.  I did think that it would make a lovely dress, though, and I had a length of wool with a fair amount of yardage with no set project in mind.  It wasn't something that I had any major attachment to, so I figured that if it all went wrong, I was not sacrificing some irreplaceable wool.

Once I started, I thought that the yoke could use a bit more detail (those pin tucks get lost in the bouncy wool).  I was reminded of a bin of ribbon that I have stashed away.  

And I just happened to have a spool of black satin ribbon edged in silver.  That was too perfect to ignore.

I ended up hand basting the ribbon before edge stitching everything down to keep things in place.

The wool used for this dress is definitely on the thicker side for a blouse (or dress, in this case) but the only real issue was with the shoulder ruffle.  It does not drape as nicely as it could in a less bulky fabric, but it still works.

The center back zipper was hand stitched into place.

Somewhere along the way, I decided that the dress was just going to be a bit much, and lost interest in the project.  But since I had everything cut out and had put most of the dress together, it also seemed a waste not to forge ahead.

The dress was lined in a rayon bemberg because the wool fabric was going to be a little too scratchy without.

I also swapped out the collar lining with the rayon to cut down on bulk.

There are no images of cutting the skirt out of my wool, but it is probably easier to see on the rayon.  I just continued the line of the peplum as long as I wanted my skirt to be.  Because the peplum was properly shaped to fit the waistband, I didn't think any additional flare or increase in width was necessary.

The lining was hand stitched into place which is standard for me.

And now for the fun part - dealing with all of those ruffles.  

The ribbon was applied while the pieces were flat. 

Since I wasn't sure about the ruffle, I gave myself enough length in the skirt pieces so that the dress would be full length, with or without the ruffle.

Once I realized that I had enough fabric for the job, and that I wanted to add the ruffle detail, I decided that it would be silly to cut off four or more inches of hemline.  Instead, I just measured up from the hemline and marked where I wanted the ruffle to sit.

The ruffle was stitched into place on what was essentially a finished dress with a massive amount of yardage.  This was not the most enjoyable part of the project, but it was manageable.

The finished garment is perhaps a little more "homespun" than I would like, however, it is not unexpected with my fabric choice.

Now that I know that I like the look of the design, I will probably make myself a rayon blouse at some point in the future.  One might argue that I should have began with the blouse to make sure I liked the pattern before cutting into all of that yardage, but here we are.

Do I need another full length dress?  Probably not, but it has reminded me of a few old Folkwear patterns that are more Victorian themed that I would love to cut into for a future project.  And I am still not convinced how I feel about View A of this pattern, but my stubborn streak wants to try it just to see if it's as big of a mess as it seems to be.