Chemise a'la Reine - History and Planning

 The Chemise a'la Reine, which translates to "underwear of the queen" is a very simple but beautiful dress that had a small role in changing history.

At the 1783 Marie Antoinette dared to be shown wearing the lightweight, "peasant" style garment in a painting by Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun. Whether it was because the queen was seen to be in underwear, or because the queen was appropriating or costuming outside her class is unsure but it caused a big stir within all classes of France. The disapproval was so complete that the artist repainted the queen using the same base in a more aristocratic garment and the painting was quickly swapped out.  

The damage however had been done.  While this garment is certainly not a deciding factor in the french revolution it was ammunition for those apposing the rule of Louis XVI against the already unpopular Austrian born queen.

Marie Antoinette is an historical figure whose existence is shrouded by her legend, her extravagant lifestyle, the infamous "let them eat cake", a far cry from the humble last words of "pardon me sir, I didn't mean to" (having accidentally stepped on someones foot on the way to the guillotine).  We as modern people are left to wonder what is true and what is propaganda.  What is fact without question however is that she was a very real human being, who's life and death was dictated by the whim of politics.  She died as a sacrifice to the revolution in 1799 less than a month shy of her 39th Birthday.

Despite the shock when it first emerged, and quite ironically the chemise a'la Reine was taken up by Josephine, wife of Napoleon first emperor of France and inspired the regency fashion that was to follow.

But I doubt you are here for a history lesson, its about the sewing right.  Well, this dress looks to be the first project I will kick off in 2021.  I have some very clear reasons for this.  Firstly having had a baby in October I am not in what one would call my perfect shape and the ease of sizing in this garment makes it perfect for both weight gain and weight loss.  Secondly the lightweight cotton fabric is great for Australian summers, and finally because I can wear this with or without underpinnings.  The true historical silhouette will have the stays but I would rather ease back into sewing with something a bit more simplistic than stays, that and I haven't yet found a pattern I would like to make stays for the 18th century.  I am open to suggestions on that.

Speaking of patterns, i will technically be drafting this one but it will be based on this pattern found online (so sorry but I can only find it on pintrest so if someone knows who should be credited I will be very grateful). 

As you can see, it is a very simple pattern to work with, the entire dress is just masses of lightweight cotton pulled together around 2 drawstrings in the mid section and a further neck drawstring front and back with a separate shoulder piece added. The sleeves similarly are also shaped by either full gathers at shoulder or the drawstrings at elbow and lower edge.  This is to be in line with the image of Marie Antoinette.  If you are interested in making your own different sleeve treatments not only exist but are period appropriate like this extant example.

We can not see in the Queens Portrait whether her dress had the bottom ruffles but as I will include the neck ruffle I think I will go with a more plain hem.

So what we are up to now is how this fits into the goals set in previous post.

1. Challenging.

Whilst the dress is deceptively simple in theory in practice it requires meters and meters of hand sewn tiny rolled hems to be useful.  In order to achieve this the fabric must be cut 100% on the straight grain.  There is no near enough is good enough that usually tempers my efforts.  I will need to draw threads and cut precisely for this to not turn into a hemming nightmare.

Therefore the skills I am working on are being more precise in set up and hand sewing.

2. Stash items

For reasons that will be made clear in a future post this week, I am the owner of between  10 and 15m of white cotton voile that will be perfect for this project.

Need to source is only twill tape and silk ribbon.  Plus the hat stuff if I want to get the right Marie look, though I may do headwear slightly less formal than the portrait above

2020 - Realisations/2021 - Goals

 As the hell year that was 2020 comes to a close I find myself very inspired to get a whole bunch of sewing done in the new year.  How much I get through is questionable as I will be on a year of maternity leave so finding a balance between parenting, housework and sewing may be hard.  

I also have 2 goals to work on sewing wise this year, they are

1. Increase skills by working on more elaborate and complete pieces

2. Work through stashed fabric and notions

The first goal is logical, we only get better if we challenge ourselves.  The second has a sad but kind of inspiring story attached.

