White muslin dress
Thursday, October 8th, 2009It’s been a while since I posted…..lots of sewing under the bridge since then, and I’ll try to bring you up to date.
I had a lot of fun making up some beautiful fabric, one of those finds you just have to buy even if you don’t know just what you are going to do with it at the time. This fabric is a dotted swiss with a lacy stripe and thick and thin warp threads. It had to be something light and airy!
I decided to go to my newest (at that time) reference book, Nancy Bradfield’s Costume in Detail. She has several early 1800’s muslin dresses which are very finely sewn, and I itched to do something similar. I chose one with multiple casings around the neck, and decided to do only two, using ribbon for the drawstring. All the casings at neck and sleeve were sewn by hand, as was all other exterior work.
I also wanted a dress which was easy to get into if you dress by yourself, so decided on a version of a bib front dress, but with the ‘bib’ attached at front to make it easier to manage. So the back has no opening, except for the drawstrings at the neck, and the openings are on both sides at the front side seams.
The other requirement was to have a dress that could adjust to several sizes, so as make it more available to a larger number of people.
This is what resulted, with some adjustments as I worked.
Closeups:
Bodice front
sleeve detail
Side opening
The new owner was very happy with her dress! And I learned a lot, and loved working with this delicate fabric. It was not lined, as drawstring dresses often were not, but you would need to wear a white slip under.