Sweet Violets

Every once in a while it's nice to work on an involved project - one that includes a lot of details and will take some time to complete.

I purchased a few vintage reproduction patterns years ago with no specific idea of when or exactly what I would do with them.  Around that time I found some vintage Waverly yardage.  My first thought when I found the fabric was this late 1950s design.  I thought that the oversized floral would work quite well with the numerous pleats included on the dress.

My first step was to make a mock-up of the bodice.

I had enough yardage to work with, but there wasn't going to be a lot of extra.  Perhaps more importantly, the individual pattern pieces were extremely large, so having to recut something would be problematic.

Because the background was white, I was wary of marking the pleats with a pencil or disappearing pen since they can be difficult to remove.  Instead, I used tailors tacks.

For the underbodice, I used a plain cotton twill.  

While the pattern does not suggest adding boning to the bodice, I decided that I wanted to add some.  Channels were cut out of the cotton twill and added to seamlines and darts.

Because the fabric pattern is very large scale, it was not possible to pattern match in most places.  

Thankfully, I had enough to get the center back bodice to match. 

And we finally start to see something that looks like a wearable bodice!

Because of the method of construction for this particular design, the neckline facing gets stitched into place fairly early on.

Which gives a pretty good idea of what the bodice is going to look like.

One thing of note is that the sleeve length on this draft is extremely long.  I often shorten sleeves, but after making a mockup, I took a bunch more length out of the pattern piece.  Because I made a muslin of the sleeve, I was able to keep the elbow darts in the right place (length was taken both above and below that point).

The next step was the underskirt and petticoat layer.

I am not a huge fan of sewing with netting.  That being said, working slowly at the machine was a real help.  The netting didn't get pulled down into the machine once!

And here comes the interesting construction bit.  The underskirt is attached to an essentially finished bodice at this point.  The actual skirt hasn't even been touched yet.

So this essentially becomes a "finished" dress with an exposed petticoat.

I was not entirely sold on this method, but it made sense in theory, so I decided that Vogue knew better than me and kept following the directions.

The next step was to add a zipper.

I went for my standard hand-picked application. 

It might be said that I prefer a lapped application, but in this case, I knew that a centered application would be necessary.

Because I had added boning to the bodice, I wanted this garment to be step in and go  . . . no extra undergarments or strapless bras needed.

I have used a similar technique before, and so I decided to add two underbust pads to the inside of the bodice.

And now we finally come to the skirt.

Piping gets added to the waistline, and the center back opening is folded under and finished.

The skirt is then attached upside down, covering the bodice, matching the 5/8" stitching line of the skirt to the waist seam of the bodice/underskirt waistline.  Thank goodness for those basting stitches at the 1/2" mark that were there from attaching the piping to the skirt.  That was really my only guideline for attaching the two units.

I will also mention here that the skirt pleats were probably drafted incorrectly.  I was working with a tracing, but looking at the technical illustrations and the instruction sheet, it looks like everything matches.  Unfortunately, following those pleat lines left me with a skirt front that was much too large for the bodice front.  I ended up adding an extra pleat to close up the extra space between the right and left side pleats as well as opening the side skirt seam and taking a bit more width from the front skirt piece.  This got me close, but you might notice that the bodice pleats form a point that doesn't quite match the skirt pleat point.  It was the best that I could do since cutting a duplicate skirt was out of the question.

It was at this point that I discovered why, perhaps, the pattern does not call for boning in the bodice.  Because of those bones, I had to shove all of the netting through the sewing machine while making sure not to catch any extra folds on either side of the needle.  This was not my favorite part of the process!!

I also added horsehair to the hemline.

The raw edge was pinked, folded under at 1/4" and stitched with a large stitch length (that will come in handy later).  While there are a few ways to attach the horsehair braid, I decided to hand stitch the lower edge into place just inside the fold line.

I then folded the hemline up and basted the lower edge.  The upper edge was gathered slightly with those large stitches to take care of the fabric excess from the shaped hemline.  I could have trimmed the excess fabric away, but I wanted it to cover the 4" horsehair.  I find that a deep hemline adds some extra weight which is always nice.

The underskirt also needed the same treatment.  But this time, I used a narrower horsehair and used a different technique to attach it.

I trimmed away the excess hem and attached the lower edge of horsehair by machine here, and folded it into place.  The upper edge of the horsehair was hand stitched into place.

Since I had all of that excess cotton, I decided to use it to cover the inside of the horsehair.  This step was certainly not required, but the shaped strips of fabric weren't going to be much use for any other project, and this finish looks extra nice.

Just for fun, I hand stitched it into place.  I love hand sewing, so that's one reason, but honestly, wrangling this much of a dress around and maneuvering it under a machine ends up being more aggravating than spending a bit more time with a needle and thread in hand.

The skirt opening closes with snaps, per the instructions.  I evenly spaced five of them, which seemed sufficient.

And, of course, I added a waist stay.

Those skirt pleats are not perfect and don't match back to the bodice pleats, but considering the trouble they gave me, this was a great outcome.

And because the bodice turned out a bit more roomy than anticipated, I added an elastic stay just under the bust to keep the garment close to the torso.  There is also a very interesting addition of a shoulder elastic in the instructions which I decided to try out.  The idea, I believe, is that that elastic will help the wide neckline stay in place.  It is not supposed to be covered in fabric, but since I am not a fan of feeling elastic on my skin, I went ahead and covered it.

And one final thing to add were a number of thread tacks to keep the skirt and underskirt together.

I do love a horsehair hemline!  Even with the netting on this dress, the hemline flares so much more with the addition of the horsehair braid.

All the more fun to flounce about in!

The design calls for a ribbon to be placed where the pleats connect at the waistline.  I wasn't confident about finding a suitable double-faced wide ribbon, so I just used a strip of bias to create my tie.  This was also the reason I wasn't quite as freaked out about the bodice and skirt pleats not matching perfectly - the point gets covered with a ribbon!

And I rediscovered my potted plant purse.  It's not a perfect match, but it's pretty darn close!

This was a really fun project.

It turned out almost exactly as I had imagined it.

If I had had more yardage perhaps I could have done a bit more pattern matching, but considering the limitations, the placement of the floral motifs turned out pretty great.

And I really love the finished dress.

Sometimes all of that extra work is worth the effort!