At the beginning of 2020, my mother passed away.  She was young at 66 and it was an unexpected loss.  I won't go into large details but sufficed to say as she was also a sewist and as I am the only relative who is also a sewist, I inherited a large amount of sewing stuff.  It is also probably relevant to point out that we were also both kinda low key hoarders with a special interest in sewing stuff, so stash mountain has turned into stash Everest.

I did let a lot of the stash go, donating to The Sewing Basket or to family friends who were making large numbers of masks given the situation with Covid.  In truth there was no way I could ever consider being able to get through it all.  But there were many many fabrics I kept, so many of them purchased with plans to make things for her grandchildren - a task I will try and complete in this year coming and others fabric she had had for a long time.  Fabric she found and liked and would use one day but never got the chance.  Perhaps the right project never did come up or perhaps it did but what if she lost weight (she was always trying to lose weight) or what if she found something more perfect to use it on.

I think we all have a stash like this, we end up buying fabric specifically for projects rather than using what we have and a lot of what we have could have been used but its like deciding between having your cake and eating your cake.  What I realised in all of this was cake is no good if you don't eat it.  Eating it is its purpose, having it is a waste.  So 2021 needs to be the year I realise the perfect project is the one I have now not the one that may or may not exist in the future.  That silver and grey brocade I have been holding onto for nearly a decade, the vintage fabrics I found at fairs all of it is useless unless I use it.  I don't want to hold onto it and then miss my chance.   

With that all in mind I have started making lists of ideas on what projects I could conquer in 2021 - Assuredly I will not get through all of this but the priority is that each project must meet both goals.  I will list them here in short form so that I can refer back to it when I finish one and move onto another.  Some of these I will expand on in planing posts so that I also have an easy reference place for all my research.  (List is being done in chronological groups)

Please feel free to comment on what projects you think would be most fun or that you would like to see or hear about.

Medieval

• Viking Apron Dress
• Tudor Catherine Parr 
• Italian Renaissance Gown

1700's

• Robe a'la Francaise
• Robe d'Anglaise
• Slytherin Riding Habit
• Chemise a'la Raine

1800's

• Regency Silk Ballgown
• Scarlett's Orange Mill Dress
• Linen Walking Ensemble

1900's

• WW1 Era dress
• 1920's daywear
• WW2 Military Suit

Non Costume Sewing

• Vintage inspired work pieces
• Mums Children's wear
• Baby Bix Baby clothing

Fixes and Finishes on old projects

• Elizabethan Cartridge pleating
• Cursed Green Dress
• Blanket Dress
• Plaid Dress
• Toph's Victorian Coat

Edwardian Madness - Ageless #1344

Ageless Patterns had a sale in April to celebrate their  birthday and I couldn't resist.

Firstly I was already looking at there patterns for an outfit for an 1899 outing in December and secondly I am a sucker for sales!!.  I end up with 3; #1315 from 1892, #1389 from 1898, and #1344 from 1912.

My original plan was to make the 1389 for a tram anniversary in  December and the others were just to make postage viable and take advantage of the sale.  However when a steam train ride to Kiama appeared on my Facebook feed and a friend in the Historical Picnic Society decided to organise the troops the 1912 jumped the queue.

Planning Process
This pattern says (and Ageless even checked there original for me) it is a 40" bust and a 27.5" waist.  I made up a trial knowing that I would not ever corset down to a 27.5 at the moment expecting to resize.  In the end it actually fit my 40"/30" amazingly well with zero alterations.  I can't explain this but don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Ageless patterns do take more planning than many others due to the lack of instructions.  Ageless do not pretend to be anything more than a reproducer of the original pattern with original instructions.  Thus it is important to remember going into this that no one will hold your hand, "finish in the usual way" was a very valid instruction for the Victorian and Edwardian times when sewing was much more widespread and people just knew how to do those things.  Given that i rarely actually follow instructions this isn't a huge hindrance to me but I understand it may be to others.

