CoBloWriMo 2017 - Day 5

Day 5: Origin Story

I’ve been in love with historical fashion since I first went to Colonial Williamsburg at age 9.  This was 1998, so the Felicity Tour (or whatever they called it) was still going.  I traipsed along the colonial capital with my little shift, petticoat, pinner apron, and (hurl) mob cap, clutching my dear Felicity and pretending to be her.  It was great!  And it was the beginning of a lifelong obsession with history and fashion and all things sewing.

Unfortunately it wasn’t until 2015 that I actually tried to make anything properly.  I’d dabbled with really horrible renn faire costumes, half-assed stays, and doll clothes (which weren’t bad, I guess) but the blue linen gown I made that year for the Historical Sew Monthly was my first true attempt at historical clothing.

In preparation, I forced myself to start from the ground up.  I sewed—entirely by hand for the first time ever—a shift and a petticoat.  I did a passable job, though I’ve made changes in the last 2 years.

Once that hassle was finished I started on my stays.  I used a JP Ryan pattern that I re-drafted to fit me (I’m short *and* rubenesque—not exactly ideal for basic patterns!)  I learned SO MUCH during this process, most of all that stays stretch a lot, especially without canvas or buckram on the inside.  Since these were my first… yeah they were just linen lined in muslin.  On the bright side (haha except not bright at all…) I did research a natural dye recipe and tried to turn the fabric pink.  It was vaguely rosy, but oh well.

Undergarments in hand, I decided to do what ANY sensible noob would on their first proper project: scale up and refit a pattern from Janet Arnold!  OBVIOUS, right? I mean it’s totally easy! 

No.

Somehow, though, a single art class I took waaaaay back in 7th grade really helped me out.  Our project at the time had been to scale up a picture from a magazine and sketch it.  As it turned out, scaling up a pattern isn’t very different.  At all.  So yeah, lucky lucky.  For the scaling process, anyway.  Fitting it was a totally different story.  

I don’t have any pictures of this process because apart from opening a tiny business and beginning my historical costuming life, I also had an infant.  Yeah I’m not sure what I was thinking, either.

Shockingly, however, it came out halfway decent!  I wrote a bit more about this outfit in an old blog post here, but that’s the very brief story of why I’m here, two years later, still chugging along.