Regency Gown - fitting the muslin

The next step in the construction process is to fit the bodice. The Princess used pink thread to trace with basting all the stitching lines. Below is one of the sleeves with the stitching lines basted on.

This next picture below shows a closeup of how the basting lines run to the edge. Do not turn corners.

After The Princess basted in all the stitching lines, I used dark thread to baste the bodice together. It is important to remember to use the stitching line. So the dark thread is being sewn over the pink. Here is most of the bodice put together. The sleeves aren't on just yet, and the corners are clipped for fitting ease.

You can see a few of my notations. So far there are a few minor adjustments. The neckline hits perfectly, but the bottom is a smidge to high - so we will be adding 1/2" to the bottom edge to lengthen it. That is an easy fix. The armholes aren't quite right, so before I add the sleeve in, I will be dropping the bottom of the armhole about 1/2" as well. Hopefully that will fix the problem of tightness there. We also discovered that the proper underpinnings will definitely be needed. So now I am off to order those. Here is a link. Regency Underthings. And since I was ordering an item anyway ~ why not order two? So I added the jacket to complete the ensemble. Regency Spencer/Pelisse

Regency Gown Begun...

The Princess and I are sharing a sewing project - the Regency Gown from Sense and Sensibility.  

 The pattern contains multiple sizes, so the first step is to trace off the size closest to The Princess. I traced off size 14. I only traced out the bodice so far as that is the part that will have to be carefully fit to The Princess. The skirt doesn't matter at this point. The pattern is printed on very sturdy paper with nice dark lines for tracing. I just used some leftover tissue paper.

There are a number of things going on in the above photo. After I traced the printed cutting lines for size 14 onto the tissue paper and cut out that traced piece, I used my little adjustable ruler to write in the actual stitching lines. That is the dotted line penciled in exactly 5/8" from the cutting line. I then pinned the tissue to some icky practice fabric that is about the same weight as our actual fashion fabric. This will be our fitting "muslin" - some call it a toile. After pinning the pattern piece to the muslin, it is then cut out with very generous margins as you see above.

The red background you see is not a table - it is a large piece of waxed carbon tracing paper. This is where the magic begins. (This particular carbon paper can only be sourced from Richard the Thread) Before removing the white traced paper, carefully use a tracing wheel to mark all the *stitching lines*. Not the cutting lines - the stitching lines only. Also mark all notches and grain lines - and any other pertinent marks needed. Now remove the white paper and flip the pattern piece over and trace the stitching lines on the reverse side so that both pieces are now marked with stitching lines and other important fitting notations.

The Princess will take over for the next step - - - more to come.