Diggins Dress

This dress was started back in 2007 (I think?) and only completed in 2010, for the Columbia Diggins event in Columbia, CA.

Three years ago at Christmastime, some friends of mine who do a local(ish?) reenactment event every year invited my Dickens Fair cast up to teach Victorian dance at the event. I got really excited about it, and churned out most of a dress in about two weeks... and then it became totally evident that I wasn't going to be able to make it. It got put aside until June of 2010, when I decided that come hell or high water, I was going to Diggins this year.

The pattern is a combination of two patterns I own: a McCall pattern (McCalls 4548 for those of you wondering) that looks deceptively costumey but that is just as period as my Truly Victorian one, and has the benefit of a built in button stand; and one of the lovely and out-of-print Martha McCain ones from Simplicity. I just didn't like the McCalls sleeves - they read too 1890s to me.

The dress itself is a printed calico that I bought from JoAnns way back when. I actually have a matching dress length in blue kicking around in my stash somewhere, waiting to be made up into something useful. The whole thing is interlined with a damask stripe poly/cotton blend bedsheet. (There's a story to this - suffice to say I have about 50 pounds of these bedsheets. They're incredibly useful and versatile.) The bodice is made in a period/traditional style, with interlined panels, pinked and whipstitched seam allowances on the inside, boned front darts, and a waist tape. Somewhere in there among all the hand sewing, I also made a circle petticoat (again of bedsheet) and gave it three gathered flounces using my ruffler foot. I dug an old cotton pique and lace collar out of my thrift store stash, and found that it fit.

Over the last week, I came home from work and settled down on the couch with Netflix and my boyfriend, and did tons of hand bound buttonholes. I've still got to whip down the collar and put fasteners on the cuffs and waistbands (which I hate, which is why I've procrastinated so long), but it's definitely wearable.

Petticoat of winning and ruffles! :D Needs some starch, but omg RUFFLES!!!

Need hooks and eyes on the waistband and placket, but hey, it's wearable!

No, I haven't finished tacking the collar on, yes some things need to be changed (like that bottom edge that doesn't quite line up), but the buttons are on and the buttonholes are done by hand. That's gotta count for something, right?

Here you can see the redonky-donk big sleeves. You'd think I was twenty years out of fashion, or fifty ahead of it...

The overall impression is that I'm smirking at the irony of this getting done three years late.

Still didn't get that collar eased in right, and I have one wayward petticoat ruffle. But the rest is pretty! :D