Mon Mothma progress

I don’t like to use patterns, I find infinitely more success with drafting (more than drafting, and drafting more successful than using an existing pattern.) It has everything to do with modern pattern blocks. In general bodies vary each generation but there is a fashionable shape as well as a fashionable size.

My shape goes against modern fit models in a way that does not conform to the methods of correcting a pattern.

(photos above- three mannequin torsos on narrow stands stood side by side to illustrate differences in shape despite being set to the same size. The mannequin on the left of each photo is covered in white cloth and is not adjustable, the mannequin in the centre is adjustable but is narrower across the chest/waist/hips, but wider in profile, the mannequin to the right is much rounder in all directions and has a much rounder upper back with the armscyes set further forward.

Once again these three mannequins show the different fashion shapes.

Why is this important for Mon Mothma? Isn’t it just a robe?

Nope! She has Raglan sleeves, with four seams each sleeve! Her robes have semi-princess seams (they do not cross the bust point but do terminate in the armscye.)

I do collect vintage patterns when I find useful ones however. Or useful to me 🙂

(photo above: a vintage pattern from the 1970s, three women in different variations of the same garment- all with full lower sleeves, semi fitted through the body, and flared skirts)

The dress is unfortunately four panels but has the raglan sleeve to a closed neck 🙂 And bishop sleeves.

The samples are actually much more true than I am used to so I did add too much extra SA when transferring but here is how I did it:

(Photos above: three stages of a pattern alteration, description in following text.)

I transferred all patterns to brown paper. I traces each pattern a short distance from the edge of the paper to allow the paper to be folded straight whereas in the original pattern the dress panels all tapered in to the waist and out to the hem.

For the front dress panel I first drew and then cut a semi princess shape from the front. This left a much narrower side front than I wanted, but the front needed no more work.

I then used double sided tape to stick the outer side of the new side piece to a length of narrow brown paper. I then flared that side seam out about 20cm at the hem and tapered it to the waist.

I repeated on the inside of the side panel.

Now the patter for the dress front has a side seam and a much fuller hem.

I repeated this for the back panels and the sleeves.

(Photo above: traced sleeve pattern on brown paper, parallel lines to divide the pattern into four.)

Since then I have cut the shell fabric and a stabilising lining. The lining is a loosely woven fabric to allow airflow when worn.

I overestimated my seam allowances. The next step will be to assemble this on the form that is going to most easily allow for a semi loose fit but also allow for shoulder shaping. So I shall use the non adjustable mannequin as it has curved upper shoulders at least.

1876 draft update

The draft really didn’t need a huge amount of adjusting, I may just need to adjust some of my measuring 🙂

The back is lovely, it’s just too wide in the shoulders, and my mannequin does have a higher shoulder than me.

The front is a bit of a mess, I always have this trouble with drafting systems from this era though, so it’s no different. I can however use the changes made today to determine how to take measurements for the next run through.

So basically the same issues as with corsets I have scaled, with other patterns- I have a proportionally narrow torso. I am hour glass but I do not continue to taper out past my lower ribs.

But strangely I had to lower the waist at the side and raise it at the front. This is partly because I clipped the armscye and smoothed the excess towards the upper back and that then also spread down the side.

I also lowered the bust dart points, mainly because I think this mannequin has a very long shoulder to bust measure vs me. But it’s nice to see that this was a relatively easy remedy.

Overall? would recommend for someone who is used to these kinds of drafting tools.

The instructions are lengthy but a bit confusing only because the diagrams are super simple so it can be hard to work out immediate if you are looking at the the draft lines or the tool. But it was pretty easy to do once I got the hang of it. 🙂 Next step is to see if the tool will give the same corrected shape with the new measurements 🙂

The basque was very easy and worked really well for me for over a natural form shape 🙂

| historic guides

1876 basque

The science and geometry of dress
by Jackson, Louisa L., Mrs. [from old catalog]

Published 1876

So, the trouble with the system is the “bust” measure is a sort of not really measurable distance where the armhole (arm size) and the side seam end. And then you take the back measure separately. Not a full measure all the way around. I used my padded form but still estimated where the side seams would sit. I think I need to tweak it a bit more. But other than my near universal shoulder/side of bust fitting issues I think the scale works.

