Robe a la Francaise, A Modern Twist.

Jean-François de Troy, The Declaration of Love, 1731

One of my favorite things to do in my own designing (when I'm not obsessed with historical
reacreation) is to use historical garments as the foundation for wearable modern clothes. Whether it be a house robe or a formal gown, there's something enticing and fascinating about blending classical forms with modern sensibilities. Most of the time for my own fashion choices (at least the ones I wear out of the house!) I stick to a very 1940's and early 50's new look vibe. It's suitable for my figure, and I love the look. But for special occasion dresses, it's a lot of fun to just go a little wild, and the girls are the perfect models!

From the collection of the Metripolitan 

I admit to having a weakness for the robe a la francaise, or sack back gown. Even though there's very little about the rococo period that I like (most of it's just too much for me. Music, Interior decorating... even the art) there's something about the fitted tapered front, and elegant sleeves of the robe a la francaise, contrasted against the flowing, voluminous Watteau pleats that I just love. These gowns also showcase some of the most phenomenal use of large prints and particularly striped prints, that I've ever seen. I may be a little obsessed.

I've done one sack backed project before. I have a dressing gown that's a empire waist with a sack back which is both comfortable and elegant. It's been one of my favorites for years, but I've yearned to do a closer approximation of the style. This has been simmering on the back burner for a long time in the "nowhere to wear it and it's not practical for at home" pot. But as I was looking at fabrics for my daughter's Easter dresses inspiration struck. I could do a gown, constructed in the period manner, complete with elbow flounces, with the entire top layer made out of terminally sparkly organze, making a whole modern twist out of a beautiful historical gown. I drew ups some designs and showed them to Ladybug, and she was in love. so away I went.

The original sack back I experimented with for my dressing gown had the pleats gathered into the neckline direct, which had some difficulties inherent to it: all that bulk, the pleats didn't want to turn under into neck seam easily, it wanted to pull at the neckline, etc etc. So for this gown I decided to select the other construction option, which uses a yoke. That way you don't have to turn down all those layers of pleated fabric, but instead just flip the yoke up over them. In some ways the line isn't as clean as pleats falling from the back neckline direct, but the construction is simpler. The yoke also gives you an easy flat space to attache trim, which with planned ruffled ribbon trim, was another plus.

I drafted the gown off of another roccoco inspired gown I had made last year, this one had a faux stomacher and a pollanaise style skirt. It took a standard sleeve pattern that I also have in stock, which made it easier than re-drafting from a block. Super secret: I hate drafting sleeves. If I have something similar I've already drafted I will frequently bastardize the pattern rather than go back and re do sleeve and armscythe drafting. With a few minor alterations, the pattern was a go.

I had a yard and half of super sparkle organza, and about the same of a purple satin. The plan was to use the organza for the entire exterior gown, and the satin for the interior gown and stomacher and then add ruffled trim. The first hurdle showed up as I began laying out pattern pieces This gown uses a LOT of fabric. Yes, those capitals are necessary.  To illustrate the stupid amount of fabric this gown takes: Kitten is 16 months old now and wears 24 month sizes. Her gown used all but scraps of an entire yard of 60" wide organza.  So, when I laid out Ladybug's, it was instantly obvious that I wasn't going to be able to get sleeves, ruffles, and the gown pieces out of the organza unless the back was pitifully narrow.

So back to the stash I went and came out with some embroidered chiffon and an old white silk shirt. There was enough there for the sleeve ruffle and a matching stomacher, and it was a nice compliment. of course it was terrible and slithery to work with, but in for a penny, in for a pound! The only downside was you could see the seam allowances through the chiffon where I made the ruffles. this bothers me but is basically invisible on the finished gown. I may still go back and try to put some trim over it.

The dean of the fashion dept when I was in school, Mrs. Hannan, always said that working with synthetic organza was like trying to sew live spiders together. She's not wrong, but I still do use it occasionally, particularly for little girl dresses. This fabric though? I don't care HOW sparkly it is, I will never EVER use it again. You can't iron it without a pressing cloth. Iron the front? The little plastic jewels melt on the iron. Iron the back? The glue from the jewels seeps through the cloth and onto the iron. It was also a nightmare to sew evenly, you can see how completely crooked my top stitching on these sleeve ruffles is. Every time you hit some of the jewels the fabric jigged, and you might not even see the ones you hit, because they could be in one of the bottom layers. The fabric made what should have been a fun project into rather a nightmare.

