Category: A Silk Sacque

Hips Do Lie

On By kittycalashIn A Silk Sacque

Nine years ago, I made a pair of hip pads to go under the unfinished cross-barred sacque. This time around, I thought I should make the more common hoops or pocket panniers. I used the Dreamstress’s Pannier-Along pattern and instructions but failed in a few respects. 

My panniers are crushed by petticoats, and fold in on themselves. The canes (I used synthetic whalebone) are both too soft and probably too long. The extra length allows them to curl in at the ends so that they migrate a bit to the rear even as they squish down. The linen I selected is too lightweight for this task; I erred by choosing based on color and not weight. Of course, I had (and have) enough mid-to-heavy-weight white linen in hand, but I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough for the gown lining. (Never mind the fact that I could have purchased fabric at the workshop, I was focused on the goal and not thinking things through as thoroughly as I might have.)

Side One with Tapes and pocket slit sewn

I started this project on Monday and finished by 10:00 PM on Tuesday, with full workdays in between start and finish. The panniers are sewn entirely by hand which makes it even more sad that they’re not all they could be. They’re supposed to be collapsible for travel, and they certainly are. That means that the solutions I try should not prevent these from folding flat. 

First side all finished

It makes sense to start by pulling out the bones and trimming them a bit to prevent the curling. Another step might be cutting a pasteboard bottom insert to maintain the silhouette. This will require undoing some stitching to slip the bottom piece in but it still seems worth a try. I could double the bones (if I have enough) or supplement what’s there with canes (I do have that). 

All finished, but a little squished

That’s three ideas before I need to start over with heavier linen. Even then, I can salvage and re-use the tape channels and bones to use again. 

Sacques-Piration

On By kittycalashIn A Silk Sacque, making things

Once upon a time, I fell in love with cross-barred sacques. The style appealed to me for the way it combined a high-style 18th-century feminine form (the sacque, worn over hoops) with a tailored, streamlined look (the cross-barred fabric). That was 2013. Ten years elapsed before I tried again, without success (i.e. finishing the gown).

IMG_3414After a workshop at Burnley & Trowbridge led by Brooke Wellborn, I realized how little thought I’d given sacques in the past decade, and how little I actually knew. Workshops tend to produce that effect in me, which I why I sign up for them. When, in 2023, I looked back at what I’d been doing in 2013, I thought only of trying to complete the project. Now when I look back, I see so many things I need to change. So long, bodice fronts. So long, pleat stitching. I’m almost sure I have enough fabric left to make those changes. The width of the back pleats on the 2013 sacque suggest a style from a period earlier than I typically represent, but not impossibly early.  Still, they are stitched too far down my back– the pleats should release where the armscye starts its descent to the underarm. Deeper than that, the pleats look clumsy.

As I look even more closely, I begin to wonder if, instead, I need to make that gown over completely, possibly into an English or nightgown. The side pleats are not where I want them;  the back pulls in the wrong direction; and I don’t like where the side seam lands.  There is so much to change.

IMG_5149
Back pleats! Finding the rhythm– but also, notice the direction of the grain. Opposite gown # 1.

The gown I started at Burnley & Trowbridge was made differently from the start. The largest difference was setting a baseline from which to generate the rest of the gown. It’s a different process entirely, which is not to say that one is better than another, only that I understand the results of one better than the other.

Screenshot
Screenshot of the gown at the end of the workshop

There are points of fitting to correct in this new cross-barred sacque, all focused on smoothing the bodice. Whether that can be done while maintaining the initial sleeve set remains to be seen. I can imagine ways to manage that, but it’s definitely sewing without a safety net.

So Hip

On By kittycalashIn A Silk Sacque, Clothing, making things, Reenacting5 Comments

I don’t always feel the need to enhance my anatomy; in fact, I rarely do, but then I started on the sacque. Ah, the sacque. I nearly abandoned the whole business but then I thought I’d look pretty silly dressed as the maid, or for George Washington’s funeral instead of his birthday party.[1]

I also don’t want to have a house littered with UFOs, because that is what my knitting stash is for. In order for the sacque to look right, I need hips. HIPS.

