I had bought all that remained in the bolt,
hoping that I would get something out of it. How much I
needed was surprisingly hard to estimate as the stripes
run horizontally and the material was only 90cm wide. My
original plan was to make a separate petticoat of
different, preferably washable material if needed, which
would also have been sensible as the petticoat gets most
dirt. But then again I have so many jacket and petticoat
emsembles that for once I wanted a complete dress with a
matching petticoat.
I calculated that I would have just enough material
for a polonaise and a petticoat if I used something else
for trimming. I was at first reluctant to give up the idea
of delightful strioed ruffles, but after browsing through
several fashion plates (such as these)
I warmed to the idea of gauze trimming. As I intended the
dress for evening wear I decided to make them of silk
organza, which was also sheer enough to let the lovely
stripes show through. This, of course, banished any
remaining hopes of washing it, but I had already decided
that I wanted one super pretty dress in my comparatively
sensible closet, even if I'd have to pay for dry cleaning
now and then. As as it would be a polonaise, I could also
make the petticoat ankle-length, which would to some
extent protect the silk ruffles from being torn and
gathering dirt.
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My main pattern source was Janet Arnolds
"Patterns of fashion", and of course the cut was heavily
based on my first polonaise.
I had cut the back en
fourreau on that one, so now I wanted to cut the
skirt separate for change, a later cut which also went
with the 1780's inspired narrow stripe. Inspired by the
beautiful green polonaise in Kyoto Costume Institute's
collection (FASHION, A History from the 18th to the 20th
century, Volume I, pages 78-81) I moved the back seams
closer to the center back and drafted a new, more pointed
shape on the point of the center back. The front bodice
also got a narrower point. With the new, tighter stays I
also had to remove quite a bit from the center front seam
and make it slightly curved. I also lowered and widened
the neckline.
Following Arnold I also added light boning on the bodice
seams, which seemed to work well on my mock up. Especially
the bones running from the sides of the neckline down to
the tip of waist proved marvellous in keeping the front
straight, unlike in my first polonaise where the lower
edge tends to fold and crumple. Another great thing was
that the bodice didn't seem to move at all when I moved,
which is highly desirable with a low-cut decolletage.
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The sleeve pattern was also based on that of
the polonaise number 1. I had remembered the sleeve to be
wider than it actually was, and possessed by some mental
disorder had actually first drafted it smaller this time,
which resulted in utter waste of mock up material. Having
quickly came back to my senses I returned to the original
sleeve pattern, only changing the sleeve end by removing
the vertical darts in the front and curving it more
instead in order to make pleating the organza easier.
This time I wanted the shoulder pleats more on the back of
the shoulder, and to get enough room for my shoulders
(which tend to curve frontward because I spend too much
time crouching over sewing and too little sitting upright
wearing stays) I added a bit on the front of the
sleevehead. This of course caused the sleevehead to be way
too long for the armscye, and the extra allowance wouldn't
settle very smoothly on taffeta, but the only other
alternative was to make the pleats go too far on the front
of the shoulder, so I decided to give them a try. Another
thing that helped a bit in the mock up sleeve fitting was
to rotate it forward for about 1cm, which seemed to work
well.
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I had made the mock up version and final pattern
soon after finishing the new stays in April, but it was
July until I had time again to turn my attention on this
project. The only thing I had done since April had been to
begin hemming some of the organza ruffles. Now I had my
summer vacation and plenty of time to concentrate on the
polonaise. Thanks to my previous, carefully made final
mock up I was now able to work on the dress without having
to worry about the fit or leave room for alterations.
This time I wanted to try a period construction technique
in which the lining is made up first and the fashion
fabric pieces are mounted on it one by one. It requires
some hand-sewing, but seemed interesting and what's more,
an extremely strong and durable construction i a very
tight garment as the lining takes most of the strain. Your Wardrobe
Unlock'd has a wonderful tutorial on the subject ("c. 1775 Dress") by Serena Dyer which
was immense help in figuring out how it works.
