6/28/08
Despite the fact that I should be working on my Firefly costume, I got a bee in my bonnet to have something new for the Lumieres event next weekend. I had some grand scheme for an entirely new outfit and then realized that with everything I need to be working on this summer, that just isn't going to happen. So, I started thinking of something I might be able to add to my chemise dress, so it wouldn't feel like I was wearing the same old thing yet again. Thus was born, the IKEA open robe.
Okay, maybe I should explain the IKEA part. When my husband and I bought our house last year, it came with all of the window coverings, which was nice, because that sort of thing can get expensive, even if I made them all myself. Granted, not all of the curtains were my cup of tea, but with a little RIT dye, the majority of them turned out okay. The only ones I really didn't want were the ones in my bedroom. I liked the fabric well enough as a fabric, but they were too flowery for our bedroom. I took them down and put up a couple of panels of sheer curtains I still had from my old appartment.
It turns out that the curtains I took down were from IKEA and were sort of 18th century in feel, so I had it in mind to use them for some dress I could wear to a lumieres event. Well, it so happened that a couple of other people beat me to the punch. In all fairness, Diana was really the first, and she actually bought the curtains with the intention of making an 18th century gown. At any rate, when I finally got around to sewing 18th century again, the curtains were my first thought; after all, they've been sitting in my sewing room--in the way--for exactly a year now.
I decided to use the pattern from The Cut of Women's Clothes. I didn't have access to a scanner or projector like I usually do, so I decided just to wing it. I sketched out approximations of the pattern based on approximate measurements. Of course, the first mock up was pretty horrible, especially since I hadn't bothered to double check the size of the armscye. Fortunately, they were too small, so all I had to do was keep clipping them. I made a few adjustments based on that first mock up, and the second turned out nearly perfect--or, at least as perfect as a two-day dress is going to get. (Granted, I think I got very lucky that the first mock up was anything close to fitting. I'm not sure this project would have gone so swimmingly if it hadn't happened like that.)
I moved on to cutting my lining fabric that same afternoon. I assembled the lining and then futzed with pleating the fashion fabric for over an hour. I was trying to just take the two pannels of fabric (sewn together) and pleat them to fit the lining. I was having a really tough time with it, because according to the diagram in the book, the fashion fabric is supposed to stay relatively on grain. I realized that if that part was going to match the diagram, then I actually had to cut the fashion fabric as in the diagram instead of trying to pleat the fabric into the bodice. So, starting at the center back, I measured out my back pleats, then traced my back pattern piece, measured out the side pleats, then traced the side part of the front section, leaving the rest of the fabric for the front pleating.
After that, the sewing and pleating was easy-peasy until I got to the front pleats. After playing around with it for about an hour, I learned that I had to make the top pleat first, leaving myself a good two inches or so of fabric at the center front. Once that pleat is pinned to itself, then you have to position the second pleat so that the angle of the center front fashion fabric matches the center front of the bodice lining. There will be excess fashion fabric hanging over where the neckline angles back which will then need to be trimmed.
Once those front pleats were pinned in place, I attached the lining, wrong sides together, by simply topstitching about an eighth of an inch away from the edges. I decided on a quick and dirty solution for finishing the neck, front, and hem edges of the gown: I pressed the edges under twice and topstitched! Gasp! Horrors! But I did cover it up with trim, so the purists out there won't have to have their eyes assulted by my rush job.
And that's about as far as I got last night.
7/6/08
Oops. Sorry about the gap here, but I'm done. I even wore the robe today to a picnic. So, let me back track a little.
I had plenty of fabric left, so I cut bias strips out of one of the remaining pieces. (The woman who put them up cut about two feet off the bottom of each panel, and luckily left those pieces in the hall closet when we bought the house.) I used the bias to bind the armcyes. No problems there since I made sure the arms fit perfectly during my mock up stage, since that is one aspect of an outfit that I often (read: almost always) have problems with.
I cut the front closure pieces out of both fashion fabric and lining and sewed the two layers, right sides together along the three edges that would show. After trimming the seam allowance, turning and pressing the pieces, I pressed the unfinished edge towards the fashion fabric side. That way, when I sewed the piece to the front opening of the robe (right side of front piece to wrong side of robe) the raw edge would be hidden. I didn't attach any type of closures to the center front, since I knew I'd want to pin this closed.
While I was working with the gown, I realized that the lining kept wanting to shift up. To take care of that, I whipstitched the bottom edge of the lining to the pleats in the fashion fabric. This also served to finish the bottom edge of the lining since I hadn't thought to turn it up once before attaching the fashion fabric.
Finally, I made the tabs out of two layers of fashion fabric. I could have used a regular lining, but I had plenty of the fashion fabric left over. In the illustration, both ends of the tabs are rounded, which would have meant getting creative with how to attach the lining and then how to attach the tab to the gown. Instead, I pretty much made them the same way as the front pieces, with the straight edge attached to the front pleats. To hide the unfinished edge, I stitched the tabs on with the right sides together and the tab facing the front, and then pressed the tab back towards the side-back. I sewed button holes on the rounded edges and then stitched a button in place on the gown itself.
The tabs do a very nice job of keeping the front pleats against the body for a fitted look. I still have some wrinkling issues going on between the front pleats and the first of the back pleats. I think I just tried to fit too much fabric into the frong pleats; I was so set on using the entire panel. Fortunately, the wrinkles are hidden by my chemise gown sleeves for now, but they woudl probably show with a narrower sleeve.
Overall, I love the results. It's very fun to wear. I like that I gave it a bit of a train. The fabric is sturdy enough for it and can be washed, plus it means that I can experiment with wearing it with or without a bumroll. I wore it without today. I'm a little concerned about looking like a humpback with the bumroll, but I'll at least give it a try at some point, maybe next time I have someone over who can get me into my corset.