Gallery:

August 2007
The great Chemise á la Reine day at Costume College 2007!

Many thanks to Aubry, Jenni, Katherine, Kate, Kendra, Loren, Sarah, Trystan, & Vanessa for the use of your photos!

Dress Diary

11 Apr 2007
Katherine is such a bad influence! I just bought cotton voile for a Chemise á la Reine and it's all her fault! I am so weak! But Katherine's frock looks so darn pretty and comfortable. The talk of visions of lots of white fluffy gowns with colorful sashes at Costume College 2007 proved too tempting. It even looks a relatively easy project. I'm thinking a green sash... :>

Poor K - This seems to be my year to unashamedly take 'inspiration' (ie pinch) from your projects. Still want to be my roommate? :P

Bad news is I just spent my Fantasy Tea money so I do hope I'm not the only one not going. I had fun last year but really didn't think it was worth the money anyway. Anyone want to join me in the cafe for a cheap cup of coffee? *grin*

20 Apr
I think I may have an event I can wear a Chemise á la Reine to in May. It's a tight deadline but it would be fun to wear. If my fabric comes by then of course, which it should. I can always work on the toile now.

Trouble is I have too many projects, too little WWKD and way too much SADD going on right now. With only 3 months to CC I really need to get more focused! *slaps self* Come on Jenny - pull yourself together!! :P

25 Apr

The cotton voile for my Chemise á la Reine arrived today. Oh my gosh - it is gorgeous stuff! So fine and soft, like butter. And that is before washing too. I think I may need to buy some for underpinnings and a few summer tops... :>

May 6th is the deadline for my Chemise á la Reine so I've been busy researching that. It's amazing for so simple a garment there are endless variations. I want a 1780s dress so I'm going for longer puffy sleeves like this:

I think I want a little sweep in back, not a train and one ruffle at the neckline (maybe lace). I haven't seen much evidence for underwear showing through plus it would annoy me so I'm trying to decide if I want a lining or a bodiced petticoat of some kind. Now that my fabric is here though I just want to start working on it!!

Helpful Chemise la Reine links along my research path:

• Manchester Art Gallery (extant dress)
• Museum of London (extant dress)
• Kalen Hughes study page
• Katherine's chemise dress tag
• Aubry's chemise dress tag (locked)
• Casey's chemise dress (more pics here)
• Jenni's chemise dress

03 May
Working on the chemise: Voice post

07 May

The Chemise á la Reine is going well. Wish all my projects were this simple!

Yesterday I got as far as fitting the petticoat toile (which I'm using as a base for the shaping of the gathers), made a clean and tidy second one for the fitting (out of purple so I could see it under the voile).

I then cut (actually tore) my panels and sewed them together. Originally I tore and sewed 5 panels (36" wide) but after pinning that on to Narcissa we decided that wasn't enough so I added another. Again pinned that on Narcissa and decided that wasn't enough and so added another panel. So I have a total of 7 panels. I hope that will be right. I don't want it to look skimpy but I also don't want it to overwhelm me.

So all the panels are sewn and the seams pressed open. The sleeve straps are cut and sewn. I decided to line the straps in cotton organdy, mostly because it as sitting right there and I didn't want to stop and go hunt out my linen scraps. I think it will work well. I used spray starch on the voile before I cut it, two layers on each side. It was so much more friendly after that. I do love spray starch!

06 May

I have gotten discouragingly little done on the Chemise á la Reine today. I seem to have spent most of the day putting in and then ripping out gathering stitches. *sigh* Then I lost my momentum and watched B sew hooks and eyes into her outfit while pretending to be productive. We had some good sister time and I got to pontificate on ideas for my Fire costume. Good stuff. So no new frock for Belmont tomorrow. Oh well, it's supposed to rain in the morning and be overcast the rest of the day so not a good Chemise á la Reine day anyway.

I think the Chemise á la Reine is coming together though. I've got the top gathered and pinned onto the temp toile lining. Looks pretty good, nice and full but not too full. Next up is to fiddle with the sleeve I think and add the casings to the waist.

I'm totally feeling the pull of costuming ADD at the moment so I may set aside the masses of white fluff for another project. A break from the white might be a very good thing about now.

08 May
I was hoping to get back to the Chemise á la Reine this week, or maybe start on the Victorian corset, but real life will keep getting in the way in the most annoying way. The Mother-Daughter tea I'm helping to plan is sucking away my free time this week. I know I keep complaining about it and although it was not exactly my plan, it's been a good thing.

Maybe I'll get some sewing time in next week. Although with Bridget's graduation celebration to prep for the following weekend I'm not holding my breath. So since when did May become party planning month? :P

15 May
The Chemise á la Reine is officially on hold. I'm still feeling burnt out on it and want to work on some other Costume College frocks right now. No worries though - I will be back to this in no time. I must be part of the white fluffy brigade at CC in August! :>

30 Jun
I really don't know what is wrong with me. I have so much costuming to do for Costume College and I haven't been doing anything. It will be my own stupid fault that I don't have new things finished to wear but to be honest I haven't been in the mood the sew lately. Not good timing for SPADD.

