Costume College dress rehearsal part IV, the 1874 day dress

The last outfit change of the day was to check the overall fit and the suitability of the new bustle also with my other early bustle dress. I was consciously pushing the boundaries by dressing my hair in a traditionally girly style. It was inspired by Jen's 1870 Peterson's scan "new styles for dressing the hair" which I've always loved. I also might have stuck the bonnet a little too far on the back. But perhaps the ladies in period had such mishaps too occasionally. It's hard to judge the angle looking at yourself from the front while getting dressed. 

Costume College dress rehearsal part III, 1871 dress, ball gown version

I also tried on the ball gown bodice of the Tissot dress. I hadn't yet decided which one to wear at the event so I wanted to see which one I'd like better. And also most of the photos of me wearing it when it was first finished didn't come out well so I took advantage of the opportunity.

Costume College dress rehearsal part II, the Tissot inspired 1871 dress

This second dress I hadn't tried on since 2011 and had already lost the original bustle that I wore with it, so I had to see if it still fit ok and looked good over my new bustle. I also wanted to practice the hairstyle so I did a quick dress change and took some photos.

Costume College dress rehearsal part I, 1770s robe à la Polonaise à coqueluchon

This dress was one of the seven I took with me to Costume College this year. I hadn't had a  proper chance to try out all the different ways to drape the back having only worn it a couple of minutes in freezing cold when it was finished, so I wanted to try it on before I packing. And while I was at it, I did a simple hairstyle to go with it and took a couple of photos that I thought I'd share.

1660s dress

I have always had a fondness for Dutch paintings from the 1650's and the 1660's. My favorite is Ter Borch, but Gabriël Metsu has painted my favorite dress and that became the dress my project was mainly based on. I also found the 1660's bodice pattern and construction notes on the book Seventeenth-Century Women's Dress Patterns: Book 2 extremely useful. The dress is completely hand sewn from duchess silk satin, linen canvas, mid weight linen and a finer white linen using linen and silk threads. I'm wearing it over a shift, a linen petticoat and a rump. I plan on making the appropriate shoes with the square pointy toes and colored stockings soon, but I want to make sure I get my other Costume College dresses done before that. Meanwhile I wore it with my 18th century shoes and stockings.

And a fun artsy photo taken with a phone application.

Construction:

The panels are two layers of thick and stiff linen. They have seam allowances only where they are joined to other pieces and the seam allowances are folded inside before joining the two sides together. The channels are stitched with a spaced back stitch. The pattern is based on the 1660's bodice in Seventeenth-Century Women's Dress Patterns: Book 2

The panels are whip stitched together and boned with cane, except the two CB bones that needed to be very narrow but durable. I used the spring steel strips from windshield wipers that keep the rubber parts in form. They are only 2 mm wide but durable and bendy. And won't rust.

The project continued by completing the middle layer. The original had all kinds of small fabric pieces scattered around and even paper, but for simplicity I just cut the pieces in same shapes (without seam allowances and tabs) than the boned layer and used only one kind of mid weight linen.  In the picture below I have also already added the silk layer on top of back panels and made the lacing holes.

Then I covered the rest of the bodice with silk. I stab stitched all seams through the boned layer.

Then I bound the neck edge and tried it on.

The I made the wings and the sleeves. The sleeves have an inner layer of linen canvas, doubled in the top half.

They have silk on top and are lined with fine linen. One sleeve cartrige pleated and bound and a finished wing.

The wings are two layers of linen canvas wrapped in silk from the underside.

And then with an added layer on top, stitched from the right side. The underside:

The wings were back stitched to the edge.

And the sleeves whip stitched and back stitched on the bodice. Some time before I had bound the tabs with silk grosgrain and lined them individually.

After whip stitching in the lining, the bodice was finished.

I loved the construction on Kendra's skirt so I pleated and bound the waist the same way. 

There is a small train to the skirt. Otherwise it's just straight panels running stitched together.