My Crazy Paisley Orange 1830's Dress

 As all I've blogged about this month is orange dresses, I decided I might as well continue the trend, and finally share the orange 1830's I made last summer:

Poofy sleeves, detailed bodice, cartridge pleated skirt, wild print. This dress has everything I love about the 1830's.

I acquired the fabric when it was clearanced at Wal-Mart about 5 years ago. (At the same time as I picked up the fabric for my sister's "bustle" dress.) 

It's not a perfect reproduction of an 1830's print, but the orange paisley gave the right feel. Roller printing became a thing in the early 1800's, and by the 1820's and 1830's, the prints were wild! Roller printing was considerably faster than block printing, and you could use up to 6 colors at a time, making detailed, colorful, prints fairly cheap and easily accessible.

Thus, when I picked up a bolt of this fabric for $3 a yard, I knew immediately that it was going to become an 1830's dress. I just needed to figure out the details.

Over the next few years, in between other projects, I perused cotton print 1830's dresses on Pinterest, saving specifically inspirational ones to this board. 

I wanted a dress with very puffy sleeves, and some sort of interesting detail on the bodice. I was aiming for early to mid 1830's. 

1832-35 Cotton Dress. Met Museum 2009.300.948a–c

By the time I was finally ready to cut into my fabric, I had it narrowed down to basically re-creating this dress from the Met Museum. 

I started with Butterick 5832, the pattern from my purple plaid wool dress, and the pattern pieces I'd altered to make my 1836 "Alice in Wonderland" evening gown the previous fall. 

I used the darted bodice lining pattern, raised the neckline to match my inspiration dress, and attempted to change the angle of the shoulder seams to be more historically accurate. When I tried the dress on for the first time after finishing it, I realized I completely failed at fixing the angle. Somehow I think I got it backward? Anyway, I was home sick when I started this project (which is why/how I actually had time to finally make this dress.), and clearly the fever I had affected my ability to figure out the correct shoulder seam angle. Thankfully, the rest of my pattern alterations turned out just fine.

Using the "slash and spread" method to add extra fullness, I altered the bodice overlay pieces to get the fun gathered detail from my inspiration dress. The outer bodice pieces were layered onto the bodice lining, edges were piped, and the layers were sewn into place. 

Any visible stitching was done by hand, but everything else was machine sewn. With the exception of setting the sleeves.

I drafted the full circle sleeves from The Workwoman's Guide - an 1838 publication that is now open source on the internet. It contains pattern diagrams for all sorts of 1830's things! 

The circle sleeve pattern is the fullest of the full - each sleeve took over a full yard of fabric! That's A LOT of fabric to gather into an armhole. I gathered it down using machine basting stitches, but then decided that thanks to the shear volume of fabric, hand sewing the sleeves into the armholes would be best.

I was able to use the row of machine stitches, from piping the armhole, as my seam allowance guide.

Speaking of gathering large volumes of fabric down, the skirt is made from 3 panels of 44" wide fabric. The bottom 12" or so is faced with a random quilting cotton from my stash.

I added inseam pockets on either side of the front skirt panel, and I left several inches of the center back seam open at the top to make a placket. The top edge of the skirt was then folded under a couple inches and cartridge pleated, using two rows of stitches.

The gathered up skirt was then whip stitched to a piece of twill tape, which was then whip stitched to the bottom edge of the bodice, under the waistband.

Hooks and eyes down the back, and the dress was done!

This dress took me about 3 weeks, start to finish.

And about two months after I finished it, I found an excuse to wear it.

My sister's birthday tea!

We set up a pretty table on the front porch, my grandma came over for the occasion, and my mom, sister, and I all used it as an excuse to dress up!

My sister in 1880's, my mom in 1840's (still not blogged, sorry!), and me in 1830's! All in yellow and orange!

After several years of dreaming about it, it's a lot of fun to now have this dress in my costume closet.

Now I just need to make a bonnet, some sleeve plumpers, and a few other accessories, before I wear it again. 

What the item is: 1830’s Cotton Dress
The Challenge: At the museum - I copied the bodice design of an 1830’s dress at the Met Museum
Material: Cotton Paisley print, white cotton lining
Pattern: Butterick 5832, heavily altered, with sleeves from the Workwomen’s Guide
Year: 1835-ish
Notions: thread, hooks and eyes, cotton cord for piping.
How historically accurate is it? The print isn’t perfect, it’s more inspired than exact. The construction is about 50/50 machine and hand sewn - internal construction done by machine, all visible stitching and finish work done by hand. The pattern is decent, but I didn’t get the shoulder seams quite right. The overall look is good, as is the order of construction, seam finishes, closures, and such. Somewhere between 50%-75% I think.
Hours to complete: I don’t even know. It took me about a month of a few hours snatched here and there.
First worn: For my sister’s birthday tea August 2022
Total cost: The fabric was $3 a yard, found on clearance several years ago. I used about 6 yards. $18 total. The lining was a thrifted sheet. I paid $4 for the sheet and I’ve used a little bit here and there for different projects. Less than $1 of sheet for this project. Pattern was left over from a previous project. Cotton yarn, thread, and hooks and eyes were stash/left over from other projects, but we can add a couple dollars for them. So in all I’d say right around $20, give or take for the materials.
I paid $40 for The Workwomen’s Guide, and this is the first project I’ve used that book for, so you can add it to the total of you’d like.