1830's Dress

I finally finished my 1820's/30's gown this weekend and I'm so pleased with it! That in itself is a pretty big deal for me as I generally hate the way I look in anything I sew. It's either too long waisted or the waistband hangs wonky or the sleeves look stupid or any one of a hundred things that make me disappointed and disillusioned with sewing for myself. However, this dress behaved itself and turned out well! I used the Past Patterns 1830's dress pattern as a base and modified it to suit what I had in mind. I shored up the neckline quite a bit because I don't wear it with period underpinnings, but rather modern ones and they would show in a lower neckline. I had in mind something along the lines of this painting below for the sleeves.

So, the dress is completed and I'm all excited to blog about it and I have to be confounded by owning the junkiest camera on the planet and being the most unphotogenic person alive. :-/ So bear with the stupid faces and lame camera. :-)

The neckline and armscyes are piped, the next time I make a dress with this pattern I want to make actual cuffs and pipe them. There is a dress in the Victoria and Albert Museum that has sleeves like that and I really love the look. The pattern calls for a skirt width of 100" which seemed really skimpy to me so I made mine around 130", it has a nice amount of "swoosh" but doesn't seem overly wide. I debated about what closures to use and finally opted for hooks and thread loops. I've never made thread loops before but they were easy and really look nice and seem "oh so period", I'm so happy that I chose to go that route! I darted the bodice which I think looks better, I can't make a gathered front look well on me, it always looks like I'm wearing something way too big for me. I left the skirt fairly long for this era, but it is cosier for Winter this way and since it is an "everyday" dress that seemed best. I really need a wool flannel petticoat now or even just another regular petticoat or two, multiple petticoats were the standard for this era and I don't have enough to really make the skirt look as it should.

I think this style looks good for modern use and (to me at least) doesn't seem "costumey". I want to tear apart my gathered front gown that I could not make hang right and refashion it into another gown like this one.