Whenever I'm making a gown with a sleeve treatment I like to apply the treatments to the sleeve before I attach the sleeve. This saves wrangling the whole gown around while trying to evenly apply ruffles. I also like to try and cleverly hide all the raw edges. In this case you want to trim the organza as little as possible. because it's evil and ravelly and will slither out of the seams if given half a chance. I flipped the seam allowances to the outside here, and then sewed ribbon trim down over it.

I used a heavy linen underlining to give the bodice some weight. then stay stitched all the satin to it to keep that from slithering off. Then I pinned the pleats, and sewed the yoke down over them. This was a really great way to do the sack back. I wished I'd had more fabric in the back, but it made fairly full pleats.

The bodice came together fairly quickly. The trickiest part of the whole gown was pleating in the side pleats. I was able to cheat a little bit because I was using an attached under skirt instead of the historically accurate petticoat so I just caught the pleats in the waist seam and was done with it. Putting in the sleeves and the lining was a nightmare because of the fabric. Instead of just giving all the seam allowances a good heavy steam pressing to make the edges crisp and keep everything in place while I was sewing in the lining, I had to hand baste all the edges of the sleeve and the neckline to the underlining, which, while it seems like a small thing, added another few hours of labor to the job.

Then I added the under skirt. I pleated it onto the bodice, but gathered a large loop of it directly under the side pleats. This gave it a shadow of the silhouette that would have been given by panniers in the original gowns.








With that sorted and the lining sewed down I put on ruffled organza ribbon trim. Yards. and Yards, and Yards of ruffled organza ribbon trim. Because go big or go home right?









Then the stomacher, which I sewed down to the lining at one side, and applied hook and loop tape to the other of for closure. Again, a historical fudge. Stomachers tended to be pinned into place, but that's just not practical for tiny people. The stomacher has one plastic cable tie down the center to help it keep it's shape and two layers of underlining.

Finished and on to Kitten's dress!

I picked cow print for Kitten's dress. Because of a hilarious family story started by my Aunt, my Cousin, and a ridiculous cow print romper one easter long ago cow print baby clothes have become a thing in my family. I decided to keep it going with my youngest this year, so she got her very own cow print gown.

I love drafting for babies: the pieces are barely shaped so it's super easy to change a pattern you know fits to new lines. I started from her little wool kirtle, and moved stuff around some.

The construction process was exactly the same except I could IRON this fabric. Therefore I managed to make her whole gown in about the same time it took me to make Ladybug's sleeves. Seriously, that's the difference fabric makes. (also it's tiny so it goes faster, but not that much faster!) I did do kitten's watteau pleats straight from the neckline and then hand stitch them down into shape. Partially just because I wanted to try both methods back to back, and partially because the gown is so small, more seams in a small space like that just add bulk.

My Model got tired waiting for me to finish....

I had my major oops for the project with Kitten's gown. Somehow, although I checked it twice both when I put the ruffle on the sleeve and when I put the sleeve on the gown, I managed to put the sleeve ruffles on backwards, so the long part is to the front. Thankfully it wasn't super noticeable. I'll take it off and turn it around later when I have more time!

My sparkle princess! 

I added vintage glass buttons to the bows on Kitten's stomacher for a little extra sparkle

note the backwards sleeve ruffle.... 

The first time Ladybug saw Kitten in her gown, she said "Look mom, she's a tiny cow fairy!"
The sack back does look a little like wings when she runs around! 

Crash and Bang didn't get left out. They got Dapper Dude Vests. 

