Handsewn Prairie Dress

A little while ago I stumbled across the McCall's Costumes M4548 prairie dress pattern and loved the look of the chemise and drawers for sewing up something to wear under my 18thC inspired clothing. Unfortunately, the pattern is very out of print but I managed to find an as-new uncut copy from thecrazypatternslady on Etsy (as a side note, this is a wonderful user to checkout for a huge variety of good quality patterns).

Once the pattern arrived, I promptly decided that I actually wanted to make a blouse from the top half of the dress because those sleeves are divine. I was desperate to live out my best poofy sleeve life and the peter pan collar was an added level of gorgeous. So I fished some white cotton out of my stash and, completely ignoring the sizing measurements on the pattern, made up a size 8 version of the top.

Turns out the sizing chart on the pattern isn't just for show and I really am not a size 8 in this one! The blouse came up very short-waisted which, given it's meant to have a waistband to cover the waistline in the dress, wasn't too surprising, and getting the buttons done up across my bust and ribcage was a slightly tighter fit than I'm comfortable with. However, it's a gorgeous blouse for wearing under sleeveless dresses and a little Edwardian style brooch at the collar works really nicely.

So onto the dress itself! I'd bought 3m of this pink cotton from Dalston Mill Fabrics for another project that it ended up being a little too heavy for what I had in mind so I decided to repurpose it for this prairie dress project instead. I put my tail between my legs and headed back to the pattern envelope to find out what size I should actually make then cut out my new pattern pieces and marked up the fabric.

I've taken to hand-sewing while in long work meetings as it gives me something low-effort to keep myself from getting distracted away from the conversation at hand while I'm working from home and all meetings are online. I was itching to get started on my pink dress so I stitched up the first couple of bodice seams during a busy day of meetings and by the time I could get my sewing machine out at the end of the day, I kind of really wanted to be able to say I'd done it all by hand; and hey, the bodice is sewing up really quickly so this will be great, right? Right?

My decision to entirely handsew this dress rapidly started to seem like a daft decision as work on the skirt started and I realised how much width I was going to need to hem, pintuck, and eventually gather down. Oh, and then I decided I needed a ruffle at the bottom too because what isn't made better by a ruffle?

So 9m of pintucks, a 4m ruffle gathered down onto the hem and a lot of long, boring stitches later, I was ready to attach the skirt to the waistband and start work on the sleeves. To get maximum sleeve volume I decided to use the size 12 pattern on the size 10 bodice and I can't say I'm sorry about that decision at all!

Self-covered buttons seemed like the best way to go and I decided to use the wisdom about handworking buttonholes found in my copy of Couture Sewing Techniques so I didn't have to struggle with bound buttonholes once I'd already finished the rest of the dress and facings. Had I considered the issue of handworking buttonholes at the beginning of the project I think I probably would have attempted bound buttonholes but the amount of effort required for these once the assembly and facings are already complete was a bit more than I could handle when the end was so close!

And finally, the dress was finished! I couldn't wait to try it on as soon as I'd attached the final hook and bar to the waistband so please forgive the very sleepy look on my face - it was just about time for bed by the time these pictures were taken! You may notice my hands in pockets which isn't something that was included in the pattern but I decided to take a leaf out of the 18thC handbook and leave pocket slits to access my big tie-on pockets through because if I can't carry a paperback in my pockets, they're not longer big enough.

As a bonus, this dress makes a great, historically inspired Princess Peach costume!