First design – Robe à la Polonaise

First design

This is the first design for my project, it only lacks the decorations. I’m going to use the pattern for the style of polonaise that doesn’t have waist seams, to reduce the bulk there, that will be enough with all the layers this gown has.

Now I’m working on pattern for the stays. I resized the pattern for the half boned stays from the pag.16 of Corsets and Crinolines, printed it, joined the pieces and tried it on, and it fits well, so I’ll do a mock-up with boning (cable ties, they are cheap and easy to find) to be sure before I cut the good fabric.

Robe à la polonaise – Spanish style I

Finally I’ve begun to work on my DPP project. I’ve spent almost two months deciding what I wanted to do for my BJD, as I didn’t have money to buy fabrics for myself and my stash is composed of 1 meter long pieces, and finally I’ve set for a robe à la polonaise, but with Spanish style decorations.

The Gown:

Photo from CDMT - inventary nº11531

In the last quarter of the 18th century in Spain there was a fashion for the wealthy that consisted in imitate the style of dress of the «majos», gypsies that lived in Madrid. There aren’t any extant polonaises that have that style, but I like the polonaise and the «maja» style (you can see an example in the photo), and I decided I wanted to use the two for my project.

The Pieces:

I have some 18th century undergarments for my doll, but for this project I’m only reusing the shift, so this is the list of garments I have to design and sew:

– Stays
– Underpetticoat
– Bumroll
– Petticoat
– Robe à la polonaise

The Final Note:

I’m currently working on the design of the gown and all is still only in my head, so no drawings yet. I hope to have it done in a week or so, but the stays are giving me trouble. Also, please have in mind that English is not my first lenguage and I still have problems writing complicated phrasing.

Edit 8/05/2010: I found one maja styled polonaise! I think I’ve seen it at the Museo del Traje, but I probably forgot about it. The colors are really hideous, but the decorations are interesting.

Double Period Project 2010

A partir de este mes vais a empezar a ver entradas en inglés en el blog. No asustarse, no voy a pasarme a la lengua de Shakespeare, pero voy a participar en un concurso y si quiero enseñar los diarios de costura a los jueces tendrán que estar en inglés.

El concurso lo organiza Your Wardrobe Unlockd, una revista on-line a la que estoy suscrita, y consiste en hacer un traje o parte de, dentro de un período histórico. Para que haya más variedad y participe más gente, hay dos períodos, y se puede participar en uno solo o en los dos, y yo, como soy asín de guay, voy a participar en ambos. En breve empezaréis a ver bocetillos y tal de un traje con polisón entre los años 1786-1882 y lo que quiera que haga para los años 1770-1789 (ahí me he atascado un poco y no sé si hacer un vestido a la polonesa, una chemise á la reine o un traje de maja… veremos la tela que tengo en casa)
¡Ah! Los trajes los voy a hacer para muñeca, el primero tamaño barbie y el segundo tamaño BJD 1/4 🙂