A baby's Kirtle (Historical sew Monthly February)

So after a brief rest, during which time I caught up on my knitting and mending, I'm back to historical costuming! I'm going to TRY to make all 12 challenges for the Historical Sew Monthly this year. I squeaked January (Firsts and Lasts) in by finishing off my flag fan for the Lady in White project. This months challenge "re-make, re-use, re-fashion" has so many possibilities. at first I thought about something for myself, but most of the projects I could come up with are WWII era and therefore out of the scope of the HSM. What ended up happening in the end, was I at the last minute decided to take Kitten to an event with me, and then realized that she hadn't anything seasonally appropriate to wear. While perusing my stash, I noticed a stack of my dad's old shirts and was instantly inspired by the color combo off a wool plaid and a blue silk twill. But there wasn't enough for the typical tunic style baby dress, as I'd already used the sleeves off the shirt for a previous project. My immediate thought was some pictures I'd seen recently on the elizabethan costuming group of women in laced kirtles with pinned on sleeves.... and I was off and running.
 I was inspired by images like this one by Peter Aertsen in the Kunstheistorisches Museum, vienna, Austria. which show women of the middling sort wearing laced gowns with pinned contrasting sleeves, and various types of partlet over a smock. Although the Aertsen painting is dated the first part of the 16th century, this combination seems to have held for a period spanning the end of the tudor era right through the elizabethan period, and spanned several different nationalities.






This painting by Vicenzo Campi (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan) is dated 1580, and shows a mother and her daughter wearing gowns in a similar style to the Aertsen painting, although the childs seems to be rear laced. There's either a high necked smock or a partlet of linen under the gown, visible at the neck. The girls gown seems to be back lacing, or possibly side lacing: we have examples of both in adult garments. While it would be ideal to work from an extant childs garment, you can extrapolate from existing adult models, as children's clothing were typically made much like their parent's in miniature during this time in history (indeed, we don't really see specific childrens garments until much well into the 18th century, 1)

\

I drafted a pattern for the bodice from the Girls Romantic Dress bodice, from sense and sensibility patterns, lengthening the waist, moving the side seam and re angling it to match period garments, and redrafting without the rear princess seam. I've made a bunch of dresses from this pattern, and knew  it would work, the armhole would fit, etc etc etc. I could also use the cap sleeve as a base point for the pinned sleeve and know it would be the right size proportionally to the armhole. I on purpose left the center back too long, long enough to overlap and button, so that I could tuck extra inside the dress, giving possible room for expansion later.

I first figured out what the most skirt I could get from the shirt was, maintaining plaid matching, and then fussed round to see if I could fit the bodice pieces on the leftovers. Behold I could, but there was no way to do it without a center front seam. At this point I decided to add some trim to the bodice , which turned out to be fortuitous since I was also unable to miss all the moth holes that caused this shirt to be retired from service in the first place. Attaching trim is always a slippery slope. I began with every intention of just sewing the trim on. Then, since I don't like visible machine topstitching, I decided to sew it on with silk buttonhole twist and a running stitch.... then  I decided it wouldn't be all that much work to just use a small decorative stitch.... and all the sudden I'm chain stitching all the trim down with silk buttonhole twist....

 I based the trim pattern on the geometric designs found in lot of existing paintings, and just angled it so as to cover up the moth holes. I had to do the last three pieces after I had lined and turned the piece, so I could accurately line them up with the neckline. I also ran out of blue and had to switch to green embroidery thread, but I think it turned out looking nice anyhow. I turned the back edges in, whipped them down, and worked eyelets down the lacing edge. I think I'm finally getting the hang of making the eyelets large enough to get an aiglet through. I use the awl to open the hole, then an lacquered chopstick to really enlarge it. I push the chopstick back and forth until it's fairly loose in the hole, then work a few large whipstitches in regular thread around the hole to hold the fibers back. After that it's fairly easy to work over it in buttonhole twist or embroidery thread and have it turn out a usable size.

I made up the skirt, hemmed it with a hem tape (which is fudging a little, but so practical) and cartridge pleated it onto the bodice, using 1/2 inch basting stitches. When doing small people gowns I always use carpet and upolstry thread (The heaviest I can find) and put an extra stitch in every few pleats. Little people invariably do things like trying to stand up with their foot on their hems etc etc etc and can rip out cartridge pleating amazingly easily. Probably a heavy waxed linen thread would be good for this purpose as well, but I tend to have the generic modern kind on hand. (silk buttonhole twist would be extremely strong, but you should never sew seams into wool with silk, it tends to wear the fibers out and then the seams tear. Which is disheartening.)

