The Lily Pad Lanvin Dress

A trip to the Huntington before Costume College? Of course I needed a new dress! A group of friends and I decided to visit in 1920s--a perfect era, as it was wearing a costume and not wearing a costume at the same time. 20s dresses are quite conveniently the size of everyday clothes.

While looking through the Met, I fell in love with this Lanvin dress. I think she may be my favorite 20s designer, as this is the second dress of hers I've made, and I have two more scheduled and even have the materials for those!



I decided on a different color scheme for my dress. I wanted something a little lighter and more summery. I found the perfect shade of green Swiss muslin at Farmhouse Fabrics and I dyed white Swiss muslin cream. Instead of a contrasting color--everything I could think of with the green either seemed too 1970s or too sweet (even for me!)--so I decided to use more green as the accent color. I did use a little pink in the rosette to tie in my pink parasol and custom pink shoes from Step One Dance Shoes.

And that camera I have? It does have pictures on it! Or, I hope. I've been completely horrible and haven't brought the film in to be developed yet.



I'm wearing the dress over a green silk taffeta slip made from the same taffeta that's trimming my hat, my peach silk tap pants, and besides stockings and garters, that's it! I find it very nice having the correct figure for the 20s! I did wonder if I should wear anything else, but a sheer dress with more than one set of straps showing sounded unattractive. I fortunately found this dress in a 1920 Photoplay which clearly shows a sheer dress with nothing but a slip beneath.



I was horrible, and took very few construction pictures as I was making this. In fact, I think I only took one of the neckline and a series of the rosette of doom. I'll describe what I did though. It is straightforward! The bodice is two pieces, a front and back, sewn with French seams on the right side and shoulders. The left side was sewn with a normal seam, a placket with snaps set into it after the skirt was attached and then the remainder of the seam was turned in as a mock French seam. The sleeves were sewn with French seams, and set in with, once again, French seams. So really, the whole dress is sewn twice! The skirt is two rectangles of fabric, and the trim is a straight of grain tube of green fabric with ribbon sewn on top to imitate a tunic. I at first thought there might be a tunic on the original, but the folds of the skirt were too perfectly aligned, so I believe it's just faked with trim. The skirt is sewn on normally, gathered and then right sides to right sides. There are four tiny tucks in the bottom of the bodice, easily visible in the original, which surprisingly do quite a bit of shaping.



For the green around the neck and sleeves, I bound the edges with green bias, then cut a collar piece and extension for the sleeve out of green and basted them in. I really wish I had taken pictures of this! I then sewed cream ribbon over the join. I think this is how the original was done though, and it provided a really nice finish, so I decided to do it even though I was just using one color. The lace insert is simplified on mine. I whipstitched Maline lace from Farmhouse fabrics together for the triangular insert, then sewed ribbon to more Maline lace, gathered it, and sewed it to the neckline.



The rosette, which ended up giving the dress its name, was rather straightforward. Here are my marked pieces for the parts. I sewed the layers together, cut them, turned them right side out, and placed them on the circle base--made of two layers of silk taffeta sewn together and turned right side out--and sewed them down. I think the pictures are rather self-explanatory!



The rosette is then basted to the dress, and can be easily removed if the dress needs to be washed.

For accesories, I have my pink parasol, and a yet to be made post about my early 1920s inspired hat.

For more pictures of the day, including Aubry, Megan, and Sara's lovely dresses, the photoset is here!

The Story of a Parasol

Yesterday, I had full intentions of writing a tutorial for making a parasol cover. I was armed with my camera, silk, and an empty frame.



Alas, the tutorial was not to be. Somehow, a parasol I'm very happy with (despite the cover being a tiny bit loose, I'll admit!) after quite possibly the oddest sewing experience ever.

Let me start by saying that the first parasol I made (seen here) went together easily I thought that this one would too. Not so much!



To figure out the pattern for my first parasol, I cut a circle, put a hole in the center, pinned it to the ribs, pinned the center of the fabric between the ribs to get the shape, traced that as a pattern, and voila, parasol cover pattern. This time, that resulted in first a cover that would only let the parasol open half way up, and then a parasol that tilted up like a bowl when I decided to try a circle plus seam allowances. Fortunately, pinning in a tiny bit on the edges from that worked. Somehow!

The frame does have an odd shape. It dips in at the middle and then comes out. I think this makes it very difficult for a very amateur parasol coverer to deal with!



After that, I had a pattern but not enough of my hemstitched fabric. I could only cut four panels from each side, for a total of eight. I needed ten. But easy--I could piece two halves I'd have leftover, and it would work, right? Um, no, only after cutting did I realize that two halves make one whole, not two. Oops. Fortunately, I had all my fabric with me and with leftover pink was able to do two more panels with hemstiching. With paper towels this time, which I preferred to the tissue!



Meanwhile, Twila's parasol was being even more argumentative than mine. It will be beautiful when done though! We decided grain issues were mainly at fault.

I sewed the cover though, and safety pinned it on, and after a very tense would it work moment, it worked. Huge relief!



I ended up sewing the cover on twice, as the first time there were two problems. One, I didn't pull the top in far enough. Two, the bottom had to be sewn right next to the hem or the hem would flip up. Though I'm calling it completed, it still has a little left. I need to tack the ribs to the seam allowances just above the joint for four or five more ribs, and then I want to do it lower in the cream part since that fabric frays easily and I want the ribs to sit there better. For all practical purposes though, it's done! And I left it open all night last night to make sure it was in working order. I woke up to a still opened parasol that didn't have anything weird happen to it, so all was good :)

Imitation Hand-Hemstitching. A Tutorial!

The other day I was looking through my fabulous Art of Dressmaking by Butterick. This is the same book that had the technique for making the lace collar for my 1905 waist. I noticed the imitation hand-hemstitching section again and thought it looked interesting to try, but didn't have a reason.

So, today, Twila and I decided to get together on Sunday to recover parasols. I knew I wanted mine to be pink, but I didn't want it to be just pink. So I decided a stripe of my cream figured silk would be nice. Then I thought of an original teens parasol that I own that's green with a stripe of cream sewn in with hemstitching, and decided to try it.

It worked beautifully!



Take your two fabrics, and layer a few layers of tissue paper in between. I gave up on the pins--too difficult through the paper! The book suggested blotter paper or other easy to tear paper. I have a tiny bit of blotter paper from my recent bookbinding adventures, but thought the tissue would be more practical. I folded all the sheets in the package three times.



Sew it! Loosen your machine tension and adjust the stitch. I didn't adjust the stitch length as a parasol does have stress on it and I didn't want it too long.



When you're done, it looks like you've piped it with paper. Tear it out!



Et voila! "Hemstitching!"

The book suggests facing it or hemming the raw edge. Since a parasol is rather small, I'm going to just press it and hope for the best. If I need to, I'll just tack it down by hand a in few places when the parasol is done.



It's very messy :)



And for good measure, the book!