So, for the first thing I attacked the lining. For it I
chose coutil instead of the more period-correct option of
strong linen, because I've become such a steadfast
believer in coutil lately. It's also thick enough to mask
boning channels very well. Coutil lining made the bodice
quite stiff, but that can't be a bad thing. For the boning
I used plastic boning, as it was slimmer than the cable
tie I usually use. I'm not perfectionistic enough for hand
sewing lining, so it's put together by machine. At this
point I also sewed the hooks and eyes on the front edges.
At the quick fitting the lining seemed to fit well.
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I had planned to cut the center back pieces on
bias to get a nice chevron pattern, but on the last minute
changed my mind an cut them on the straight grain as the
stripes did form a chevron v-shape above the waistline
that way too. I cut the next pieces so that the stripes
would be evenly spaced at the waist, which made the upper
parts go more ramdomly. I cut the front pieces on the
straight grain (taken from Arnold's pattern) so that both
sides of the center front point had a stripe in the
middle. In the shoulder pieces I cut the stripes to
continue from the front piece so that the seam would be
almost invisible on the front side. I should perhaps
planned the cutting and matching the stripes a bit more
carefully, as we shall see later. Stripes teach you a lot
about cutting, and I certainly have much to learn yet!
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I closed the center back seam on machine and
then basted the center back pieces on the lining. Then I
began pinning and mounting the other pieces from the
center back outwards. The stripes again caused an added
element of challenge, but luckily I had cut the pieces
with ample seam allowance as I had to do some adjusting
along the way.
I tried to position the stripes with an even distance at
waist, and on the upper back parallel to the stripes on
the center back pieces. Despite all my efforts some broken
stripes were inevitable. The result might have been better
if I had palled the cutting with more care, but I confess
I had been impatient to get to the sewing phase even
though there was no hurry. Anyway, when I had finished I
noticed that the pattern created by the stripes
camouflages my carefully drafted seams quite completely.
Well, at least I know they are there, right?
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When mounting the front pieces I noticed to my
great annoyance that something was amiss: If I matched the
stripes symmetrically at the front edges they ended up
irregular at the side seams. I had already had to adjust
the pieces a bit at the back to get both sides
symmetrical, so prabably that caused the stripes meet the
side seam differently on each side. This was particularly
frustrating as one of them happened to be perfect and the
other one with a half-stripe looked very tacky in
comparison. The was nothing to do about it anymore except
perhaps rip all the taffeta pieces off and begin
completely anew, so I decided to live with it. I consoled
myself with the wisdom of my Great-Aunt, who is reported
to have made the following comment regarding her decision
to add a gore only on one side of a crocheted vest that
had come out too small: "No one is ever going to look at
at both sides at once." (Sadly the Karelian dialect is
lost in translation.)
When mounting the front pieces I also added a drawstring
channel on the neckline from the shoulder piece seam to
the front edges. The drawstring gathers the neckline just
a bit so that it doesn't gap. |
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At this point I switched to the skirts. I used
all the material I had left after cutting the bodice and
sleeves, giving the dress skirt 3 meters and leaving the
rest 2,5m to the petticoat. As the fabric was only 90cm
wide and the stripe was running on the weave my skirt
length would thus be only 90cm, which would as it would be
worn looped up anyway. The petticoat, however, had to be
at least of a decent length, polonaise or not, and my
transparent hem ruffle wouldn't cover anything either.
Thus I cut the top of the back piece of white taffeta and
added the extra strip on the front piece. This fabric
saving trick was also commonly used in the period and the
patchwork is just covered under the top skirts even when
they are looped up.
I had cut the back of the petticoat about 20cm wider than
the front to accomodate the bumroll. I closed one side
seam, leaving pocket slit on the top, but left the other
open so that pleating the ruffle would be easier.