If I look at the patterns taken from existing garments the arm hole is most definitely not as per the first pass of the tool. I need to get a bit courageous about trimming here! Also to adjust the super rigorous dart placement- the drafting tool is quite old fashioned in that it feels like it’s from the 1860s-very early 1870s. This is about the time there should be two side back seams that slope a little more gently. So I think the tool will work, it just won’t look like the diagrams but will look like the extant items.

The additional steps to make a basque though are brilliant. And it does show exactly why the cross dart sits where it does. This is where fabric naturally folds in at the waist with the basque (called skirts in this book.)

You can see how the fabric is super full in the armscye and above the bust. I’ll smooth the fabric over the stand and then compare to the tool to see what I would recommend in terms of using modern equipment.

The book is very unyielding in the sens that the distance from CF and CB to first dart is specified. And the distance between darts also specified. The tops of the darts are also very much decided by the tool (while the height is adjustable the distance from centre front is not.

I do love the basque and how the darts are formed! If nothing else I am keeping the dart tool!

‘

I compared the diagrams to extant patterns and yes, I will need to do what these do: rotate the armscye towards the centre front.

These are all from Patterns of Fashion.

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1876 tool update

Okay, so the body templates are very wrong! My scale isn’t too far off but the markings on it are not perfect. I will do an annotated run through. One problem is the book says to lay the front waist tool 1″ from the edge of the material. but the tool already has a 1″ mark (A). That is not the 1″ that it needs to be set from the edge. Not if the bust measures are to work.

Having tried this tool I know now that the miniature is really not a perfect scale of the full tool as it will appear. The dart and side seam rules are good so I have now made a single file of all the miniature tools.

Some of the markings are wrong. The vertical measures should all be identical distances ditto the perfectly horizontal. So I scaled to the dart rule and made sure the distance between the edge and the lower bust mark as 9″ and this now makes all the “standard” measures line up.

The science and geometry of dress
by Jackson, Louisa L., Mrs. [from old catalog]

Published 1876

So these all match, I started with all the mini tools on one file and scaled. everything that I know to be inches seem to match up.

I’ll update my earlier post with the new files 🙂

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some gems from the manual

The science and geometry of dress

by Jackson, Louisa L., Mrs. [from old catalog]

Published 1876

We cut on the fold due to wide fabrics, this explains why cutting fronts is best done individually.

Yes! The side is where you can do some final fitting tweaks. But it was better to adjust everywhere else first.

How to space buttons for a large bust- it depends on the button size.

The crossdart! (Fish dart) And how it was used and how the third dart came about (I think seen in at least one PoF garment).

Tips on how to draft a princess dress. I am so happy about the polonaise comments! I have been wondering if there were rules about this but no 🙂

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dress form extreme make over

This particular form has a few features I have, a pronounced upper ribcage curve, high bust, round ribs. Her hips are a bit too round in cross section but that is easy to adjust by dialing the front and back dials a size larger and the side dials a size lower.

I used very taper shoulder pads to fill in the upper side of the bust, a corset is meant to lift and support so I want this in the same position as I want to achieve.

The padded bra is foam bonded to lycra based fabric so is very soft. I also filled in the gap between bust point and edge of should pads with a bit of foam.

And then a lycra shell was stretched over and basted at neck before I started basting through all layers including the velour form cover.

I darted to the armscye and took a dart out of the back panel on each side.

And voila, a form that is me but exaggerated (also at a height for wearing heels, I should have dropped her down for the photo but hey.

The form has a slight belly which is good for spoon busk corset types, but not so exaggerated as to not appeal modernly..

Making the tools

As per my previous posts I now have the tools for the 1876 drafting system.

https://archive.org/details/sciencegeometryo02jack

The science and geometry of dress
by Jackson, Louisa L., Mrs. [from old catalog]
Published 1876

I printed and used contact spray to lay them on the inside of a cardboard box my new mirror came in. So nice to have an honest mirror that I can also move for best light/view 🙂

So I think I got the bodice close, in comparison to the size of the dart anyway. If I have any concerns I know I can redo them using the miniature dart form.

