Mauve Gown Progress

May 22, 2008 in Costuming, Projects

Over the past several days I’ve pressed the wool and the damask for the mauve gown, and sorted through the cut damask pieces to see what would work and what wouldn’t.  As it turns out, the damask gores, sleeves, and gussets weren’t anywhere near the right size, so I used the gores to cut the linings for the sleeves and the gussets.  I got the gussets basted a couple of days ago and last night I pinned and cut the sleeve linings and got one of them basted.

And since I had a basted sleeve and gusset, I just HAD to put together one of the sleeves.  🙂  How could I not?  It looks pretty silly with all the basting in there (and oh, what a joy it’s going to be to take out all that junk when the garment is done).  Since I was smart enough to cut the sleeves such that the cuff is on the selvage, I trimmed the lining down and have already basted the cuff in place just by turning the selvage over the raw edge of the lining.  I’ll end up taking the basting out and re-turning the cuffs once I reinforce the sleeves to receive the buttons and buttonholes (more on that below).

Part of the reason I wanted to start assembly (besides the fact that pinning and basting is tedious in the extreme) was to try out sewing with the threads pulled from the wool.  So far, so good.  They definitely are nowhere near as strong as a cotton, a cotton/poly, or a linen thread, but they’ll do.  They’re so kinky from having been woven that I can’t easily get them through my wax cake so I’m working with them unwaxed.  The first couple of threads I tried doubling them and THEN putting them through the needle (so I had a loose tail) but getting two fuzzy threads through the needle eye turned out to be a big pain and so on the last one I just threaded through one side of it and tied the two ends together – yeah, that means half of it is going against the nap of the thread, but it actually was passing through the fabric MUCH more smoothly that way.  You can see that I was using backstitch for the stressed areas and a combination of running stitch and backstitch for the bulk of the seams.

The wool thread is in NO WAY strong enough to use for the stuffed buttons or for buttonholes, however.  Maybe I’ll spring for some silk thread for that part of the project.  😉

I pretty much guesstimated on how much of an opening I should leave for buttoning the sleeve – I pulled the pinned sleeve on and picked a spot that seemed reasonable.  It ended up being 4″ from the cuff, which will mean probably about 8 buttons on each.  I’m going to put woolen facings on the inside of both sides of the opening to strengthen it both for attaching the buttons and for putting in the buttonholes.  In the picture of the whole inside of the sleeve you can see the selvage turned in for the cuff and the cuff opening that will eventually get buttons.

I also am going to have to cut a second set of gores – I didn’t make them nearly wide enough for the amount of fullness I want in this gown.  Not a big deal; I’ll cut two more (probably wider than the original ones) and have double-gores in the sides of the gown.  I will DEFINITELY end up having to do some of the lining with regular medium-weight linen – probably all of the gores will be lined that way.  The most critical to me was really to get the sleeves lined in the damask, because I want to be able to turn them back and show off my lovely lining fabric.

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