I had
decided to pleat the organza in box pleats. I reasoned
that since pleating alone would take considerable time, I
could as well give free rein to my perfectionish here
(again, I had made so many quickly done projects lately)
and hem all the trimming by hand. I could use a small
running stitch which would go fast. Well, it was
relatively fast, but there was over 30 meters of it.
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I worked on the hemming throughout the summer, as
I didn't need all the different trimming pieces at once.
The sewing was okay but ironing the tiny hem required a
certain amount of patience that I didn't always have,
which explains the hemming width varying wildly between
3mm and 6mm. I used silk thread, as in most of the hand
sewing in this dress (save parts that needed a stronger
thread), as it's so nice to work with.
The petticoat ruffle was 42cm wide and I had cut it
generously long. I basted a guideline thread on the
petticoat where the top edge of it would go, and then
began pinning the pleats. It was surprisingly easy. Silk
organza, which had been a stranger to me until now, is
totally different from it's (distant) polyester cousin. It
was a pleasure to pleat and the pleats settled beautifully
without any ironing. Pins also stayed well on the densely
woven material, unlike in many sheer materials which seem
to spit pins out. Here the stripes also showed their good
side, I could easily make even pleating based on them
without any measuring at all. I pinned the pleats over the
stripes, making them a bit wider than the stripe to get a
fuller ruffle. I attached them with two rows of stitching,
the first one 1cm from the top edge and the other 4cm
below.
I left a large gap on the pleating at the open side seam.
I closed the side seam, hemmed the seam allowance by hand
and finished the pocket slits. Then I measured where the
seam would go in the organza, trimmed away the extra and
finished it with a french seam. I was sceptical at first
how a machine sewed seam would look in the organza, as my
machine tends to crumple thin materials, but the wonderful
silk organza tamed my machine and settled neatly with
ironing. For the last thing I finished the rest of the
pleating.
I pleated the back of the petticoat into a waistband, but
left the front alone at this stage.
I was beginning to think that my old bumroll might be too
small to create the ultra-puffy look I was after, and a
bigger one might alter the balance of the petticoat so
that the front was better left unfinished before I was
sure what would go under it. |
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Next I moved on to the dress skirt. I cut the
front corners rounded and sewed a 15cm wide taffeta facing
on them. On the straight middle part I hemmed the edge by
hand. I had hemmed a 17cm wide strip of organza, which
narrowed towards the ends to 8,5cm. On the straight middle
part I pinned it by the stripes width, but the curved
fronts were a bit more tricky.
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Measuring by the stripes the pleat centers were
spaced 2,25cm apart. I had calculated the pleated strip to
be twice as long as the edge, and measured the shaped ends
accordingly. The problems began when I began to pin the
organza with a measure tape. My usual pleating method is
to pin box pleats at the center and between the pleats,
and then turn the sides under, but now I discovered that
this leaves a gap between the pleats in the middle where
the pin is, which shows through in a tranparent material.
The pleats also opened in the middle, which I tried to fix
by adding an additional row of stitching in the middle.
Despite these problems I pinned and stitched down almost
all of the first front edge, but when I looked at it again
the next morning I had to admit it looked awful. I decided
to try a different method on the other front edge and see
if it would turn out any better.
This time I
placed my pins between the pleats and then formed the box
pleats evenly between them. I also pinned the middle and
not just the edges at once, which helped greatly to get
the pleats straight. This time I also used degree ruler to
determine the placement of pins on the upper edge instead
of calculating, which gave a little different but
definitely more balanced layout for the curved pleating.
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Having finally finished this front edge I found it much
better than the first one, so I ripped the pleating off,
ironed the needle marks away and remade it. Now I was
fairly satisfied with the result, although the pleats
still look a bit narrower than the ones measured by the
stripe in the middle. Like I mentioned, my previous
technique leaves a gap inside the box pleats which makes
them wider, and of course the thickness of the material
also plays a part on the pleat width.
