12 August, 2011

Bell's regency dress and stays part 2

NOTE: Bell's regency dress and stays part 1 and 2 are one post that I had to break in half, due to the amount of photos, it would have taken far to long to load. the stays are now part 1 and the dress is now part 2
Dress
front of dress
Mum and i made this dress on Friday for Bells party on Saturday. I'm rather proud of this dress, we did all the sewing in one day, plus cut out the lining (the outside fabric we had cut out the day before), I didn't get to bed till about midnight that night and Mum staid up for about two hours after that so Bell could wear it Saturday.It's not quite done yet, things like buttons and button holes aren't sewn on yet, and we haven't done the hem yet ether.
back of dress
you can see here what i meant earlier ('back of stays' pic) about cutting the 15cm off the back of the stays caused problems later, the stays are popping out the top of the dress due to cutting that bit off and making the back heaps narrower (you'll be able to see this a lot better in the 'bodice back' photo)
side of dress
I don't know if you can see it in this photo, but there's a bit of a train which is one of Bells favourite parts, 'long enough to be pretty with out being so long as to be a nuesense'. one of the things with  this dress is the length of the skirt, it's not quite long enough for the rest  of the dress, if you notice in the 'front of dress' photo, the skirt is almost up to Bells ankles, although this would be correct for later years, the rest of this dress is set too early and should be floor length.
bodice back 
we didn't get the buttons on so Mum had to sew Bell into the the dress on Saturday, I took these photos yesterday so i just pinned her in. this is a better/worse view of the stays popping out.
our cat Catherine
this is our cat Catherine, she kept hanging around while Bell and I were taking the photos, and when I knelt down to take a photo of the hem, she wouldn't move out of the way,  so I took a photo of her and she was happy and moved out of the way. :D
hem (or lack thereof)
As you Can see we didn't get to hem the bottom. Mum overlocked it, which isn't terribly authentic, but then, we did the hole dress by machine and that wasn't even invented till 1830, this dress is approximately 1810 (the waist line reached it's height - literally - in 1811).
All up the patterns weren't to hard to follow(I'm still a beginner, so any pattern's a tad difficulty's to get my head around at times) and they turned out alright if-I-do-say-so-myself, :) , and I'd use it again without a thought.
have a lovely day and God bless,
Queen Nellie

No comments: