Well, I finished it last night, in time for New Years Eve. Or, more correctly, New Years Eve night since I don't think I'll wear it until later this evening.
Did you know New Years Eve is a popular time for women to have babies around here? On the news there was a special report about how many women have scheduled inductions for this day! Anyway. . .
This dress was inspired by the one Lizzie wears in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice. I always admired her pink gown and when I found the fabric for mine I immediately thought of hers! My fabric is just a plain cotton print (from Wal-Mart, they are getting rid of their fabric department in a few weeks so lots of things are on sale) and Lizzie's dress appears to be a sheer fabric but oh well, it at least is similar in color!
I used the long sleeve variation of the ELC drawstring dress. I think I'm getting the hang of putting these gowns together since this one only took me three days to get done. One day for cutting out the fabric and sewing together the bodice, one day for sewing and setting the sleeves and seaming the skirt, and one day for attaching the skirt and putting in the waist drawstring and the hem.
I made this dress with pleats and I made the train a teeny bit longer. I had more fabric to play with than I did with my striped dress so I was able to cut a more generous length for the skirt.
The one thing that bothers me now is the neckline. On Lizzie's dress she appears to have lace trim around the neckline of her dress. I have some off white cotton lace that would look nice on the neckline of my gown but I'm not sure if lace trim is period correct. Does anyone know? I know for 1860's things lace was most often used on an accessory item like a removable collar or undersleeve cuffs rather than being sewn directly to the garment itself. I honestly have no idea if the same is true for regency era gowns or not.
Happy New Years Eve!
Love,
Sarah
Life has been pretty quiet since Christmas. I think the end of a year is always a bit sad. So many lovely things happened this year to reflect upon and it seems the months went by ever so fast. We moved to a lovely new home, we were blessed richly with the tiny new wee one that is not yet here, the boys grew and learned so much, bringing so much happiness to the lives of David and I. I can't imagine them any sweeter or more joyful to be around than they are right now!
And I sew. It is something that does not require much physical activity and as I think I may be considered "great with child" presently, I do not feel so guilty not doing as much as I am used to. This afternoon I worked more on the long sleeve regency gown that could, I suppose, be called shockingly pink. It is almost done and I hope to finish it this evening, in time for New Years Eve tomorrow!
I think this is only the second adult sized dress I have ever made completely by hand. I sewed all the seams with the tiniest running stitch I could manage and all the seams are finished by felling on the inside. I was going to try french seams for the sleeves but made felled seams before I remembered I was going to try french. Oh well! The seam finish makes the dress smooth and neat on the inside and only itty bitty indentations in the fabric mark the felled seams on the outside. 
I used one row of gathering stitches then turned under the seam allowance of the back bodice and laid it over the gathering stitches and prick stitched it to the bodice. The rest of the skirt, which fit the bodice smoothly (no gathers) I just sewed right sides together. Once that was finished I bound the seam allowance.
In the front, the bound seam allowance was pressed up and the top edge stitched to the bodice to create a casing for the waist drawstring. The drawstring emerges from the inside of the gown at the side seams and is threaded on each side through fabric loops at the back bodice before being tied to fit at the center back. This makes the gown extremely forgiving in the area of fit, and easy to get on and off.
The skirt is a few inches longer in the back (with the excess length being treated at the waist, rather than the hem). This creates a very elegant silhouette, I think! I just love the trained skirts of the early regency period! This particular one is so slight that it does not in any way impede my movement or household activities.
I didn't have to add any width to the skirt in the front. The little bit of fullness created by the waist drawstring at the front creates plenty of room for my baby bump. It was nice to not have to alter a pattern for pregnancy!
The only thing I did have to alter, actually, was the cup size of the bodice front. After measuring myself and deciding what size to cut, I cut out my regular cup size but found that made the waistline too low. I had to recut it to be a cup size smaller so the waist would hit in the right spot. This was the only alteration I had to do. It is so nice to work with patterns that fit so well and require such little fitting. Sense and Sensibility patterns have always been so nice to work with in my experience!
The most time-consuming and tedious part, so far, was printing out the pages of pattern pieces and taping them together. (not an easy feat when you have two toddlers who very much enjoy the rustly sounds of paper and who very, VERY much enjoy the sounds of tearing paper). 
Since my machine doesn't work right now I'm sewing it all by hand. It is taking me a bit longer to do this than if I had a machine but I am very excited about creating this gown the way it originally would have been put together!
I did make a few changes because I only had a little over 3 yards of this material and the pattern called for more than that. To make my fabric amount work, I had to cut the bodice back so there was a seam up the center back and I had to cut the straps of the bodice seperately instead of in one piece with the bodice front. I think these changes are okay since in Janet Arnold's book she illustrates a few surviving gowns from this same period that have center back seams and seperate shoulder straps. I barely had enough fabric left to cut the skirt long enough but I was able to squeeze out the full length measurement plus a scanty 1" extra for a tiny turned hem at the bottom. 
The dress is interesting to me because it has an inner closure that you fasten before you draw up the drawstrings in the gown. This little inner front bodice is described as smoothing the lines of your stays so they will not show through your gown when you are wearing it. I made this inner lining of heavy green linen since the pattern called for a somewhat stiff, heavy fabric. 
I think next time I make this dress I will alter the shape of the lining pieces so that will fit me better. Right now the lining kind of gapes a bit at the waistline because I am not flat from the raised waist to the high point of the bust. But redrawing the slant of the front edge should cure that, I think. When I wear this dress I will have to pin the lining with more overlap at the bottom edge than at the top but that is something I can live with.