The pinned sleeves are just a standard long fitted sleeve with a little length and pointyness added to the top of the sleeve cap to give it room to overlap the shoulder strap without pulling the strap down. I finished the top of the cap with a scrap of bias tape turned in and stitched down. (visible top stitching, but I was running out of time!) and then hemmed the bottom with some extra growing room.












She wore the outfit over a small linen smock, cut like my husband's shirts, and worked out of scraps
of handkerchief linen left from making said shirts. The odd sized leftover bits turn out to be just the right size for tiny human smocks. I added a scrap of lace to the neck, and fastened the neckline with a hook and eye, since I dislike slobbered on chewed on neck ties.

The sleeves I fastened with elastic loops and small buttons. I'll replace the antique buttons I've got on now with either self fabric or thread buttons for a better look, but you can't see them at all under the sleeves for the moment. The elastic button loops are a small, invisible, modern practicality for wiggly busy little ones. You can get them much tighter around the buttons than thread loops, so little folks can't get them undone, and they're quicker and less fiddly to do up.



Finished! and ready for her to wear!

She's a moving target and hard to get pictures of, and by the time I got home from the event with her she was SO over tired that these are the best pictures of it on her I have!

 I still have a stack of shirts with moth holes and pants with the pockets worn out, so I was hoping to get a few more projects in this month, but everyone in the family got sick, so I was playing nurse mommy instead of sewing. I do plan to use those garments in upcoming children's outfits (everyone needs more clothes this year) so stay tuned.

1: History of children's costume, Elizabeth Ewing, Pg 25

Baby's 1869 wardrobe: Flannels

We tend to think of things becoming easier, more practical, as time goes on. Particularly clothing. The advent of stretch knits, modern construction, state of the art fabrics, ease of laundering, all these things purport to have given us clothes that are more comfortable, flattering, and particularly practical than at any other time in history. Goodbye corsets and petticoats, hello yoga pants. But what I'm finding as I recreate an infant's 1860's wardrobe, is that not all progress has been in a forward direction. Yes, I can now have a dresser full of baby clothes, and just throw them in the wash when they are soiled, but these earlier baby garments are uniquely practical for the mother and the baby.

My husband refers to putting a onesie onto a baby as "stuffing an octopus into a string bag" because of the amazing propensity that small children have to tangle themselves in any garment you are attempting to put over their heads, and their apparent superhuman ability to be floppy and wiggly at the same time. This 1869 wardrobe, taken from Cassels Household Guide, avoids this entire debacle, by having most of the garments simply wrap and tie. For the January challenge, Procrastination, I made a series of babies chemises. For february's "pleat's and tucks" I have made up the second layer of babies wardrobe, the flannel. The flannel is a long sleeveless wrap around gown of wool flannel. It is basically a large rectangle, 40 inches across, and 36 inches long, which is pleated to make a bodice, has armholes cut out, and is then bound around and fitted with shoulder straps and ties to hold it shut. The household guide recommends two for night wear, and two of rather finer flannel for day wear.

I have recreated one of the plain flannels, as well as a "very fine flannel" mentioned later in the text. I was unable to find white wool flannel within my price range, but was able to find a very pale blue flannel more reasonably priced. While white was the preferred color for all babies attire, pale colors were, according to my sources, also used. I was unable to find any extant garments to look at for this layer, but the directions in the household guide were supplemented by very clear illustrations for this particular step.

The flannel is cut into squares measuring 40 inches (the width of the original fabric) by a yard long. The center of the material is found, and five box pleats, an inch and half wide and an inch apart are formed. I marked these and basted them down for eight inches. The pleats are secured for the top seven inches with either chain stitching, or close quilting, worked in silk thread. Then half circles are cut out for armholes, the hem is run up, and the whole is bound around with a "washable binding." to match the color of the stitching holding down the pleats, which was recommended blue, or scarlet. This is the basic method. The finer flannel was to be bound with white sarcenet ribbon and tied down the front with sarcenet bows. It was also depicted as having a wide quilted hem.

