ok, so enough with the boy clothes already

That's right. It's three for me, one for him. Which means I now get three new dresses. Ok, so maybe it won't really work that way, but there's one thing that I really would like to do before meeting up with Julie. She'll be debuting her green Venetian dress, and I will have nothing new to wear. (I can feel your sympathy.) None of the dress ideas I've got in mind would be doable in 2 weeks, or at least, none of them would be a good idea to try to do in 2 weeks, so here's the plan. I have this generic green dress that was my first attempt at "something period." It's got a ton of problems and probably isn't worth the trouble, but here's the thing: I like it. So then, here's the problem child:

 


And here's the plan to make it a little more of a reasonable approximation of a middle class dress, prioritized so if I don't actually get it all done, the dress will hopefully be in wearable condition.

1. Tweak the bodice to make it wearable over my existing corset. The number one problem I have with the dress is that the silhouette is wrong. I've tried it on over the corset, and the girth is about right, but the shoulder straps are way too long, meaning that there are unsightly puckers under the arms and also that the corset shows at the top. I think that this can be 90% fixed by simply shortening the straps a couple of inches.

2. Make a farthingale. That'll make the skirts bigger and my legs cooler I hope. (This'll necessitate all kinds of lengthening of the skirts of course, but such is life.)

3. Remove the skirt at the waist and reattach properly. Possibly also remove the front panel from each, but it'll depend on how it hangs over the farthingale. The addition of the farthingale might be sufficient to spread the front of the skirt. If not, snip snip.

4. Add length to the skirt. I am pretty darn sure I don't have enough fabric leftover to do this properly (i.e. by hiding it under the ribbon) so I think it's getting a wide black guard at the bottom.

5. Make a new underskirt/forepart. No clue what that will be yet. Might even go shopping for that (it's only a yard, right?)

6. Make sleeves. I DO have enough green fabric left to eke out some sleeves, provided they aren't enormous.

7. Make a partlet, and wear it with my linen chemise. Could probably get away with the Flemish partlet, and probably will do that.

8. Make a caul to wear with the hat. This isn't so much optional since my hair is shorter now. However, it's at the bottom of the list because if I had time, a little blackwork design on it would be fun. Looking at this list, I probably don't have time.

9. And last but not least, if I had all the time in the world, I'd replace the ribbons on the dress with guards made of actual fabric. That would take a while and just be silly, so yeah...just mentioning it.

10. Oh well...ok so one other thing. A new girdle would be great. But I don't see it happening.

Ok that list is ridiculous. Here's what I'm really probably going to do: take up the bodice so it fits over a corset, make some sleeves and make a caul to cover my short hair. That'd make it wearable.