Thursday, June 30, 2011

Regency Shift/Chemise pattern

“ladies used to wear shifts; they now are called chemises: shoes are turned into sandals, stays are corsets, a girdle is a zone, a band for the head is a diadem, a gown is a robe,” quote by Althea Fanshawe  in 1806

 Well I made my pattern and I made a mock up and now it is ready to share with you!
First off this is not a pattern fro the Historical Accuracy snobs. If you want complete historical accuracy, go buy a pattern from one of the well known pattern companies.

This pattern is one that I personally developed based heavily off of Museum of Fine Arts Boston 99.664.51 and by looking at the instructions in The Ladies Economical Assistant (1808) by Kannik's Korner and The Workwoman's Guide (1838-40) and many other shifts and period diagrams for shifts.


This pattern is multi-sized, but has not been tested for all sizes. Read more bellow

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Regency Shifts and Chemises

I am developing a pattern for shifts/chesmises for the ladies to wear under their regency gowns. So today I poked around at museums to find some examples.

Museum of Fine Arts Boston 99.664.51
MFA 99.664.26
MFA 49.895
MFA 49.897
MFA 49.900

Met C.I.41.161.7
Met 1999.216.1
Met 2009.300.392

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Slippers!

My dear friend Brid has volenteered to embroider me slippers for my birthday gift. I just had to come up with a pattern.
Well today I did just that!
I put on some little brown flats that I wear with costumes, wraped some plastic wrap around my foot and then many layers of masking tape!


But like the idiot I am, I didn't have a shape in mind! so my foot sat there, all wrapped up while I googled regency slippers. I finally decided on a shape. V&A 1150&A-1901. I chose these for their square toes and no heel.
Others I considered were:
V&A T.565 to A-1913
Met 2009.300.1471a–d
Met 2009.300.1468a, b

So I drew my style lines, then cut open the toe of the shoe, since I needed to extend it to be more square. I also have a very prominent big toe, it really sticks up there! so I needed to make sure that the top pattern piece was smooth without the big bubble from the big toe! Unfortunately I  forgot to take photos of a few of these steps! By now my foot was really wanting to breath better so I cut a slit down the front to remove my foot, then removed the shoe and cut it to style. This is what it looked like then.

You can see the flats I taped over have a bit of a heel, I had to remove this in the pattern.
The top piece are shown right side up, the bottom is right side down,
Now I need to make up a mock up to test the pattern. there should be plenty of ease since they wer not taped directly over my foot.
If this works out I would like to try to make some sandals. I have been holding on to those turquoise vintage sandals to use as a sole for some new shoes for sometimes. They came from Hubby's Grandmother.
Here are some Sandals for inspiration
Beta Shoe Museum via the Regency Society of America Forum
LACMA (M.2000.10.2a-c)
Met 2001.576a, b