And while I planned to make panniers AKA pocket hoops, a simpler and easier solution occurred to me. Hip pads: I’d seen them on Sharon’s site and thought I could at least try a pair. They’d help my poor fake quilted petticoat (FQP, long story[2]), which will come in handy for a party in February. So I spent my New Year’s Day making hips and playing a bit with the sacque silk.

Half hipped, or me, right after my hip replacement.
Whole hipped: symmetrical, and wide.

To make the hips, I started out by laying a piece of muslin against Cassandra, and tracing a waist arc. I worked between the muslin and paper to create a paper pattern, and then made up a muslin, which I filled with polyester stuffing and then tested under the FQP. Better, no?

Then I added the seam allowance to the paper pattern (which you can download here and print at 100% if you have a waist in the 30 inch range and want enormous hips yourself) and cut four more of linen.

After three episodes of Death Comes to Pemberly[3], I had hips. They weren’t quite the same size, but my right hip is larger or higher or something, so I put the smaller one on the right and the larger on the left to balance my own deficiencies.

The alteration to the silhouette is pretty amazing, though Mr S did laugh. Perhaps this figure is an acquired taste.

[1] All I have right now to wear with the Celebration Spencer is a black petticoat, so I’d be rocking the 1799 George-is-Dead look.

[2] The story is that I have a real one basted onto a frame but I cannot fit both the frame and a sofa in the apartment. We chose sofa. I am sad but comfy.

[3] I’m ambivalent. Though I do love Trevor Eve, I wondered why there was not more changing of dress for various times of day

Still More Sacques

On By kittycalashIn A Silk Sacque

1770-1780, Colonial Williamsburh 1999-247,A-C
ca. 1770 Colonial Williamsburg, 1993-330,A
ca. 1755 (Silk), dress remodeled ca. 1770. Colonial Williamsburg 1990-12,1
ca. 1750, altered ca. 1775, Colonial Williamsburg 1989-330,1
ca. 1775, remade late 19th century, Colonial Williamsburg, 1955-428,1
1770-1780, Colonial Williamsburg CW 1991-472, A-C

I’m particularly interested in remodeled gowns, not that I have the patience to make a ca. 1750 or 1760 gown and then re-make it, even though I suppose it would be the path to the greatest authenticity. In figuring out “what next” now that the pleats are stitched down and secured to the lining, and the front panels cut, and one even pinned, awaiting a seam, I looked at the sack/sacque in Costume Close Up. It’s both tiny and a polonaise, so it’s not the best example for me to follow, but when you’re trying to understand construction before you totally screw up  take the next steps, you look at whatever details you can.

That led me back to Colonial Williamsburg’s collections database, which I try to avoid because they don’t have stable permalinks to their records. However, they have good cataloging and an amazing collection, so it’s hard not to end up back there.

I feel a little more confident in thinking of a ca. 1770- 1775 gown with a compère front. A compère front is a false stomacher, where there are two halves sewn to either side of the opening in the bodice. The sides then button closed. Button, and not pin, people: sweet. I will gladly trade you a week of sewing buttonholes for a wardrobe failure today (Of course, I’m not sure whether a compère front is accurate for a ball gown, but I very much want to avoid a pin explosion at a public gathering.)

Trim is another tricky area: in my regular, 21st century life, I am not someone who wears ruffles and lace or even many colors other than black, brown, grey and red. When I chose the cross-barred fabric, it was a choice really grounded in who I am, and in my love of things architectural, bold, and elegant. (Thanks to my Dad and my education, I now wonder, can one make a Miesian sacque? Let’s find out.)

Serpentine trim, no matter how appropriate and accurate, is not for me. I like the simple trim on the purple gown (padded furbelows), and will probably replicate linear, and not serpentine, trim.