After you cut the fabric into squares measuring 36x40 inches, the pleats are measured, marked, steamed, and then basted into place.

Then the pleats are fixed in place with quilting or chain stitch. This is the "plain" flannel, the pleats are held down with chain stitch worked in buttonhole silk, and the armholes are marked to be cut out.










Then turn up the hem, I got to use my new toy a lot with this project: a hemming bird. It's like third hand for running long seams. I don't know how I ever lived without it before!

It clamps to the table edge, and holds the fabric in its beak. Seriously I have no idea why these went out of fashion. Anyone who does any hand sewing should have one. 

The "fancy" flannel got the hem quilted on the diagonal in half inch squares.I was not entirely happy with the way this turned out. The wool was NOT stable on the diagonal, and so the quilting was difficult to mark, and difficult to sew. The squares are nothing like as even as I'd like. If I had it to do again, I would cut a strip of something very lightweight, like batiste, on the bias and put it under the hem as an interfacing to stabelize it. I might even hold it to the stabelizer with a bit of spray baste. 

Then the whole thing had to be bound all the way around, and ties sewn on. For the fancy flannel it called for "sarcenet" which is a lining weight silk. I had a nice cream silk ribbon leftover from another project which I used. The Plain flannel is edged in blue bias tape to match the silk embroider. The shoulder straps are made by wrapping a piece of the binding around a scrap of wool and sewing it in place.

The completed plain flannel laid flat. Since the chain stitching just held down the edges of the pleats, I overcast stitched the centers together to make it stronger, obviously not necessary where the pleats are held down by quilting (as on the fancier flannel).

The fancy flannel on Kitten over her chemise with the ruffled sleeves. I had wondered about the flaps on the chemises, which seemed like a waste of time in hemming. You can see here that they fold over the top edge of the flannel, protecting it from both wear and body soil. 

The backside

A New Ring Sling (with pattern!)

I love babywearing. I do not know how anyone survived having an infant before babywearing was popular in our culture. An age appropriate sling is probably THE most important piece of baby kit I own. Seriously. When I was researching all the things before I had Ladybug, I looked at ring slings, looked at how much they cost, and decided I could totally make that. So I did. And that sling has been well used by three babies. Unfortunately it also seems to have been eaten by storage. Since life without an age appropriate baby carrier is a vale of tears (most the the babies, some mine.) I decided to make a new one rather than tear apart the house looking for it. I thought I would write it up because really, this is an easy project, the materials are not hard to find, and it's really nice to get a sling that's just right for you at the end.

Before I get started on the how though, I would like to make a few notes about safety. It is absolutely IMPERATIVE that you do this properly, and do not skimp or make do with the materials. A slipshod job or improper materials could lead to your baby being injured! So take the time to do it right, and do NOT skimp on your materials. For the sling itself you want a material that has a firm hand and very little stretch. Plain old cotton sheeting, or even good quality quilters cotton will NOT do. it will get saggy and deformed and you will not be happy. It will be difficult to support your infant in properly, and that can be unsafe. May people use upolstry weight cottons with excellent results. I find this bulky and difficult to adjust well. I have used high quality cotton batiks for all the slings I've made (and my orignal sling is six years and three children old and still going strong) Quilters batiks are dyed onto a firm, tightly woven fabric. We actually tell people at the quiltshop to use a smaller needle on batiks because the fabric is so much denser. It has a nice hand, it's lightweight, and it "holds" really well in the rings. It also comes in a lot of fun prints and great colors, which is wonderful. My original sling was grey with a red shoulder so that it would be sort of gender neutral and my husband wouldn't mind wearing it. This time around I said to heck with that, and I chose this colorful butterfly wing print for this sling.

The rings are equally important. It is really crucial to not just pick up rings at the craft or hardware store. Get rings specifically designed for slings from a reputable source. Mine are anodized seamless cast aluminum from slingrings.com, they have wonderful colors and a lot of options. I happened to have a pair of size small rings hanging around which I used for this project. I much prefer the size large rings personally, but that's a matter of preferance. People who are smaller framed may find the large rings uncomfortable.

