The Sacque and Petticoat of Purple, Part 1: The Petticoat

I have explored wrapper-making a little bit. Wrappers, as we all know, were one of the "casual wear" options of the 1860's.  Something a lady may wear in her home before dressing for the day, or something a more working class lady may have worn for hard manual labor. Or something that could be conveniently worn for pregnancy due to the possible loose front (although certainly proper "dresses", not "wrappers" per se, could be worn throughout pregnancy as well). This is the one I am using as my inspiration image for the black lawn wrapper, as of  yet a pile of fabric sitting on the sewing table:

This time I am exploring the sacque and petticoat (or saque or sack). It basically consists of a skirt (the petticoat) and a loose fitting top (the sacque) that could vary in length from hip to knee. In the past I have never found this style of dress very attractive, but , well, I suppose tastes change with time. I actually quite like this style now and I think it will be a nice addition to my wardrobe. Something different. Like the wrapper, this ensemble is "casual wear". And also like the wrapper, the loose fit is very convenient for pregnancy, although most certainly this style is *not* necessarily "maternity-only"!

original 1860's sacque and petticoat from the Met museum

Since the baby is due in August I will be going through the hot months of the year very pregnant indeed. I decided to use a very lightweight cotton for this outfit so as to be as comfortable as possible during our humid and long Illinois summers.

Sacque and Petticoat Pattern from Past Patterns

Yesterday I finally started on this outfit. I have been dreading actually cutting into the fabric because it has been so hard to find originals to look at, either extant sacque's or images of women wearing them! I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do as far as style and fit. I figured that I could at least make the petticoat with no worries since it is basically the same as any other skirt; cut the panels, sew the seams, add the hem facing, balance the waist, gather or pleat and attach to a waistband. I made the skirt 180" at the hem, and finished it with a 4" wide facing of white cotton:

The top of the skirt was folded down to the inside. More was folded down at the front than at the back, to make the skirt longer at the back. You can somewhat see this here in this inside picture of the waist:

To draw up the fullness I decided to cartridge pleat, or gauge, the waistline. Pleats are also common for skirts of this era but with a lightweight fabric gauging seems to work best, plus I love doing it and I somewhat detest pleating. Here is the gauging from the outside:

And from the inside; two rows of parallel running stitches were made along the folded top edge of the skirt and the resulting little pleats were whipped, one stitch to each pleat, to the waistband:

It has to sit a little high waisted to go over the bump which results in the hem at the front being a bit higher than the back, but it works quite nicely I think! The color in this picture is a little brighter than the actual fabric color and the color in the previous pictures is a bit washed out compared to the actual fabric color. The real color is somewhere in between; a nice, blue-grey, lilacy purple. :)

Love,
Sarah

Making a Basic Baby Gown Pattern and A Linen Dress for Anne

I took a little break from Civil War sewing this afternoon, in between making lemon bars, putting dinner in the crock pot, doing school with the boys, cleaning the henna out of the tub (the vision of a shower and tub after rinsing a headful of henna out of the hair is not a pretty sight) and refereeing many friendly wrestling matches that ended up too boy-energy-violent, to draw out a quick pattern for an A-line baby gown. There are several vintage gowns that have inspired me and they look easy enough to make, but it does help to have a plain, basic pattern to start with. So, I made a plain, basic pattern and tested it out today. I think it will work nicely, and now I can move on to more intricate styles when I have another few spare moments!

Back when the boys were little I made their Civil War gown pattern based off a onesie. It always worked really well, so that's what I did for this pattern. So easy to do! So, if you want to make a dress like this too, here's how to do it:  (or at least how I do it - no doubt there are other/better ways to do this!)

Get a big sheet of paper or cut apart a paper grocery sack (if you want to be cheap and stingy like me) ;) and draw a long vertical straight line on it. Then, select the onesie.

I always use a onesie that errs on the side of a bit large. Onesies stretch, and most gowns I make are of fabrics that are not meant to be stretchy. So you have the onesie. Okay. Fold the onesie in half and lay it on the paper so the fold is against the straight vertical line:

Trace around the neckline, shoulder and armscye. I had to fold the sleeve out of the way to trace the armscye. It probably isn't exact, but it's good enough. :) Here is what you should have after that:

To make the skirt portion, simply measured down how long you want the dress to be along the fold line (in this case, I wanted it to be about ankle length so I made it about 16" long) and draw an angled seam from the armpit down to the hem. Draw a curved seam for the bottom edge of the dress and there ya go. Easy peasey.

To make the finished pattern, take the pattern piece you just finished making and lay it on fresh paper. Trace around it, adding a 3/8" seam allowance all around (or whatever seam allowance you like using - I personally like using 3/8" for little things) and a 3" seam allowance at the bottom for a nice large hem. Mark the piece as "Back".

