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

The end of the Stash bust - and Sewing Mojo

And thinking back on what I have learnt, the answer is that my stash is more powerful than me. Whilst I did not add to the stash (not even to complement or line or match to a stash item) I did not get through much at all.

Though I guess it does depend on what your opinion on "much" is. I did sew over 36m of material though to look at the stash you would never guess it. The list and results is as follows with the good news that my husband is booked in to take photo's of all my outfits on Thursday night. So I will post photos then.

1. The 1940's outfit - as previously posted about this outfit looks great, on my dress form, apparently by but is too big for the skirt but we are working on that :) (the butt not the skirt).

2. The pretty dress - having officially broken the zipper thrice and the second break being unfixable I have decided to replace the invisible zip with a normal zip in the hopes that helps it do up easier. In any case the dress is nice but likely to get gifted to ange as it doesn't seem to fit me right but we will see post zip change.

3. The pretty dress petticoat - I have no idea how I resized the pattern to fit me, made a trial that fits me and somehow ended up with a waist that wouldn't fit a barbie doll. I am annoyed cause this took so much time trying to fix - but it won't fit me not ever. This dress is probebly going in the bin unless I can find someone with a 36" 26" frame.

4. The onsie and skirt - already blogged and I feel a success.

6. The Sailor Halter - marvelous success and already blogged

7. The blue crepe dress - I asked for opinions and I made the dress, I LOVE it and will blog about it soon.

8. The Hippy house dress - a 70's pattern modified slightly (to fit my butt and to lengthen) which I can't get a bra under and thus will have the sole purpose of beach cover up or house dress. It is very comfy though for our hot summers. A minor success but what a breeze of a pattern - more to come.

9. The Christmas Dress - my last night last ditch effort burning through a wopping 2.5m It still requires some buttons but otherwise this dress is great (but a little small)

So does anyone else see the pattern forming here. I always sew things a little to small, or cut them a little to small. In the case of number 8 though I do maintain that the proportions of the dress were wrong, I mean it was the right bust size. I could I guess start making more of a concerned effort to understand that I am NOT as small as I would like but on the other hand, if everything I made fit I would be up to my eyeballs in made clothes.

Also this month another awesome thing occurred, I got shelving for my stuff which I will photograph when the clean up is done.

So somewhere mid point in the stash bust both Ange and I lost our mojo. I regained mine with the help of a friend and a sewing day on Saturday but I think Ange is to busy planning a trip to the US to care - perhaps when she gets back.

I think mine disappeared sometime around the pretty dress is screwing with me round 3. I often just wait for it to return but wonder if anyone has some mojo building advice.

The Great Refashion

I am starting something with my friends on facebook - if you want to be involved let me know I could try and work out how to make it possible for anyone to join in on facebook (might take a while cause I am a bit special with technology)

This is the challange for November

Inspired by this lovely girls efforts http://www.newdressaday.com I am proposing a refashioning challenge for us creative types out there.

The RULES
1. Original item must be purchased at a CHARITY based Op shop. This means places like Vinnies, Salvo's, Cat Society etc but not places like the trendy 2nd hand stores in newtown.
2. Buy an item that you think you can refashion to be wearable today. Remember that the worse it looks now the more dramatic the change will be.
3. Take a photo of yourself in the horrid item AS IS and post in the album for the group
4. Take a photo or scan the receipt to prove it really does come from a charity op shop and post it in the album for the group.
5. Take to work refashioning the item – you can do whatever you want with it BUT the item must make up the focal point of the final outfit. You can accessories, trim, lengthen, shorten etc but you can’t say make a bandana with it and have it count. You should also refrain from using it just as material to make an entirely new pattern.
6. Take a photo of yourself in the new refashioned item and post it in the groups photo album.
7. You have the entire month of November to complete this challenge, final photos must be up by midnight 30th November.
8. The total budget for refashioning including the item itself is $20.
9. Everyone can vote for their favourite refashion (a vote for yourself does not count) in the week following the competition and I will announce who got the glory on the 7th December 2010.


Prise is only bragging rights, but the whole thing is about having fun, recycling and being creative.

FA Meeting

Hi, my name is Hef and I'm a faric-holic.

I have more fabric than a small fabric shop. Buckets and Boxes and Piles of fabric abound my 'sewing' Room. Folded, on Rolls, scrunched into bags, some cut out ready to make something that I have just given up on.... I am surrounded by it, but I can't stop myself from buying more.

I have about 10 shades of black in cotton varieties - from poplin to sateen, not to mention the 75m of white poplin. I have stripes, spots, bugs, checks and plaids. I have reds, greens, pinks, purples, browns, greens.... I even have some strange silver stuff thats kinda shiny/wet looking, 7m of it, and I have no idea why I bought it, it really isn't me.

So in an effort to save my marriage, sanity and money - I will be swearing off buying any fabric for the months of August through to Novemeber. My fabric hording partner if crime, Ange will be joining me in this cold turkey attempt to cure a truely horrible addiction.

THE PLEDGE

1. We will not buy any new fabric between the 1st of August and the 31st October. (though swapping amongst ourselves and others is fine, just can't hand over cash)
2. we will not buy any new patterns between the 1st of August and the 31st October (again we can raid/borrow from each other or from any other kind sewer)
3. gifts need not be knocked back - and if the gift is a certificate to a fabric store then "new" fabric can be acquired.
4. records will be kept of the meterage we manage to clear out of our stashes, as a reminder as to why we should not hoard.
5. yum cha may still be had at cabramatta if we think we are strong enought to just say no.
6. a photo of the stash will be added for the beginning of the challange.
7. any item completed will be blogged with an indication of how long the stash fabric has been laying around.