Last night I also padded and resized a dress form to be the ideal shape. Which means today actually draping and drafting 🙂

1876 tools

I am not completely convinced the size is correct but I have isolated each tool from:

The science and geometry of dress

by Jackson, Louisa L., Mrs. [from old catalog]

Published 1876

I only know the dart and the skirt tools are correct for printing- as pdfs. The waist and curve… not so sure. I need to really go through the full text to make a bodice pattern to check the placement. Anyway. If you have photoshop you can rescale the files anyway. If you have a pdf viewer choose “poster” as print type and it will automatically print to size.

The dart is true, I have seen these only in printed form inside books so had no idea just how big they are. I think in terms of centimeters. The curve feels far too big, I scaled to match the 1,2,3,4 as inches. (since trying, these are indeed quite large.)

(I have switched out these files to be more accurate! These are mini tools meant for teaching, so only the “standard” marks are true, I will be marking additional sizes as the scale proper becomes more accurate)

These were very hard to figure out. I scaled using the waist length as true to size so is scaled so the distance between each “inch” is one inch.

These two were much easier. What I love about the first skirt tool is it does show some care in deciding on the angle of the side of the skirt gores! The rest of the skirt is basically as per “Nora” (as seen in Patterns of Fashion) but this is about the angle from waist to hip, aso that is very cool 🙂

I also spent the noight padding a form to my most ideal “Victorian” shape. So I can make corset and bodice patterns that give a very good exagerated ideal form. Not easy when I have a shape that simply has not been fashionable. Okay. c1480 and say 1550-1610 in Cleves and Spain. But that’s kind of it.But that’s for another post. I need sleep!

Oh look, the perfect book!

https://archive.org/details/sciencegeometryo02jack

The science and geometry of dress
by Jackson, Louisa L., Mrs. [from old catalog]

Published 1876
Topics Dressmaking

So this is really interesting and does indeed help explain the fish dart in some garments.

Why?

The basic pattern blocks for bodices were still based on ones from the 1860s. This is to say the end at the waist. I’m started printing the pages up . The first section is for the basic bodice block, then there is a saque, next up are basques (ie bodices that extend past the waist.) So this is very exciting 🙂 My printer is liking the pages so that is also good!

| historic guides victorian

anne of cleves progress

I am more than 5/6 through the overhanding of the gold borders. I physically can’t make tiny stitches but I also have no one to do this kind of sewing for me and no machine sewing even looks as nice as my slightly long stitches.

So, it’s a case of sck it up, no one will see unless they are actually at my hem. Also if they are they’ll hopefully notice the fabrics and before passing judgement already be thinking of the problems and solutions possible.

Also it’s real silk and real metal. Not mylar. The particular weaves are also very firm, very firm. To the point getting a needle through is tough. A needle needs to be sharp enough at the end to even get through the weave but not so sharp it winds up splitting the threads rather than pass betwee. The body also needs to be slick enough to pass between the threads and not drag them. And finally the needle needs to be solid enough to withstand the drag stress of passing through the fabrics (4 layers thick).

I’m also looking to do a series of in person and online workshops. Basically I have been queried a few times on why I rely on my instincts (and I’m framing both my initial and follow up responses in more specific ways) .

I do have good instincts on spotting a modern replica at 50 paces and it is built on a lifetime of access to artists and technical manuals that eventually have morphed into a shorthand. It’s hard to explain not because I don’t have an understanding but that each layer of understanding is built on previous and untangling that for someone who doesn’t have that background is difficult.

So I am working backwards and forwards through time and processes, so it’s taking a bit of work to hunt down resources. I learnt most modern pattern making from books I just read in the library and couldn’t request so I don’t even have records for what most them them- so this is requiring me to read modern drafting and draping books and figuring out what is very new and what is still the same from the 1960s/70s. These books were still on the shelves until very recently and were out of date stylistically but still current in terms of technique.

Luckily a lot of vintage books are starting to become available in e-format!

But that’s also something to take into account- we don’t use darts as much as seams now. It’s a stylistic change but also profoundly affects technique. Especially when looking at straight darts vs curved seams. And cutting fabric always changes the stretch within a large distance from the cut.

And once you cut fabric you can’t uncut it but you can unpick a dart. So again, profound technical changes that started as apparently stylistic choices.

And knits- or mechanical stretch- has really changed how things fit, are cut, and sewn, and assembled.