A final note about safety before I talk about constuction. There was a big fuss some years ago after a couple babies suffocated in slings. This was really terrible and tragic, but was also a combination of improper positioning and a really poorly designed if not straight up dangerous sling style (I believe that both slings involved were the "duffle" style of padded carrier) Slings and wraps are just as safe as soft structured carriers like the ergo etc, as long as you follow a few simple safety tips for positioning your infant. Just like you would never pick up a newborn without supporting their head, you have to properly position your baby in your sling! Babywearing international has wonderful infomation on their website here and this is a great overview Here. Better yet, see if you have a local babywearing international chapter that you can attend, then you can get advice about using your sling, and try out a lot of different slings.

the construction of the sling is really very simple. you will need 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 yards of batik, plus about a quater of a yard of complimentary fabric for the shoulder (this needn't be batik. I'm using Kona black for this one.), and a scrap of batting. You also need the shoulder pad pattern, downloadable HERE. How long you want the sling to be depends on how big you are and how long you want the tail to be. I am completely happy with a yard and a half. My husband cannot wear a sling that short. It's easiest to measure by looping a tape measure about yourself and playing with the length. A yard and a half is probably minimum though.

Take your sling fabric, and cut it 30 inches wide. I do this by notching the end with my scissors and then ripping it lengthwise. This ensures that the edge is absolutely straight along the grain, which is important as the long side hems act as your "rails" and need to have as little stretch as possible. Then turn over a quarter inch rolled him on both sides. I use an old trick from school here, and stitch at a quarter inch along where I am going to hem. Then I can accurately make a quarter inch turn up by turning "on the dotted line" so to speak. Then I just turn again and topstich. The seam I used to mark is invisible in the finished product.


You may finish the tail end of the sling any way you want, either by simply hemming it, or adding a contrasting binding or facing. The shoulder end is going to be attached to the shoulder piece. Pleat it to the same length as the opening of the wide end of the shoulder pad less 3/4 inch for seam allowance. Once the pleats are the way you like, run a row of stitching over it to keep it in position.

Cut out 2 of the shoulder piece, and lay them down on your batting. I am using two layers of quilters dream "dream angel" request weight batting simply because that's what I have scraps of at the moment (I normally have scraps of it because it's my favorite batting) I would not use an extremely puffy batting, or a cotton batting. Use the fabric as a pattern to cut the batting, and sew along the two long edges, leaving the ends open. I used a 3/8 inch seam allowance. Make sure both layers of fabric are right sides together on top of both layers of batting so when you turn it the batting and all the seams will be encased. (This is one of those things that I always have to double check or else I will do it backwards. Like sleeves. I still occasionally set sleeves inside out by accident.)

After you've sewn the seams, trim the batting all the way back to the line of stitching, to prevent bulk when you turn it right side out. 

Turn the shoulder right side out and press it. Then pin the pleated end of your sling to the "top" layer of your shoulder, this is the side that has the batting against it. Pin right through the batting. 

 Sew this seam with a half inch seam allowance, then turn around and sew it again, as close to the first row of stitching as possible. This seam is holding up your infant. A little over engineering is a good thing. Trim the batting right back to the seam line again. Do NOT trim the seam allowances. You're going to sew through these again to make sure that this shoulder never ever comes undone or rips or does anything else unfortunate.



 Straighten it out and press it, turning the seam allowances to the inside of the shoulder all the way around. Then quilt the shoulder pad as desired. Notice that I started with two rows of tight stitching an eight of an inch apart right at the end of the shoulder. This is both securing the turned under raw edge on the bottom of the shoulder pad to the sling itself, and sewing through those seam allowances again, securing the shoulder even more firmly to the sling.

All that is left is to secure your rings to the end of the shoulder pad. Notice in the above photo that I didn't take my quilting quite down to the edge? that's so I can trim the batting back about a quarter of an inch and eliminate some bulk. Trim the batting back, turn the edge under, and fold the whole thing around the rings and pin it. The folded edge should reach just where the shoulder pad starts to curve out again. Top stitch this with two lines of stitching, about an eight of an inch apart, backtacking thorougly on both ends of your stitching. This is the other seam that you never want to come undone EVER.

And that's it. Not much work is it? the whole thing can be finished in a couple hours. Happy baby wearing!