I've been looking at pics from CC06 to try and whip myself up into excitement for the sewing part (not just the wearing) and I think the old WWKD is finically kicking in... So I'm off to work on something - not sure what yet...

1 Jul

Lookie - actual sewing content. With piccies and everything! My muse must have found her way back from Philly... :>

B was beading away on the Fire when I looked around for something to do so I turned my attention to the Chemise á la Reine. I haven't been able to wrap my head around how all you people have put a drawstring round the neck while still gathering along the bottom of the sleeve strap. I need to see how you've done it because the descriptions are not doing it for me. Mean people living so far away! I was getting all wigged out about it when it occurred to me that I will be adding a lace ruffle to the neck line so no one will see if I cheat. *looks at calendar and thinks,"cheating is good"* I'll just paw Katherine's at CC and figure it out for next time. :>

So I put it together the same way I did my Federalist gown, which is less full but the same basic cut. Another cheat to save time and aggravation was to just line the blessed thing. I solved the problem of not really wanting a solid white lining by using the same thin voile as my lining. I ironed on lots of layers of heavy sizing until it was almost stiff so that it has some body while I'm working. I love spray sizing!

It seems to be working well. If I had to do it over again I think I would have made the gathers along the sleeve strap a little less full. I may also take out the top-stitching along the strap. It depends on how much it shows under the ruffle. It looks a bit funky at the moment but I thought stitching down the gathers a bit would help the ruffle lay better.

13 Jul

While I was in the stays today I tried on my Chemise á la Reine. I had a rather nasty shock when I discovered the front was too big. Just the very front mind. I have NO idea how I ended up so off, on the lining too. Luckily the 2.5" overlap isn't too noticeable in all the gathering. Good thing - I'm not sure I could have brought myself to redo those gathers again.

I think I've decided to not bother with a drawstring at the waist. I think I'll be okay without - leaving me with more time for the rest of the to-do list. I can always add it later if I find I need to. :>

Mom was gracious enough to mark the hem for me too and we experimented with sash options. I'm really digging the orange/cream combo, although if I went with the blue chiffon I could do red white and blue cockades and feathers in my hat. If I had red 18th century shoes I would totally go with the blue but the neutrals make my skin glow (plus going with the orange theme that has emerged from my CC line-up). Perhaps I will bring both and decided on the day.

20 Jul
Last night after picking apart the Pimpernel toile and make note of the changes, I wasn't feeling alert enough to cut out fabric so I worked on the hem to the Chemise á la Reine. It took forever (all those panels!) but it's done now - yay! I also cut out an extra sleeve toile so I can work on the Chemise á la Reine sleeves. I decided to go with the long straight sleeve after all. Easier and probably more flattering...

2 Aug
So Wednesday, I woke up about 10am and worked steadily on costumes (ie the Pimpernel & Chemise á la Reine) all day. As in took two breaks to eat and one to make a Target run. My goal was to get all the machine work out of the way and the costumes to a point where I, (the world's slowest hand sewer), could reasonably get things finished up at CC.

I started work on the sleeves about 9pm. Luckily I had the pattern from the pet en l'air but still hadn't toiled them into the armhole of the Chemise á la Reine. I was finally cutting out the actual sleeves about 11pm and finished them up about 12:30am, not too bad considering the French seams I needed to do on it. Madness!

5 Aug

The morning of the Chemise á la Reine day dawned bright and clear. I still hadn't managed to get the lace on my neckline so Katherine was gracious enough to whip gather and help me sew the lace on while I did Jenni's and my hair for the day. I love you Katherine!

Later that afternoon we arranged for all the chemise dresses to meet in the garden for pictures. We had a whopping TEN chemise gowns, more than fulfilling the visions of a white fluffy Sunday. I loved being a part of it, what fun!

16 Aug
Tonight I took apart my chemise dress. All the linings, straps, sleeves and gathers are now apart. It looks a little sad. I've decided to pull out a panel or two as well (looking at the pictures 7 panels was a bit much) but after that I can start putting it back together again... this time the correct way. I'm pretty confident I can use the same fabric (barring issues with the armholes) although I might lose a bit of the train. Well, it turned out longer than I expected anyway, not a good graces length really.

I'm also thinking I should tea-dye my fabric. *I see you laughing* I can't help it that white isn't my best color!! I just loved Kendra’s pale peach gown. *sigh* What color dye would give peach, watered down orange? Of course a colored petticoat underneath might do the trick too. :>

25 Jan 2008
I've started work on my revamp of this frock - check out the dress diary for all the details.