Summer 2014 DW Fashion Design Challenge: Entry #12: Newbie

Entrant Category: Newbie

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My blog: dollsanddance.com
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1915/1916 Inspired Dress

I have never made a historically inspired doll outfit, so I knew I really wanted to make one.

My doll Ana (MYAG 23 made to be from 1916 and be Rebecca's cousin) had no historical clothes, so as soon as I heard about this, I knew I wanted to make her a dress. I was going to enter the Summer FDC, but didn't have Ana's meet dress done in time. I still need to finish the hems. :)

On about August 1st, I decided to check when the Fall FDC was, and realized I needed to get on it. So, I checked out all the Rebecca books from the library
, and spent about a day finding all the pictures and drawing them or taking pictures. This dress is kind of a modge - podge of two dresses Ana wears.

The first is in Changes for Rebecca and is gray ( I could not find a picture).
And the second just has a picture of the bottom of her dress, which looked like the same dress, but a mint green.

Here is my original sketch:

I knew it definitely had to be drop waist, but for whatever reason I didn't write that in my sketch.

I had about a yard of apple green tweed - ish, herringbone - ish fabric from my grandmother, which I thought would be perfect.

This dress was not in Rebecca and Ana, but since Ana had recently moved to the U.S., She was constantly learning. I think it is pretty safe to say any of her outfits are a learning outfit.

I was having a lot of trouble this done on time. I really just finished the dress at 9 am on the due date, so while I originally planned to make stockings, a sweater, and a tam o'shanter, then it did not end up done. I would consider this a work - in - progress. I will be (hopefully) finishing the rest sometime in the next week or two, and will post about it on my blog.

The Process of the Dress:

This is a modge - podge of pictures taken in multiple different kinds of lighting and at different locations, as well as on different dolls.

I entirely hand sewed this, as I do not currently have access to my sewing machine.

Pleating / Pinning the top:

The grey dress has a very specific way of pleating, which you can see pretty clearly in the picture ( which, as said above, I can unfortunately not find.). It wasn't too difficult, after I figured out how to do it.

This is showing you how I pleated it:

This is it with the non-pleated part of the top, which I have no idea what it would be called.

After this, I know I took pictures of the sleeves, and adding the Velcro, etc., but for whatever reason I cannot find them. So, I am jumping straight ahead to the skirt.

Hemming the skirt:

For whatever crazy reason, it takes forever for me to pleat fabric. The pleating of the skirt easily took a good 15 minutes, and overall it probably took 45 minutes to make the skirt alone.

The attaching of the belt to the top:

Finished dress

Outfit Complete:

I did not have access to my Ana doll when I took this, so I had to use my doll Ruthie instead.

For the first few photos, I really wanted to show what a girl in 1916 might be doing if you just walked in and took a picture. I tried to make them as historically accurate as possible, so I hope you enjoy!

To me she looks like she just suddenly turned around and is rather surprised, which is what I would do if someone randomly walked in and took a picture of me.

The rest of these pictures are in color, and are more posing and photo-shoot looking than the ones above:

The one above probably has the most accurate color portrayal in terms of the dress. Ruthie's hair is quite a bit more reddish than in real life, which makes her look almost exactly like Ana with gray eyes.

These are the same picture, the only difference is that one has a white vignette and the other a black. I was trying to make it look like a standard school picture, but it didn't work out as much as I wanted.

This one is another with very accurate color portrayal. I really wanted to take one of the details on the sleeve, and this one was my favorite.

This one is one I also just did to take a detail one, and ended up really liking it.

The rest are ones that I really liked when I was making the other black and white ones, but they weren't black and white enough for me. They kind of remind me of the kind of pictures that would be in an ad for a movie taking place in 1916, but made in the current age.