My Finished Dress!

I finished the striped linen round gown for Under the Redcoat on Friday night. Here are the results!





Yes, it needs to be ironed. However, that's unlikely to happen until Under the Redcoat, so I thought I may as well share now. I think that this is going to be a very fun dress to wear!

There's nothing horribly interesting about the construction. It's linen lined with linen. I made the lining first and then mounted the outer fabric on it and sewed everything into place with spaced backstiches. The sleeves are made the same way as my chocolate francaise, and set essentially the same way, only the shoulder strap covers the top instead of the robing. The skirt was pleated and then set right side to wrong side and sewn in with whipstitches, leaving the top edge raw.

The front panel has ties that wrap around the waist and tie in front, then the bodice is put on and the back skirt overlaps the front.

And as usual, it pins down the front. I love pinning as closures!

My last linen lined with linen dress stretched about four inches, and until now, I really haven't wanted to make another linen lined with linen dress. However, these are very nice linens from Burnley and Trowbridge (the lining is the perfectly lovely--and perfectly firm--cambric linen they had a few years ago), and my last dress wasn't very nice linen, so I think this dress will be fine!

What I've been up to!

My lack of posting here hasn't meant I haven't been doing anything! While I still haven't sorted out the promised spotty dress posts, I thought I should share a little of what's going on, and that's basically Under the Redcoat preparations!

First, something mentioned here before--the strawberry pinball. It's half knitted (I don't want to say half done because stuffing it is a little work!)



And almost done--it just needs sleeves and the fabric is due to be delivered today, yes I under ordered--is a striped linen dress. I actually volunteered to help a friend cook (as far away from the fire as possible!) at UTR this year. You see, she moved several states away and it's rather annoying. When we lived in the same city, it was no big thing to not see her at UTR, but this year, to actually spend time with her, I said I'd help. Ahh, the things we do for friends! Anyway, I'm hoping it falls into the category of super cute, and I'm proud of myself for not doing anything neat with the stripes. I did put the front panel at a very slight angle, but other than that, the stripes landed where they landed!

This will have no trim, though I am halfway looking for a cuff that would be appropriate. I just like the idea of cuffs on this.



And next we have the completed except for trim pet-en-l'air. It's made of a cotton print I bought in Paris, which just makes me happy. It doesn't have robings and looks rather naked without them! I'm looking forward to applying the trim to make it look more normal. It'll pin shut and then tie with a mass of black ribbons. It should be so fun to wear! I'm basing it of this jacket in the Manchester Galleries.





And lastly, a linen riding habit. I found a description of a natural linen riding habit trimmed with green silk on the 18th century woman mailing list and went with the idea. Mine will be trimmed with blue silk. So far I only have a few buttons made. I'm really enjoying them, fortunately, as I need tons! Forty-four, it seems!