Side-Laced Silk GFD

I tried to make my first silk gothic fitted dress way back in 2017, about a year after I started sewing. It went comically bad. It took 6 years of experience building before I felt ready to tackle a silk GFD again, but I'm so glad I did. This page focuses on all the things I learned that made this attempt go much better.

The Process:

For this dress, I used my 8-piece GFD pattern and adjusted the fit so that the garment would sit comfortably over the supportive chemise I had recently finished. The idea was to put the strain on the undergarment and let the delicate silk float over the body. This would reduce wrinkling in the silk and should make for a comfortable fit (since even silk twill has virtually no stretch). 

Fabric choice: Several of my historical reenactment friends swear by twill as a sturdier fabric will superior drape to tabby or plain woven materials. When Marguerite de Lyon told me about her research into 14th century sumptuary laws and her suspicion that twills were the standard, I was sold on team-twill. The hard part was finding silk twill in any color but white. I got lucky at an in-person shop in NYC and while the twill I found was quite a bit lighter than I believe medieval silks were, I loved the color and the drape.

Fabric stabilization: With my silk so light, I knew I would need a lining to give it the right weight and keep it from being sheer. Lots of 14th Century imagery shows upper class women with the insides of their garment a different color so I knew colored linings were possible. I chose a black handkerchief weight linen tabby (linen twills are harder to find than silks!). It was light enough not to drag down the silk but sturdy enough to support it.

Fabric handling: I knew I needed to flat-line the garment (lining each piece before constructing) so that the silk and the linen would act as one fabric. However, my silk was SO slippery. If I tried to cut the pieces individually from my pattern, I'd end up with different shapes. So I overlaid the fabrics, held them down with weights and clamps, and painstakingly basted each piece inside the seam allowance before cutting them out. This process took 8-10 hours for the whole 14 pattern pieces of the dress but was infinitely worth it in dealing with this difficult fabric throughout the rest of the construction process. 

Steps: When making a GFD, whether it is a 4-panel construction or 8 like this one, I always plan my steps so that I can check the fit several times in the process. For this GFD, I started by attaching each side panel to a front or back panel. This makes the rest of the finishing nearly identical to a 4-panel GFD. I then sewed up the pieces in the torso (to where I thought the skirt gores should start) and checked the fit and gore placement (height). After some minor adjustments I sewed in the gores. Next fit check focuses on the arms and armscyes. I basted in the arm pieces and checked their fit and placement (are they rotated, is the opening on the forearm big enough, etc.). When I was satisfied, I sewed on the arms and the basic garment construction was complete!

Construction Seams: For my sanity and wrist health, I do most of my interior construction seams by machine. I know how long stitching a seam takes by hand and, as a modern human with a day job, this is a practical shortcut I almost always take. The except here is the armscyes. They are so fiddly that sewing them by machine almost never turns out as nicely. So tiny hand stitches it is!

Considerations with Silk: Some silks do not take well to being machine sewn. The needle punching through the tightly woven fabric can create small runs in the weave that are very noticeable due to its shimmer. I tried a few test pieces and my silk seemed to do ok with my sewing machine but I always recommend testing a sample of your fabric. It also helps to use a fresh, sharp needle and consider using a silk needle if your machine supports it.

No project is complete without some seam ripping! I managed to sew up all the torso seams on my GFD and forgot to leave one side seam open for the laced closure. Luckily, I've got this nifty exacto-knife style seam ripper with replaceable heads.

This is the first GFD I've made with side lacing, another much debated topic in the 14th Century reenactment world. There exist a few images of women with side lacing dresses, but a vast majority show no closures or front lacing/buttons. Discussion continues if the lack of depicted closure was due to artistic limitations or stretchy fabric that had JUST enough ease to pull on. For my body shape and the flex of this fabric though, a closure was required to achieve the close fitting shape I was after.

I chose to side lace this dress for two main reasons: it is intended to be an underdress sometimes, so buttons that would interfere with the overgarment would not do, and when I choose to wear it on its own, I did not want center front laces to be the focal point of the eye on such a beautiful fabric. Side lacing seemed like a practical choice to achieve the functions and look I was after.

I was worried the side lacing wouldn't open enough near the armpit to actually get on over my shoulders, but it ended up being just fine. This dress is open from the start of the gore to the armscye.

