The question arose from several sources lately... Partly from how I am once again trying to rearrange my flat in order to find place for everything. Back, when about 11 years ago I moved stuff around and moved my sewing stuff in the smallest room of the flat I was happy to have a separate room.... but things changed over the years. I am desparately hankering after a weaving loom, and the main obstacle now is the lack of space. AND, maybe more importantly the amount of stuff I keep around for sewing multiplied... by manyfold. So I thought, while I work on my flat ( at the moment the newly painted ceiling in Chris's new room is drying), and trying to get out the pictures of my phone to finish up my series on the regency daydress, I make a summary of how much I used from what... in which I also summarize, the styles I worked with until now.
In the last few years I often mused just how much MORE stuff I need, because of the historical clothes. While before, when I saw a fabric I loved, I bought a meter or two (three at the most), that amount would not take me to far (maybe a stomacher or sleeves, but for even a skirt, it would hardly be enough).
A question on an instagram post of mine (and a few other, privately asked question) prompted me to take account... I will not show all the stuff I made over the last four years, but an example of each style. Not in a straight timeline, historically, but in the order I made them.
So let's see. The first historical dress I made was the 1860's blue ball gown. (okay technically it was the dark red stripey, but the amounts were the same).
As we already discussed, for a historical dress you don't only need the dress itself, without the proper undergraments it would not look like much. So, the first layer is a pair of drawers and a chemisette. You need about 2,5 meters of light linen, or cotton fabric for this. You will need corsets, that you can buy (for teh first time around I did buy mine, later made one, needs about 1 meter strong canvas and boning)
Then you need a cage crinolin, for which we used about 24 meters of steel boning, which is basically a flat spring. Also we used about 3-4 meters of white cotton (the type that is used for sheets) for the bottom part and covering the boning, about 20 meters of growgrain ribbon, a ribbon for belt. The next layer a petticoat that used about 5 meters of the double width (240 cm wide) cotton, and about 12 meters of lace to go on the bottom. I have two petticoats under the dress, to smooth out the hoop-lines. The second is made a much lighter, stripey fabric though.
From the blue fabric I bought 9 meters of fabric, and I actually used 6.5. The skirt is 3 times its length (3 x 1,3 -including seam = 3,9 meters), so 4,5 meter wide is pleated into the waistband. The rest of the bodice. I have put away the rest to make a daytime bodice, which I did not get around to do... just yet.
The next ensemble I did was my 15th century everyday set. This set was made entirely from linen.
The second layer, a light blue kirtle, with long sleeves and laced on the sides, underarms (this one hardly shows, which is a shame, I love the fabric), and the top layer, whihc is still short sleeved, as I never got around to finish the tie on sleeves. Both layer needs about 4,5 - 5 meters of 140 cm wide fabric.
My early baroque (early 17th century) commoner ensemble, which is a summer version, the outer layer is from linen.
Needs an undershirt from about 4,5 meters of (cream or white) linen, a petticoat about 4,5 meters of linen (I used red) and about 5 meters of 5 cm wide lace - actually I used about 15 meters of thinner lace, sewed up right next to each other. For the top dress about 5 meters of linen and 20 meters of the decorating tape.
My cap and apron came from about a meter of ramie/cotton fabric, leftover from an older project. The lace on my apron was a practice piece from when I learned to do laces.
My late 15th century Italian aristocrat clothes...
Has a camicia, from about 4,5-5 meters of light, white linen, decorated with handmade linen lace. Used about 4-4,5 meters of the damask for the dress itself and about 1 meters of the unicolored blue fabric, I got from my teammate, Gizus. I used about 4-5 meters of the braid and a gazillion of beads.
I also made some early victorian ensembles. They need similar underwear than the 1860 ballgown, drawers, chemisette, stays / corset. It needs a corded petticoat , which I made from about 2 meters of cotton, and about 200 meters of cord. it has a plain petticoat (3,5 meters) and a ruffled patticoat. (5 meters).
For the dress itself I bought about 8 meters of the fabric. All those crossed folds on the front used up quite a lot of fabric--- but it was worth it.
Though, for the first attempt I used only about 6 meters.
And finally (but no way lastly) the regency era dresses:
Underwear (drawers and chemisette) - about the same 2,5-3 meters than the victorian underwear, though, both the drawers and the chemisette is slightly longer). There is a pair of corded stays, made from about a meter of canvas:
There is a bodiced petticoat from about 3-3,5 meters of white cotton.
The white dress used about 4,5 - 5 meters of light cotton, with tiny pink dots.
For evening wear there is a layer I add made from an Indian saree (5 meters of an about 70-80 cm wide fabric)
And the daydress with the roses...
I dyed up about 6 meters, but used about 4.5 meters.
So you can see that these amounts are far from the 1-2 meters I used to buy when I got something with the "will be good for something one day" base. Now when I see something I like for historical clothes, I buy at least 6 meters, if it is for renaissance or regency, 8 or more, if it is for 18th or 19th century. If I find white linen in the cheap fabric store, I buy all they have - I love this fabric for modern civilian stuff too. If I find white cotton that is good for underwear (like petticoats, or chemisettes), I buy about 10 meters....
You know, I need more even from yarn... from 100 gramms of sock yarn, you can knit a generous pair of socks... for historical stockings... I need at least 150-200 gramms
So, here is the answer, why I need more space. :-) Not to mention the fact that selection is very limited around here. No garment district like in New York. There are a few - very expensive- stores, and there are the chain that sells factory recejts and lefotver fabrics.... I hunt them regularly, however, as the nature of things, nothing stays there for long. Whenever they have something, that could be remotely useable, I need to grab it. And as you've seen I need to grab a good amount of it.
Photos: Millarca (rainbow), Norbert Varga, and my own phone-pictures.
1 comment:
Thank you. You dresses very inspirational. This is a very useful article. I seem to be finding lots of interesting fabric lately and this confirms that I just need to buy ALOT of it.
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