Fourth and final toille!!

Right so today I began my fourth and final toille!! Very exciting I know but also pretty scary as time seems to be flying by!! I began by setting up the mannequin with the corset and set to the correct measurements as I am hoping that this will fit my housmeate so I will be able to take photos of her wearing it for future reference. I draped on a stand until I was happy with seams and also the shape of the jacket. Initially I was thinking of making a pattern and then adapting but as the project is called '19th century cutting on a stand' I thought I'd do the latter!

I created a shape that was sleak and close fitting to the body. This looked good but when I then reffered back to the drawing of my design I realised that the skirt part of the jacket had movement and body to it. After a bit of faffing, I realsied this needs to be tweaked!

First attempt: Draped fabric, close fitting to mannequin.

Front

Side

Side-back.

Back.

As you can see it works well however it is tight to the body.

I then realised that underneath the calico needs to be a greater shape so that wen the fabric is draped ontop, the correct sillhoutte will be formed. As I have the bustle peticoat on the mannewuin, I realised that I need to pad the peticoat out. I stupidly un did all the gathered pieces of calico I created for my second toille, so I have spent the afternoon creating these and re-padding the mannequin..

One step forward, two steps back!!

I then realised that by having the jacket pieces in strips and attached by seams, this doesn't allow for any movement either as it is too rigid. In my last project I created a jacket type piece over a set of pocet hoops. Too allow for the extra fabric to sit over these I bought a piece from the back pannel that would be pleated along the waist line. This meant there was extra fabric and allowed for pleating over the pocket hoops. It also allowed the fabric to pleat and sit correctly. I am hoping this will happen with this toille!

Tomorrow I am planning on carrying on and really getting on. I need to nip to haberdashery to colect more calico..