2023:2 An 18th century shortgown
Kategori: Allmänt, Historic Sew Montly 23, Stashbusting
2022 was not a sewing year for me, for a multitude of (mostly severely overworked) reasons. I have tried to (start to) remedy that. Helped by the fact that the weather over the Christmas holidays was great for INdoor pursuits and I hurt my achilles tendons in some weird way right before and got stern instructions from my physiotherapist to take it easy with... everything, really, I was well set up for crafts.
The most of the holidays was spent on the farm, where me and my mum put up our very first weave. It took us about one and a half years after the excellent weaving course at Sätergläntan (which is open again this summer, GO SIGN UP NOW if you speak Swedish, Sara Kånåhols is an absolutely stellar teacher!) and it took forever, but we made it. Approaching snow storms kept me from starting to weave as I had to head south before I got caught in it, but weaving the easy part anyway once the weft is in the loom.
Back home, the weather was still very indoors friendly and almost two weeks of ten hours of sleep per night was starting to show: I felt the tingling of an urge to Make Something. I wanted a small project, and I wanted to use my stash - for the Very Adult reason that I want to not buy stuff all the time, but instead using that I have, and for the considerably Less Adult Reason that my fabric cupboard is more or less filled to the brim, so either I make some space or I will not be able to find space for new fabric finds. One of the things I did do in 2022 was to make an inventory with an excel sheet to match, so when I want to start something I don't need to pull All The Fabrics out first thing so see what I have. This gave me a rather unpleasant insight in how much fabric I have, but it has also made planning A LOT easier.
After some looking at said list and trying to decide what I could do that could be finished fairly quickly and not use fabric I should really save for something special, I settled on an old idea: a shortgown, made from some printed cotton fabric I picked up at random at my local shop. They rarely have fabrics I can use, so when they do I try so snatch them up as soon as possible - it feels kind of sad to only go there for notions. So here goes.
I really like 18th century clothing. It's silly and over the top, and I guess that this is what is likely to come to mind:
(Francois Boucher: Madame de Pompadour, ca 1756-58. National Gallery of Scotland)
Frills and silks and more bows than should be possible to fit onto a single gown. The excesses that ultimately led to the French Revolution. Extra everything.
I mean, not that I would necessarily say no to a silk taffeta gown and/or keeping a salon, but there is also a lot of other 18th century stuff and I happen to (generally) have a soft spot for the simpler fashions - the sort of "having mostly enough" middling stort of fashion, nice looking but made for wear and doing stuff in. And one interesting thing popping ut while I was researching for the Housemaid project was the concept of shortgowns. A lot of the references are American, but there are also several extant Swedish examples, for example this from outside Stockholm and this from Visby. While the 18th century is a lot about whalebone and flat fronts and long narrow torsos, this is suddenly a fairly shapeless garment, hiding all the careful shaping under it.
I dug into my stash and found two cotton fabrics: the piece I picked up at the local shop, a white and brown printed cotton, and a leftover solid colour grey one I bought a bolt of ages ago to use as lining and interlining - nothing fancy, as there is a light damage along the fold of the latter. For this project, though, a slightly damaged fabric was perfect. The original fabrics are likely to have been re-used from other garments or even furniture, apparently - bleach damage included.
The patterns are kind of small in size, so I eyeballed them, measured my fabric and ended up with a pattern more like the Visby one (top image), but without the collar and facings.
The fabric was not quite even, not at the cut off ends and not along the selvedges either which meant that I didn't have quite as long a piece as I thought. As you can see, I needed also needed to piece the sleeves, but that was in done in the original too. Hindsight: had I stopped to think, I would have pieced some more as well as made the sleeves wider. At least an inch wider. Stupid me.
As it happened, I didn't think and the sleeves ended up WAY too narrow, and with the curved side seam adding a gusset would have been a pain. Instead I decided that this was mostly a mockup anyway and did as tiny seam allowances as I possibly dared. Time will tell if it was too tiny. With such tiny seam allowances, my original plan of flatlining* and rning the fashion fabric seam allowances over didn't work. Instead I added a twill tape on the inside, to cover the raw edges and hopefully keep the seams from being ripped open at the shortgown's first outing. I also abandoned a vague plan of going for something to mimic (one of) the exant version's cotton wadding, since there wasn't enough room for that.
It's blue because that's what I had in my stash.
I then added leftover synthetic satin ribbon from another project (which is obviously not period, but even I had not aimed for stash busting, silk satin ribbons are not super easy to get hold of), handsewed the neckline and hem and voilà, all done.
The finished shortgown, front and back. It's a bit shorter than I'd like, and next time I will adjust the pattern to be more rounded in the back since it looks kind of weird now. Not at all planned, but I like how the ribbon match my traditional folk costume skirt which I put on the mannequin for photos. The blues are slightly more navy/muted IRL.
All in all, I am reasonably happy. The print is a better fit for the first half of the 19th century than second half of the 18th, there are a lot of sizing issues and such, but for a wearable toile and foray into a totally new period, I think it's ok. If I am suddenly invited to a middling sort of 18th century event and people are prepared to squint, I could maybe even get by!
The facts
The challenge: 2023:2, Reality is Unrealistic
What the item is: an 18th century shortgown
How it fits the challenge: it's a loose fitting shape, not a whalebone bonanza
Material: Printed cotton, solid colour grey cotton for lining.
Pattern: Drafted from extant garments
Year: 1750-90s ish
Notions: Polyester thread (I wasn't about to waste silk on this, given the sizing issues), synthetic satin ribbon
How historically accurate is it? With patterns from extant garments and mostly period appropriate fabrics, not too bad. Deductions for the slightly anachronistc print and for a bit of ?? and shortcuts in the construction (not all by hand) and seams. 75% if I am kind?
Hours to complete: About 15-20 including pattern construction. A lot of i
First worn: Not yet.
Total cost: Old stash, so hard to tell, but I guess no more than 10-15 euros.
How it fits the challenge: it's a loose fitting shape, not a whalebone bonanza
Material: Printed cotton, solid colour grey cotton for lining.
Pattern: Drafted from extant garments
Year: 1750-90s ish
Notions: Polyester thread (I wasn't about to waste silk on this, given the sizing issues), synthetic satin ribbon
How historically accurate is it? With patterns from extant garments and mostly period appropriate fabrics, not too bad. Deductions for the slightly anachronistc print and for a bit of ?? and shortcuts in the construction (not all by hand) and seams. 75% if I am kind?
Hours to complete: About 15-20 including pattern construction. A lot of i
First worn: Not yet.
Total cost: Old stash, so hard to tell, but I guess no more than 10-15 euros.
*I have honestly no idea if this is the done thing or not. I put this on the lazy account, and will check it properly if and when I do something in a more period appropriate print.