These instructions seemed even more vague than usual, possibly as the original is in french and Ageless have translated as best they can.  Both English and French are included so if you do speak both perhaps it would be easier for you.  The biggest issue I had was was the closure none of those instructions made any sense nor did the pattern pieces that came intuitively give you a closure point.  Instructions say that bodice closes at center back, and that the first few buttons on the front are functional but with no center back seam on the skirt there was no place for the waist band to open.  I decided after consulting many online groups to add a center back seam and go from there.  This has worked though I can't say I am a fan of the hook and eye closure and will be de-historifying it with a button covered zip in the near future.

Another point to be aware of is that the entire over bodice is one huge pattern piece with some deceptively simple shaping techniques for the sleeves and the side seam. 

In short ease the dart in the sleeve part, sew small darts into the underarm/underbust/side seam area.  Line up sleeve ends and side seam bottom pull straight and sew one continuous seam. 

Took some fiddling but this was worked out in trial stages.  Not doing this will cause the arm to twist oddly.

Fabric Choice:
Knowing that this dress would be for winter - specifically for this train trip I wanted a warmer fabric than the suggested taffeta.  After much deliberation I decided that despite my wool allergy a wool or wool like would be best and due to the bodice piece issue a non plaid.  Any pattern was going to need to be small and able to conform to biases.  I thought and fiddled and searched until I happened upon a beautiful marle Oxblood mostly acrylic (yay for less allergins) from Pitt Trading.  I accented with tulle from stash, lace and velveteen from spotlight.  Lining is left over white cotton and white linen/cotton.

Buttons came from a shop in newtown that sells huge amounts of buttons in all shapes sizes and colours.  They are a black plastic with a little shine to them.

The Making:
This pattern (by fluke of fitting me) came together perfectly once I had worked out the few small issues - being the closure, the sleeves twisting and that I misinterpreted a pattern marking and cut off some of the left side skirt (yeah don't do that  - you will have to add it back later).

The fabrics were of little issue EXCEPT the tulle. It has gone straight onto the banned list and I will avoid it now like a creeper in a club.  I have to thank Angela Clayton for the inspiration to overdo the dicky adding both lace and pleated tulle.  Undeniably it looks fantastic, but it was a nightmare to control and still is.

Horrible pleating tulle

But soooo pretty

So without further ado here is the pictures of the finished dress beautifully backdropped by vintage trains.

As a side note the hat was also made - I will eventually do a post on that too - another credit to Angela Clayton.

Buttons? Buttons? Who's got the Buttons?

At last count this dress will have over 90 buttons on it.  Most of them cloth covered and only 23 of them functional  These buttons (and the phone replacement issue) account for the delay in these posts.

The plan for the buttons included around 25 functional buttons for the front of the bodice, 20 for the sleeve epaulet detail (10 per sleeve), and 8 skirt epaulets with 7 buttons each for a total of 56 - 101 buttons in total (Plus what will be used on the under sleeves).

I wanted the functional buttons to be about half an inch, smaller for the sleeve detail - but the hardest to find would be the skirt buttons.

Anyway, I went searching for buttons online.  I could have gone to the local spotlight but there cloth covered buttons are expensive at $8 for 10, have crappy plastic backs and the size range isn't as extensive as I would need.

This brought but the next issue in the planning, how to attach the buttons to the skirt and not have them flop about, I wanted them to sit flat.  Shanks on functional buttons are both necessary but also get held into position by the extra material around the button hole.  Without a button hole it flops around which wouldn't work for what I was after.

So I found on ebay a listing that had not only metal backed cloth cover button kits but came in both flat back (for gluing on jewellery apparently) and shanked.  A bit more searching and I found the website I like big Buttons and placed an order. 

