Regency on a Shoe String: A New Frock

My American friends have been asking where I buy my fabrics. I am not much of a shopper, I really hate being out shopping for things, I tend to be the type that goes into a store with an idea, and quickly scan until I see it, buy it, then back home. We are royalty at doing Costco in under 15 minutes.
Shopping for fabric is a whole different ballgame though. I love me some fabric stores, and each one has a different personality. Fabricville is a chain store in eastern Canada. Also known as Fabricland in Ontario. It's laid out so new fabrics are at the front of the store, and they slowly move to the back of the store as new fabrics are brought in. They end up on the 'wall', heavily discounted, and this is where you can find the best pieces. The wall is usually a disaster area. Women root, throw bolts around, generally make an entire mess of it, and that's the fun. It also gave me a steady job to do each time I have worked there for money. If I wasn't on cash, or cutting, I was tidying. Not all of my paychecks went towards fabric, but I did drop a few dollars there over the years. Most times when I buy fabric, it tells me what it wants to be made into long before I leave the store, wall fabrics are different. I tend to buy the whole bolt of something if it is a 'good' fabric, sometimes I have bought whole collections of fabrics, which is why I ended up with several kinds of black linen with white stripes. If anything, they will make good linings.

So most of this project is made from stuff I have bought from the wall. I have spent no more than 3$/metre CDN on each piece. The two wools I will be using came from other project's leftovers, one even started life in my care from the 'free love bin' at NSCAD University, our version of the take one penny leave one penny bin. So a chunk of wool for free, yes, Yoink!

Linen Stripe on the left, wool check from the free love bin for the Spencer on the right

My new frock came from one of those three, maybe four different pieces of black with white stripe linen off the wall. I've given some of it away, but pulled out the pieces I had left and figured out I might have enough of one pattern of stripe for a frock, and the smaller piece of different stripe pattern I would use as lining for my Spencer.
Once my stays were bound off, and I got a paying client's project ready to send off in the mail, I started the new gown. I quickly draped a pattern for myself, but honestly, there is no harm in using one of the many good quality patterns out there on the market (*cough* Laughing Moon). I just didn't have one at hand, and didn't feel like buying one, and could do the project by cutting my own. Regency is not complicated. It's basically a nightgown.

I went on Pinterest and just started looking, looking at seam placement, and styles, and pulled up a few EXTANT garments to use as reference. It's important to not copy other reenactor's clothes when you are making new clothing for yourself. You don't know what corners they cut, or what they didn't see when they built their garments. Always go to the primary source if you can. You will learn something new every time you do, or at least I do...I use Pinterest a lot.

Here is my little fitted linen bodice that will become my lining for my gown

There are a lot of seams on this project that I whipped up on machine. I needed this to be a quick project too, as I have two clients waiting in the wings for new clothing themselves, so this project cannot take up a lot of my time. I have made the decision to do any seam that doesn't show by machine, and save my hand work for things that will show. There are also a couple of spots inside where I have used the serger to finish my seam allowances, in case this goes on to live in another home and I no longer have control over it's laundering.

I thought for sure I had taken more construction images, but I guess I was lazy. The fashion fabric was hand stitched to the linen bodice. The style is a bib front, with the lining buttoning at the centre front, and the bib buttoning at the front shoulder strap seams. The skirt is two and a half widths of fabric, with the half width being in the front, the two full widths are gathered into the back. I had wanted to have a pleat or two at the hem, like is fashionable for the period, used to hold the hem out from the body, but I just didn't have enough cloth. Instead, I put a ten inch wide hem facing on the skirt, using the same linen I lined the bodice in. This will have to do. Buttons are all from the button box, vintage shell buttons from last century sometime. The skirt comes to my ankles, good for walking around the farm in mud season, which in Nova Scotia starts in October, and goes until June. Plus, it will show off the sexy new boots Margaret Hubley is making for me.

I began on July 31st, took Saturday and Sunday off, and finished late yesterday. So in all, four days of easy work, afternoons only. In the morning, I have been writing my dissertation.

I started the Spencer today, and promise there will be more construction shots.