The mockup-dress, part four - the reveal

 And here it is, my mockup  of the reform dress ... I guess it has turned out to be a wearable mockup ... which reminds me, that there is still some felling to do ... wearable mockups should have felled seams, 

shouldn't they??? 

Photography by Dorothé Strassburger

The mockup-dress, part three - the details

the belt

The belt is simple two straps of cotton, sewn together and turned. To avoid having too much bulk either on the top or the bottom of the strap, I pressed it so the seam lies in the middle and top stitched all around the edge. During the process of draping, the belt became a decorative element only. The garment's pleating is kept in place with the help of a waistband and ...

the closure

... the closure, consisting of a button, a piece of totally not HA elastic band and a totally machine sewn button hole (after all it is a mockup, isn't it?). After fininshing this it took me several days to decide what to to with the hem. I had gathered approximately 30 cm on each side of the skirtbottom to get the silhouette more "slender" again. But this was bulky...

the rolled hem

... and somewhat unhemmable. After talking to Juul I decided to follow her advice, ungathered the gathered parts and opened the sideseams at the bottom. I then did a rolled hem by machine (because mockup!), closed the sideseams again and gathered and smocked the side once more. Now I was ready to do the ultimate finishing touch...

french seamed pockets

 ... the pockets. I finished a pair of french seamed pockets and while wearing the dress, decided on where in my side seam they should be placed. I opened the side seams at that point, sew in the pockets and closed the side seams again. And it was finished, the mockup-dress...ready to be taken out in the wild for the final photos.

But this will be shown in part four.

The mockup-dress, part two - the draping process

Now the draping fun part started ...

First of all I tucked the pointed sleeves ends back up to the upper part of the sleeve. I then checked for any "natural" pleats that are showing on my dress form. Those on the front were not so poignant ...

... but on the back there appeared this Watteau-pleat, which I instantly fell in love with.

The next couple of days I pinned and unpinned pleats...til I got a version which I really liked. This version would need some kind of belt to keep all in place and to make sure I could easily slip in and out of the dress. (The belt is described in the third part of this blog series ... as well as other little details.)

Once I decided on the finished look I basted all in place before sewing it on my machine ... 

to be continued in part three!

The mockup-dress, part one - the base

the fabric

The plan on trying to sew a dress after the Thierbach pattern was set. So here I sat, in lockdown, locking at my stash realising that no fabric in there would do for my mockup. But I had this bedspread/sheet that someone gave me once. And as I never used it anyway and it was still completly new, I stuffed it into the washing maschine and afterwards into the dryer... and yes being 100% cotton it did shrink...

the pattern

First I cleared my floor, rolled out the wrapping paper and glued two big pieces together so that I was able to transfer the pattern. And did I already say, that I had no explainatory texts just the image? That did lead to the first little misinterpretation ... the sleeves are not supposed to be cut pointed. But as I read Mrs. Thierbachs book only after I finished my mockup-dress, at that time I was only slightly puzzled and happily sewed on...

hemming the neckline

After cutting out the pattern, I first tried whether my head would fit through this really small hole ... it did (I later found out that the pattern later on was altered, as women would get their hair done first and then get dressed and this small opening would have meant to reverse that order...).

To keep it simple I traced the hole, ehm the neckline a second time on a spare piece of cloth and used this for hemming.

the sleeves

I closed the side seams and the arm seams. As the cotton has no tendency to fray, I did not fell the seams...after all, it's a mock up isn't it! After trying it on I thought I could use some more moving space and opened up the side seams again to enter underarm-gussets...and closed the sideseams again.

The sleeves had this medieval vibe, but somehow I was wondering whether they would be practical in every day life...so I deceided to sew them closed up to the opening where I would put the hand through.

So this finished part one, the base is sewn... 

...to be continued in part two

#ReformDressChallenge

Hey and welcome,

when you managed to arrive here in my blog it means you watched Juuls costube video, hopped over to my instgram afterwards and are curious or looking for a challenge or both. Clicking on the link you will be able to download a pdf with the pattern we used and use for our reform dresses plus a little extra information on it.

download

We hope you like our challenge and please show your results on instagram using the #ReformDressChallenge hashtag and tag either Juul or me in your posts.