The tale of the cursed banyan and other sewing projects

The pattern, a manteau-de-lit, bed-gown from garsault 1769.

Lack of posts about sewing doesn’t equal not sewing at all. I’m trying to finish J’s banyan that I cut out two years ago. When I pulled it out again I couldn’t remember if I had abandoned it because I didn’t have enough fabric or if it was for another reasons. As it turned out, I do have enough fabric, but as the lining has a more narrow width than the shell fabric, there is a lot of piercing going around. Very period, very boring. Actually, I rather feel that this project is cursed because despite being such a simple garment, nothing goes right with it. First I managed to put in the gussets on the shell fabric (lovely thunder blue taffeta) the wrong way. Then the piercing on the lining was a total hassle as it is lightweight silk satin and therefore slippery. When done, I realized that I had measured the piercing on the sleeves too short and needed to put in another piece. And managed to cut those without seam allowances. Sigh. Well, at least the shell fabric and the lining are now ready to be sewn together. I wonder what will go wrong next…

I had planned to make a 1940’s blouse in green silk noil to have with me for our trip on the Orient Express on October 13 (and I look forward to it very much, we are flying to Venice, which I haven’t visited before and take the train to Paris.) However, it turned out that it wasn’t enough fabric for the pattern I wanted and lost heart about the whole project.

I’m slowly working away on the 1630’s bodice. I will start to put in the sleeves now and then it is just the stomacher left. I am also sewing on the collar; it is my “pocket project”, which I usually have on my bag to stitch on when I’m stuck somewhere like a doctor’s office or on the train.

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Working on a toile for the 15^th century brassiere, I’m just about to tackle the cups.
On November 15 there will an 18^th century party that I can actually go to. Apart from out of doors summer events I haven’t had the chance for that since December last year when we went to Finland, (and we will go again this year, yay!). And suddenly I feel that I want to sew something 18^th century, more precisely a little jacket. It ought to be a fairly quick project as I have a good basic bodice pattern. I want to make this c. 1740 jacket from The Snowshill Wade Costume Collection, patterned by Janet Arnold in Patterns of Fashion 1.

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I have wanted to make it before and even went so far as to draft the basque and sleeves, and I feel confident enough to cut the toile from the lining, thus saving even more time. The only problem I have is to decide which fabric to use. I don’t want to buy fabric, but I have enough fabrics in my stash to make it difficult to choose. At first I thought of using a piece of silk brocade, but on inspection it looked much too modern. I plan to wear it with a black taffeta petticoat and I have enough fabric to make a matching jacket, which will give me a complete black ensemble. But then I thought that I don’t have anything really warm in my 18^th century wardrobe, so why not wool? Only, I have wool in black, white, dark green and red and I just can’t decide. I think all colour could go with a black petticoat. What do you think?

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I do wish, of course, that I could get my mitt on the brocade it was originally made of. So gorgeous!

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Banyans and masked balls and straw hats, oh my

I have been a bit quiet here, but not for lack of sewing. I just haven’t much to show yet. I have finally cut out the banyan for my darling. I’m sure it will be very nice- steely blue-grey taffeta with pale grey charmeuse for lining, but charmeuse is truly hell to cut in. First time I work with it a slippery is just the beginning. There will be a matching cap and hopefully I can get a waistcoat out of the remnant fabric too.