Lacing Placement: the 14th Century uses spiral lacing as opposed to our familiar modern cross or ladder lacing. This means one lace is used and goes back and forth spiraling down the holes to the end. It is tied to itself and tucked into the garment. To get the best result, this means your eyelets have to alternate and the top and bottom set are placed a little odd to keep the pieces lined up.

Spacing: I placed these eyelets about 5/8" apart. 1/2" would have maybe resulted in a smoother closure (but taken much longer to make and to get dressed) and 3/4" would have left gaps.

Cutting: on my wool and linen dresses, I use an awl and just push my eyelets open. Silk is so tightly woven, that stretching the opening is difficult and can damange the fabric. I was very lucky to happen upon a post by @axelb.boy who was working on a 16th Century silk garment just days before I set about this task. (Check out his work if you haven't, it's impressive!) He recommended cutting a small X in the silk before using an awl to reduce running in the fabric and it worked a charm!

Materials: typically I like to use buttonhole twist for buttonholes and eyelets, but I couldn't find a color match that I liked for this garment. I used 2/20 silk embroidery thread instead, and I suspect it won't hold up as well to tough wear (it's not at tightly twisted and strong). I'm not terribly concerned about it though, as this dress isn't supportive and I expect to only wear it a few times a year.

Facing: when working with linen and wool, I always add a separate silk facing (strip of fabric) to back the eyelets or buttonholes to stabalize and strengthen them. For this garment, I self-faced and just turned over the seam allowance to use as facing. It worked fairly well but didn't give as much control as a separate facing might. I'm not sure I'd do it that way again.

I wanted to use some very small pewter buttons on the sleeves of this dress. One of the ways well to-do ladies in the later half of the 14th Century would have shown off their wealth was by having a copious amount of buttons up their sleeves. Metal if they could, fabric is they couldn't. I put q6 buttons on each sleeve between the wrist and elbow.

Placement: To make sure I placed the buttons well, I whip stitched the forearm opening closed starting at the elbow. This was helpful because the wrist was a little uneven and needed a trim. I then measured out my button spacing starting as close to the wrist as I could get and I marked the button hole placement and button placement across the whip stitched opening. This ensured the buttons and buttonholes matched up.

Preparation: Next I basted the fabric around each of the button holes. Each side only got 2-3 stitches, but this helped immensely in keeping the fabric layers together and stable once the holes were cut.

Cutting: I used my Tudor Tailor fabric chisels to cut the buttonholes. The chisels have been life changing as my button holes all come out much cleaner and straighter than with scissors.

Stitching the Buttonholes: I tested 3 materials for finishing the buttonholes: black buttonhole twist, the embrodiery thread I used for my eyelets (2/20 and untwisted), and doubled polyester sewing thread. I settled on the doubled sewing thread since it was a better color match but not as fluffy as the embroidery thread.

I use a simplified version of the buttonhole method taught in the Modern Maker books for my buttonholes but you can use a simple blanket stitch as well for buttons that won't get massive amounts of wear/strain. 

I finished the neckline of this GFD the same way I finish most of my dresses, with a narrow silk facing. This method has shown up in several fabric scraps from the 14th Century.

The facing can be cut on the bias or straight of grain. If the facing is narrower (about 1.5" total or 5/8" turned under), a straight grain facing works. With wider facings, a bias cut may be necessary. A less structured silk like twill or charmuse will more easily curve around the neckline and a stiffer fabric like a taffeta will need to be narrower and cut on the bias to make the curve.

I then sew the facing to the exterior of the garment, turn it over to the inside, and tuck the seam under. After securing it with many pins, a straight or whip stitch can be used to secure the bottom edge of the facing.

A final press with an iron really does wonders.

I hung the gown for a few days to let the fabric relax before trying it on and cutting the hem. I failed to take any pictures but I simply narrowly folded the fabric over twice and used a running stitch to secure it. 

Finished Dress:

I've quite proud of how this gown turned out. The fit is good and the dress is comfortable. 

If/when the inspiration strikes to make another silk GFD, I will feel confident tackling it. I will do a couple of things differently though:

• I will try and find a heavier silk twill. I may still need to flat line it, but it will at least not try and blow away every time I breathe. 

• I will be more conscious about how I adjust the fit. I have a swayback and often need to take material out of the center back of a garment to make it sit nicely. Taking material ONLY out of the center back however, pulled the side seams towards the back and left them a little twisted. Next time I will make sure to take material out of the front seams as well to more evenly remove excess fabric.