To make the front, trace around the back piece but omit the 3/8" seam allowance at the center line. This is so the dress can have a seam at the center back, to allow for an opening for the head to slip through. I also cut the front neckline down a little more than the back neckline:

Here are the finished front and back pattern pieces:

To make the pattern for basic little sleeves, trace around the onesie sleeve: (again, this is probably not exact but it is good enough!)

Then trace that piece on fresh paper, adding seam allowance and 1" for a hem.

To make the dress, I cut two backs and one front and two sleeves. The fabric is from a thrifted linen gown. I loved the fabric so was happy to find a use for it!

First I sewed the center back seam, leaving a few inches unsewn at the neckline. I finished the seam with a zig zag stitch and stitched down the seam allowance on the placket to finish off the edges:

I was tempted to leave the front completely plain, but I thought this lovely cotton lace, a beautiful gift from Natalie at A Frolic Through Time, looked so well with the linen that I just had to use it!

After sewing the shoulder seams, I pinned and sewed the sleeves into the armscyes while the dress was still flat. Now, I usually try to avoid this method of setting sleeves in but on a garment so small I think this is the only method that will work well when using a machine.

I pressed up the hem on the sleeves and then pinned the side seams of the dress:

After sewing the side seams it was just a simple matter of hand stitching the hems in place and finishing the neckline. I finished the neckline on this dress with a piece of bias binding. It would be easy to add a little ruffle or tiny collar to the neckline, too,  but this time I opted for what was simplest. Besides, the baby-fat double chins most infants have would hide any collar or neck decoration anyway. And who wants to be distracted from looking at chubby baby chin adorableness?

I whipped up a little baby cap to go with the gown out of the scraps of linen that were left over. There was just enough lace to lightly gather and attach to the cap, too!  

I so can't wait to make a few more gowns with some style variations, like a yoked gown with a little ruffle at the hem, a gown with tucks at the shoulders and maybe some with smocking. My poor wardrobe is going to be ransacked for blouses and dresses that I no longer wear often so I can cut them up and use them for baby clothes!

Love,
Sarah

1860's Boys Brimless Cap

So, a month or so ago I was going over the boys wardrobes for this reenacting season. Judah has gone through a large growth spurt and can barely squeeze into the clothes he wore last year, and David is not far behind. Malachi is now the recipient of the Old Tunics. I feel wretchedly guilty for not making Malachi new clothes, too, but really, why should I? I think it is honorable to the memory of our 1860's mothers to hand down clothing items that are clean, sound, and in good repair for a younger child to use. I am going to retrim a few of the nicer ones left from David and Judah and call it good and try to feel better about not making nice new clothes for my baby boy. And besides, Malachi has turned up his freckled, snobby little nose at any of the potential fabrics I have on hand for new tunics. He particularly detests the brown spotty fabric I used for his brothers tunics. I am not going to waste my time making little garments for him when he'd be sure to recite the oft'heard phrase he has been so fond of saying lately. "I'm not wearing that, Mommy. I don't like it."

David was not very interested in going through original images to get ideas for his new tunics, but Judah was. Judah at length decided on this image as one he particularly liked:

While David was away at Shiloh we draped a pattern for a tunic like the one in the image above. We did change a few things about it. We had the tunic open in the front so the boys can dress themselves. We made short sleeves so the tunics will be more comfortable to wear in the heat. I added a little white collar over the small standing band collar. This is what we ended up with: (David's, for the record, is, as usual, identical to Judah's).

None of the old caps would fit Judah. His head is now 22" in circumference! That is the same as mine. And he is four. So, I brainstormed about the best way to make the little tasseled cap seen in the original image. I remember reading before that brimless caps were worn more often by younger boys, instead of brimmed ones, so in the end I went with a basic bag hat with a fitted band around the bottom edge. I cut the outer layer of plaid wool suiting, and the lining of some scrap striped cotton left over from my hooped petti. Here you can see the basic shapes - two U shaped pieces for the top of the cap and a big rectangle for the band.

All sewn together! I fringed out some silk taffeta to make the tassel and braided a cord of silk buttonhole twist and sewed it to the center of the cap. Right now I think the tassel cord needs to be shorter and the tassel could be a bit fuller, but oh well. For a first try it is not too bad! And shortening the cord will be an easy fix.

Because the suiting has a lot of body, the cap didn't "slump" to one side like it appears the original does. It wanted to stand straight up from the head. To remedy that, I pinned and tacked a few pleats at the side of the head to make the cap "slump".

And here's some finished pics of Judah in his new cap!