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Next I began to work on the sleeves. I lined
them with off white taffeta and basted vertical guideline
threads for the organza on the center front and back. I
also basted the curving line of the second stitching at
the elbow, and of course the pleating marks on the
sleevehead. Then I closed the fashion fabric sleeve seam
on machine and the lining seam by hand.
Pleating the organza on the curves sleeve was a bit
tricky, in fact even more tricky than I had anticipated.
Even pleating would probably have been impossible to make
as the transparent material betrays any irregularity
inside the pleats even if the top looks even. I decided to
pleat the top edge and the elbow and leave the organza
puff freely between them.
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| As the organza would have to be hemmed
beforehand I couldn't just begin experimenting with pins.
At last I ended up drafting a pattern for it by scaling
the sleeve twice as wide, leaving out the elbow dart and
straightening the curves seam (the last thing doesn't show
in the picture yet). I closed the seam by machine into a
french seam and hemmed the edges by hand. Ironing the hem
of the curved lower edge was quite tricky and it ended up
much more irregular than the other organza hems. |
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I basted guideline threads on the organza at
the center front and center back, and began pinning at
them. I made the top edge first, which was easy to pin at
regular height by the vertical stripe. The outer arm went
easily with the by now familiar 4,5cm to 2,25cm ratio, but
on the inside of the arm the organza was for some reason
too short for this, so I had to make the pleats narrower.
Thinking back I had probably made some mistake on either
scaling or altering the seam. On the other hand, as the
sleeve narrowed quite a bit it was probably better in the
end that there wasn't so much bagginess on the inside.
Like I said, on transparent material the unevenness of the
pleats on the inner arm are visible, but then again it's a
place where they won't get much attention when the dress
is on.
I attached the top edge with two row of stitching as in
the petticoat and then began pleating the elbow. First I
tried to calculate the pleat placement evenly, but it
didn't really work on the curved piece so at last I ended
up pleating them by ocular estimate through a lot
unpinning and readjusting. I attached them with two rows
of stitching, the first 1cm from the edge and the second
following the previously basted curved line. For some
reason, which I couldn't anticipate when drafting the
pattern the organza is just the right length at the center
front and back but is bagging at the sides, and I'm still
quite not sure what is causing this effect.
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I basted the finished sleeves on the bodice by
the pleating- and balance marks based on the mock up, but
of course I still had to adjust it further. The sleeves
seemed to go too far out, so I moved the shoulder line in
for about 0,7cm which made them look much better. Like I
had anticipated I had a long battle with the front
sleevehead, but at last I got a tolerable result. Okay,
one shoulder still has a few tiny puckers that I just
couldn't make disappear, but luckily it shows less when
its on than in the hanger.
I sewed the sleeves on by machine on the underarm and also
fastened the pleats by two rows of machine stitch on the
shoulder. I trimmed away the extra seam allowance and
covered the shoulder piece with the fashion fabric,
naturally by hand though it would get mostly covered by
the organza.
I own several garments with un-neatened seam allowances on
the underarm (in most cases due to advancing deadline), so
I'm really proud to report that in this case I turned in
the seam allowances on the fashion fabric and the lining
and sewed them together by hand.
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I finished the bodice with the organza
trimming on the neckline and front edges. As the 2/1 ratio
in the pleats had looked a bit skimpy on the front edges I
tried a few options to get a nicer look. 5,5cm of organza
instead of 4,5cm pleated to the 2,25cm looked a bit too
heavy, but 5cm looked perfect.
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When I had tried the dress on it had seemed a
bit too tight, perhaps I had laced myself tighter when
trying on the lining or then the lining had had some
little stretch that had dissappeared when I added the
fashion fabric. Anyway, I pleated the organza strip to go
a few millimetres over the edge, which disguises the
gapping a bit. On the narrow point I turned the outer
edges of the organza strip under. The pleated strip turned
out very pretty and gives a nice finish to the bodice.