I decided on the small 12mm (25), for the sleeves, 15mm (25) for the functional buttons, and huge 1.5inch for the skirt (50).  I was able to get shanks only on the functional buttons and flat backs on the rest.  You may have noticed that I had to cut down the plan for the skirt buttons because they came in packs of 50 or 100 and I didn't want 44 unnecessary 1.5inch flat back buttons on my hands.  Seemed easier on the pocket and storage to cut down each epaulet by 1 button and only need 48.

There was only one issue with the delivery which is that one of my shank backs came shankless which cut down the number I had to work with by one.  Otherwise, service was fast, friendly and the website easy to use.  I also found that the smaller button sizes were smaller than I had anticipated.  I think maybe if you flattened out the metal circle it would measure 1.5cm but the front buttons came in more the size I wanted for the sleeves and the sleeves are tiny - but we make do and I don't think it will make too much difference to the final look

Then set about the epic task of covering these bad boys.  The process is long winded enough when you have 5 to do for a dress, 89 (as the final count was) took a long time and patience that I am not well known for.  But I did promise myself that I would spend more time and effort on the finer details of the things I make so  I persevered.

To cover the buttons, first I had to cut the circles out of the fabric - a process made slightly easier by spending the extra buck on the plastic sizing tool which provides an exact template of the size that circle.  Then you stitch a run around the circle, put it in the rubber setting tool, place the metal to cover in pull the stitch tight and then push the back in with the plastic finishing tool.  To make things a bit more secure I added some craft glue between the inside and the back.  Then I did this about 90 times.

Pro tip, the bigger the button the easier it is to get the back in.  For the really small ones I used a vice, for the really big ones my own hand strength was fine.

Once all done I attached the buttons to the bodice front the traditional way (shanked) though I screwed up on spacing and will have to redo them today :(.

For the Skirt Epaulets I sewed through the the fabric where it curls under into the button.

I will provide further details of the process of making the epaulets when I do the post regarding the skirt and the one for the bodice, but for now progress continues and with only a couple of weeks to go I better get back to it.

Projects for the Upcoming Stash Blitzkrieg

Officially the Blitzkrieg will not start until Saturday night - because it looks like that will be the first chance I will get to sit down at a machine and sew anything.  With friends visiting from around the world, annaverysorry's and movies to see I have been hardly able to breath.  But I did take some time tonight to quickly put together some pictorials of the projects I will be working on.

8 Gored Skirts

I have 5 meters of rayon (1m each type) and I am going to make 5 of these 8 gored skirts from a 1940's advance pattern 3287.

I have made this skirt 3 times before and am close to perfecting the fit but the pattern is just lovely - especially in the soft floaty fall of this rayon ($4/m).  I used a lot of rayon to make skirts to travel around Italy with due to the not needing to iron and fell in love.  Actually I already have one in the same pattern as the orange floral but red.

Hopefully I will be able to process line these and will therefore have all of them done saturday night.  Which reminds me I had better call into spotlight for zips and buttons.

Skull Dress

Sorry the pic for this is a little smaller but the square allowed a better view of the fabric that I picked up of Ebay.  total cost was about $50 for 3m including all postage.  To be honest the fabric photographs better than it looks in person but I still really like it.  I don't have anything else like it that's for sure.

Whether I manage this as part of this Blitzkrieg or not is questionable because I am unsure if I have enough material to do it, and because I need to find a green to accent it with if I don't.  It may also be put in the when I have lost a little weight pile.  Dropping a size could cut .5m off what I need by this pattern, now there is weight loss incentive.

Childs Play Clothes

All around me friends are having babies, recently some are even having girls which means I can make cool things for them.  This one has been on the to do list ever since we got back from Italy and being so small I doubt it will take too much time so I am including it in this blitz.

Pattern is an old one, 1960's by my mothers guess and of a mail order variety so I am not certain of the company but I think its really cute (size 2 but kids do grow right)

The material is quilters cotton picked up on sale probably about $6 for the pattern and $5 for the plain.  I will do the top patterned and the pants plain.


So there it is 3 projects (well 7 really) and more to come.  I figure if I put the info up here I will remember what material goes with what pattern which should be useful in clearing things out.