Regency summer dress with smocking details.

This week's task

- not so much working on a basic shape but looking at how to modify and extend this to create detail. Instead of straight gathering  I decided to make the gather decorative and an integral part of the overall garment design. This is the start of Gwendoline's summer wardrobe. Rather Georgette Heyer, fresh, bright, innocent.

Met Museum Spencer

Pelisse, 1815-20

Smocking has a long history, it is a way of using pleating to alter shape,  of drawing areas in and allowing fullness in others without fancy cutting. It has become decorative, patterns sewn onto the pleats, or  creating patterns by how the pleats are formed. When looking for ideas I  went for the latter technique, the former is something I associate with either Farmer Giles or small children.


 The associations with the second technique are no more promising - silk fancy cushions -  but  it did look more like some of the details of some regency clothing. The technique is simple. Mark a grid on the fabric and sew points together to make pleats. Most things sound simple in such basic terms! It did require precision, neatness and patience, not my natural skill base.                                   .

 

To keep life simple - gingham! The smocking grid comes ready made with  this fabric. Gingham was around and used in the period but sometimes as a stripe rather than a check. 

"My mother told me that my childhood had passed away; I was now seventeen, and must for the future be dressed suitably to the class of lady into which I had passed. ...

Two or three gingham dresses of different colours very neatly made with frills, tucks, flounces etc. Two or three cambrick muslins in the same style with embroidery upon them, and one pale lilac silk, pattern a very small check, to be worn on very grand occasions......”. (1814)   

from ‘Memoirs of a Highland Lady’ by Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus.

 

So to begin...

It was going to be a bib front dress with a trained skirt but the fabric just wouldn't drape, the skirt was clumsy and gaped, so it was converted into a basic open robe with diamond back, high waist, straight skirt gathered at the back and overlapping front. But I also needed to know how much extra to include for the smocking, so experiment time....

the pieces

The purple sample is an interlocking leaf kind of pattern, made of 3 double rows of diagonal gathers. It seemed quite straightforward. The little squares pattern  is formed by pulling in 4 corners to a centre, this seemed more complex, first impressions are definitely misleading.

Areas to smock - sleeves, centre back, possibly the top of the skirt gathers at the back.  The back  gathers are large and left  a real question about how to deal with the fullness in such a small  area. The cuff edges are held by bias binding and the fullness above is pleated into the top of the sleeve  seam. This worked so well that I got carried away. Must remember that good ideas should be handled with care. The gingham is not really that nice, it looked so flat that a bit of detail on the skirt seemed the way to go. Could the technique be used to create interest and texture rather than gathering? Probably, but not by me! It began with the same pattern as on the sleeve but in miniature down the skirt front edges. This is a simple pattern but all of a sudden I couldn't understand it, which way should the diagonals go? How do they line up with each other? It also gathered up quite alarmingly, but looked great when rolled to make the edge. Phase 2 was the little squares,  2 side by side with a space above and below to make a column. So easy! This has  pulled up the hem but this could be pressed out  to a great extent. 
The dress was done, only the usual problems about buttons, I tried some covered discs but the fabric frayed too much at this scale so emergency beads are in place until I find something.  So of course I made an underdress out of the scraps, as you do.  The things I find to do when there is housework waiting and the lawn to mow..... I had intended a white slip, but the gingham fabric needed using up....

  

The positive - the sleeves. They have a sense of self importance and are more than prepared to stand up for themselves. It was surprisingly easy to work and they went in first time. I would imagine they would not be easy to wear, acting like shoulder pads, rising up to attack whenever the arm is raised too high. The gathering does work well visually, but caution is needed. For some areas a separate panel  might be answer. If I had sectioned the back into 3 it might have sat flat. against the torso. 

Negative - distortion. The front will need to be blocked to flatten it out a bit more. This will happen after the wash it needs and re buttoning. The self covered button idea looked charming  but was impossible, they needed recovering every time they were used. I must find  a decent solution to this as the beads are too small, the dress looks cross-eyed.

 

Would I make this full scale? Yes, but with modifications, and not in yellow gingham!

 

 And then the fun bit - creating a fashion plate-  The pose is from an 1824 Ackermann's Repository ball dress. The lady was eating an ice but  this has changed into sewing.

oh, and of course....
The Hider of Scissors. My own personal sewing demon, mischievous not really evil.