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The last thing to do was to pleat the skirt to
the bodice. Period dresses frequently have two options for
finishing this seam: Either turning the seam allowances up
between the bodice lining and top, or turning them back
down with the skirt. The first option gives a nice neat
finish, but in this case the seam allowances would show
through the thin fashion fabric (as they already do at the
back seams), so I went for the second one.
In period dresses the extra length at the center back is
very often just turned downwards, not cut. This however
felt rather difficult for me so I just lowered the center
back of the skirt by 10cm beginning at the side seam. At
the tip of the point I made two bigger box pleats (like in
the green polonaise at Kyoto Costume Institute's book)
which create an "en fourreau"-effect, especially as the
stripes match.
On the front edge of the skirt I made turned about 3cm
deep pleat under the organza pleating and then began to
pleat the rest of the skirt width. I wanted to pleat by
the stripes which resulted in 0,45cm wide knife pleats.
They are quite small, but I've seen as small pleats in
period dresses, no wonder really with generous hem widths.
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| I pinned and basted the heavy pleating before
machine sewing it, a few times just to be sure. I finished
the seam allowances with a tape binding. Then I wanted to
try the period technique of threading the pleats together
on the underside. It was surprisingly easy (at least in
this case when I could use the stripes as guideline) and
really helped to keep the pleats in order. I suppose with
a non-patterned material this would be best done before
sewing the skirt to the bodice. |
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Now I was finally able to try the polonaise on
in it's almost finished state. I still remained undecided
whether I wanted more support for the skirts. The
petticoat was fine with my old bumroll but the dress skirt
looked just a bit oversized. Sadly my schedule was
beginning to get kinda rushed, so I decided to balance the
petticoat front to fit my old bumroll and see if I would
have any time for making a new one after attending to
several more urgent things.
When I got back to polonaise, happily still some time
before the deadline I ended up trying it over my bumroll
and my quilted petticoat. The result was delightfully
puffy, but I was a bit worried that a quilted petticoat
would be kinda warm for a ball. Then I remembered a
short quilted skirt support piece I had seen at Demode
Couture (scroll down), found it and decided to steal
the idea. My quickly made bumroll cover turned out great,
as it gives the skirt some added fullness without being
hot or cumbersome. See it at 18th Century
Underwear page.
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Then there were just a few little things left. I
sewed loops for gathering the skirt at the waist on the
inside and fabric-covered buttons on the outside. I added
bows on the sleeves and the neckline. They are, rather
boringly, light turquoise. I tried some more bold color
combinations including red but in the end the turquoise
seemed best. I had bought the ribbon from a holiday trip,
and there was barely enough of it for three double looped
bows, hence the ones in the sleeves being a bit skimpy.
On the neckline I added a few loops of the remaining
already hemmed organza to accompany the ribbon bow. The
bow is sewed on at the right side and has hooks to fasten
it to the thread loops on the left side.
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I'm very happy about the finished polonaise.
It has the adorable, poofy look of the period fashion
plates, and the white and turqoise coloring looks very
fresh (At some point I nicknamed it "the toothpaste
dress"). The organza trimming, at first thrown in just
because I didn't have enough of the striped taffeta is in
the end one of my favorite things about this dress. Sure
it was arduous to hem and pleat but the final result makes
up for all the work.
The bodice is quite tight, even gapping a bit at the
front. It requires tightly laced stays, and to be honest
is not among my most comfortable period clothes. Eating is
the difficult thing as I'm prone to indigestion. But then
again it looks great, and one can surely suffer for beauty
occasionally.
The second time I wore the polonaise I managed to get a
few stains on the hem, but luckily they were easy to
remove and didn't leave water marks. The organza hem
ruffle has so far survived two balls and also being caught
under a bench leg. Not counting the tight bodice the
polonaise turned out in the end more practical garment
than I had feared.
So, the pretty ball dress I have wished for so long has
finally materialized. It took quite much time and work,
but I'm also quite proud of it.
Thanks for my friend Niina for a place to change clothes
near the shooting location!
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