Love,
Sarah

Becky's Corset

Firstly, thank you all so much for your sweet words of congratulations about our little Anne-girl. It is still incredibly hard for me to believe that we are actually having a girl. I have had some very sweet years with my little men folk and had sort of mentally resigned myself to the fact I would be a mother of boys. And now! God unexpectedly drops the blessing of a daughter in our laps. Our plans are certainly not His plans; our ways not His ways. Everyone in our family is so very excited. Actually, the day after we had the sonogram my mom called me. It had not yet been 24 hours and she had already purchased some little gowns for the baby, along with some tiny pink onesies and little pink knit pants. I think she is somewhat excited. ;) Aren't they adorable?!

I picked up some lovely sheer white cotton eyelet over the weekend (okay, it's actually a really huge, really gorgeous curtain I got for $2 at the thrift store) to make into a long gown for the baby. After the sewing I need to get done for our 1860's event next month I hope to spend some time making her some little simple gowns and caps, along with a whole mountain of linen diapers and wool soakers. . .am I really going to have enough time to get this all done before she arrives? It seems each pregnancy goes by so much faster than the previous ones. And can I just say how much more fun it is to BE pregnant with three little boys who are old enough to realize what is going on?

When Malachi was born David and Judah were ages 2 and 1 - really still babies themselves - and they didn't really get excited about him. This time around all three of them eagerly measure my belly with their hands, talk into my stomach, giggle and squeal when they feel the baby kick.

They ask hundreds of questions about the baby (exactly what do you tell them when they ask "how did the baby get in there, Mommy?! I have told them the truth but with as little specific information as will satisfy them so far - "God gives the baby to a mommy and a daddy. It is like planting the garden. The daddy plants his baby seed in Mommy, where the baby grows until it is big enough to be born.") and constantly ask me how much longer it will be until the baby is ready to "come out". David wants to know why we aren't having two babies. He can't fathom why a mommy would have TWO "udders" (um, yeah, that's what he calls them) and only have ONE baby. He was very disappointed to learn we will only have one baby this time. Apparently he had made his own little plans for a boy and a girl.

Anyway, so far this week I have finished Becky's corset. I made her chemises last week, so we are making good progress on her undies. Corsets really are so relaxing to sew. It's so fun to see how some simple materials transform into a sturdy, fitted undergarment that molds and supports the body into a period shape. I always love observing that transformation. I know, I'm weird. :) But really I do love making corsets.

Binding, topstitching and bones that won't break,

A steel busk to fasten the corset we make,

Eyelets - all twenty - and long lacing strings,

These are a few of my favorite things!

Love,
Sarah

Maternity Stays

It is time to turn our attention to some feminine sewing. After all that wool and broadcloth and shiny brass buttons spending some time working on some purely lady-stuff sewing has been so enjoyable and relaxing. Not that I don't enjoy sewing men's stuff - I do, and already have plans for a white linen frock coat for David sometime in the next month or so - but it's nice to have change. To avoid monotony. To keep things fresh.

I finished these maternity stays yesterday and today David helped me take some photos of them. With my boys I did not need special maternity stays since they carried so very low but this baby is higher than they were. I suppose I could have gotten by with my regular corset but it was a little uncomfortable around the midsection. And who *really* needs an excuse for new stays? Not me. ;)

They are simply from Mantua Maker regency stays pattern, fitted to my pre-pregnancy body, adjusted for pregnancy by adding two laced sections that go from the side front hip to just under the bust. That's it. Really easy and the lacing will allow me to expand comfortably in the front and side while allowing the rest of the stays to fit my body normally.

The only other change I made was to shorten the busk. Instead of using a busk that goes all the way to my abdomen I am using a short one that goes to the top of my baby bump. As I grow I can shorten the busk (it is just a paint stick cut to length) or remove it completely if necessary. I get better bosom shape WITH the busk in but it is not strictly necessary for bust support.

Here you can see the stays laid out flat:

Detail of the abdomen lacing. I just slit the stays to make the opening and bound the opening with a straight strip of cotton. Then I worked the eyelets and threaded the lacing through. Simple.

The short busk:

The nice thing about these stays is that they give the right shape (generally speaking) for everything from regency era up through the Civil War era. So I can wear these with my regency dresses and get a good shape, my 1820's "New Salem" dress and my 1860's dresses for reenactments. I tried this green dress on today after not having worn it the past few years. The stays work very well underneath it. The bodice is a tad long so there are some wrinkles at the side but it still fits well enough to be warrant being worn.

I seriously love my black silk quilted bonnet for this beautiful April weather. It is too bad I will have to wait til the fall to wear it to an event. Our first Civil War reenactment will be in May and by then I am sure it will be too warm for anything but a light sunbonnet or a straw fashion bonnet. Sigh. Oh well.

It is hard to believe that it is already Palm Sunday and Easter is next week. The months are whirling away and
only four are left before Baby is due!

Love,
Sarah