Edwardian Wedding Dress: design to dress

In  my last post, I detailed my design process and my materials that I gathered to make my dress. As a quick recap, this dress is based on a court gown worn by Queen Maud of Norway in 1908/09 (sources vary) and I'll be making up the dress in a gold silk taffeta with silk chiffon and beaded lace accents.

With everything assembled, I prepped my studio setting my mannequin to my own measurements and packing away bits of previous projects. I'm all about efficiency, so I pulled out the era-specific patterns I own as a starting point rather than drafting the pattern from scratch. All gowns of this era have essentially the same foundation: a slightly high waisted bodice, straight or dolman sleeves, and a columnar skirt. The other design elements are draped over this foundation.

I pulled out the pattern that I have used most often, since I know it fits me best.  I did a quick re-measure of myself wearing the foundation garments I had selected to wear under the dress just to be certain there wasn't a major change in size and then cut out the dress lining.  This was made of a cotton voile, which is inexpensive enough that should I have to recut I wouldn't worry about the added expense.

One of the first changes I made to the base pattern was moving the opening.  The pattern I started with had a back button closure, which would drastically change the line of my design.  I moved that to a right side closure which would be essentially invisible on the finished dress. A few short tips here about moving a closure: do it first or there is no going back and remember to eliminate the seam allowance where the closure was and add it where it will be. In my case, I made the center back be a "place on fold" along what was formerly the back seam line and added a placket at the right side.  To avoid absentmindedly cutting on the existing lines, I traced the bodice pieces onto new paper and labeled them.
A whirl of green voile later, I had my bodice lining basted together and draped on my mannequin:

With the structural pieces done, it was time for the fun parts. I cut two pieces of tissue paper and draped them over the bodice lining to determine the shape I would need for the surplice front pieces. This allowed me to get a visual before cutting into my silk. It was also time to prep the lace for the sleeves and inserts. I had been given some pre-beaded lace at the end of last year, and wanted to use it for my dress. However, it was a bright white so I needed to stain it. This is not an inexpensive lace, so I stained only as much as I would need for my dress. I cut out two pieces large enough for the sleeves and bodice insert, then dyed them on the stove in a pot of very strong tea (15 tea bags in eight quarts of water):

lace soup

drying on the shower rod

I now had some lovely warm colored lace for my sleeves and inserts. Once the lace had dried, I cut out those three pieces and saved the scraps for extra beads and sequins.

The sleeve assembly is pretty basic: a french underarm seam and they are done. Of course, working with pre-beaded lace is a bit more complicated but I just removed all beads which were in the path of the seam and tied off the threads so that the rest of the beads remained in place. These were added to my bead containers for later use.

I laid the lace over the lining to see if the color worked. It was just a bit too green, so I tried it over the silk main fabric and that wasn't quite right other.  I quick visit to my silk bin netted a piece of silk organza in ivory which was perfect when laid over the silk.  It muted the gold of the silk without introducing another color, and gave the illusion of the lace being over skin only.  It also gave body to the lace which was very much needed.  To make the base for the insert, I cut a panel slightly wider than the lace out of voile and organza. I then laid the two pieces over each other, wrapping the organza around the voile on the sides to enclose the raw edges and top stitching in place. This finished panel was sewn to the bodice front lining, keeping the side lining free, and top stitching the long sides of the panel to the lining. The final step was to hand stitch the lace panel in place.

basting the organza and silk together

attaching the panel to the voile

lace panel pinned in place

That layer of the bodice complete, I cut out and assembled the silk skirt and over bodice. At this point, I was working with the bodice and skirt as two separate pieces for ease of work - being able to take the bodice off the mannequin was much easier without having to wrangle the whole dress.

I draped the silk for the bodice front, to play with where I would want to place the pleats.  These were meant to look like the dress had just been wrapped around and happened to drape perfectly.  In fact, these pleats were tacked in place to facings on both sides.

bodice draped over under bodice

with the lace edging pinned in place

skirt and bodice draped together

At this point, I tried on all of the dress pieces over my foundation garments to be certain everything fit. Satisfied all was good, it was time to start playing with trims. I basted a three inch bias strip of the cotton voile to all edges of the silk outer dress in order to support the lace edging, then stitched a bias facing of the silk which would enclose my hand stitching and give a crisp edge to the neckline and skirt hem.  That facing would remain free until all of the applique and bead work was complete.  I also placed the blue chiffon drape in preparation for placing the appliques on the train.

I'll pause here again. Next up: lace and more lace.