Story of A Seamstress is hosting a Historical Inspiration Costume Festival. She has kindly invited doll costumers to participate – so I’m putting up a couple of of my ‘historically inspired’ outfits!
Introducing Bella:
Bella is a mid-century summer costume, inspired by several mid-19th Century fashion plates showing breezy summer dresses worn with wide straw hats.
I had a specific goal in mind for this costume – I wanted to use up remnants of materials i already owned, and repurpose vintage materials in as many was as possible. Doll sewing is perfect for this sort of project -the quantities needed are so small that a little goes a very long way!
I drafted a simple summer dress with a gathered bodice, and sewed it out from half a yard of pink and white striped cotton, trimmed at shoulders and waist with a remnant of antique velvet ribbon. The skirt of the dress is ornamented with self-pleats, placed to take advantage of the pink stripe in the fabric.
The pelerine is made from half of a vintage cotton collar, tucked slightly at the shoulders to fit, and fastened at the center front with a hook-and eye.
The shawl is sewn from a scrap of silk charmeuse left over from the skirt of my Regency ballgown.
The silk shawl is hand-hemmed and embroidered with silk ribbon roses – the ribbons also being tail-ends from my ribbon scrap bag! I did have to purchase the silk fringe – the shortest fringe in the local fabric shop was four inches wide – i stabilized it with strips of clear packing tape and chopped it short with a rotary cutter.
The wide summer hat is made from half of a vintage straw purse that i had found in an antique shop in Boston. Using a teacup as a mold, I steamed a rounded crown into the flat straw plate, and I trimmed the hat with wired silk ribbon roses from my wired ribbon box.
Beneath her dress, and over her hoops (courtesy of Pleasant Company) Bella wears a lace trimmed petticoat made from a hem salvaged from an old cotton summer dress. Underneath everything she wears a pair of pantaloons sewn from the very last scraps after my mother made a blouse of white cotton batiste.
Thank you for inviting me to join the Historical Inspiration Festival!
How sweet!
Wow, what a lovely, lovely gown! All those tucks…whew! Absolutely amazing!
That is so cute, nice to make clothes you don't have to worry about washing.