Step By Step Sewing Tutorial - Truly Victorian Sewing Pattern Review 🧵TV-467

This is the Truly Victorian 1886 Evening Bodice TV467. This bodice will fit over a bustle. It is suitable for the years 1885 through 1889 Gilded Age Era. The front of this bodice has an over front with pleats on the shoulders and gathers below the bust and opens over the fitted under bust at the center front. Below the gathers, a separate vest sews into the front darts and can be made in the same or contrasting fabric. The under bodice has a rounded neckline with a narrow shoulder strap. The front waist is pointed and the sides curve upward over the hip. The bodice back has a bow that is created by side back pieces that pleat up high in the center back and attach to the center back point with ties. The closure is in the center back with grommets and lacing. The sleeve is a small evening sleeve with pleats at the top of the armhole. This bodice is designed to fit snugly over a corset and over any sized bustle. Sizing for this bodice is based upon your final measurement after you are in a corset. I will be lacing my red threaded corset to 1 inch gap on their pre-made 1880 Victorian corset size small. Though styles changed rapidly over these decades, they still emphasized an elongated waist with smooth hip. Compared to their 1860s scored corset, it has a higher bust height and a longer hip line with boning over the entire hip to best suit the close fitted silhouettes of the period. This corset nips at the waist, smooths the hips and torso, and supports the bust without creating a dramatic modern push-up effect. It hits mid bust and this more natural bust line is historically appropriate. This is appropriate for 1875 to 1900. The corset, not the bodice. After cutting out all of the fabric, flat line the fashion fabric pieces 1, 4, 5, and 6 with inner lining. Base the lining and fashion fabric together. Plan on quite a few hours to do this. Once the pieces are basted together, treat them as a single piece. Do not skip this part. As the neckline is a cut bias and prone to stretching, sew a stay stitch along the neckline to reduce the chances of a misshapen neck. With the over front, fold the front edge to the wrong side 1 inch and press into place. Lay over fronts onto fronts, matching the armhole, the side, and the hem edge. Once you have everything lined up, baste along the armpit and the sides. This is now one piece. This is the part that everyone that I spoke to said to ignore the directions. The directions say to create gathers, but in the end, everyone who I spoke to who had made this prior to me said that they ended up having to stitch rip out all of the gathers and then create pleats because things weren't laying correct. So I'm going to skip that gather section no matter what and go straight to pleating. With the vest, fold the top edge to the wrong side 1 inch and press in place. Trim the side edge of the fold so that it is even with the rest of the pleats. Place the vest over the front, matching the center front and hem edges. The side edge should match with the center of the front dart. Baste around the side and bottom edges of the vest to hold it in place. Sew the front dart, being sure to catch the vest inside the dart. It says that you can clip the center of the dart open if necessary to help fit the vest into the dart, but I didn't need to do that. At a later point, you're going to want to hand stitch the top edge of the vest over the pleats to hold in place, but I decided to wait on that until I actually had this on me to make sure that I didn't want to adjust the pleats. I also did this section out of order from the directions, and I suggest that you do the same. This is the point that I did the side dart. Why didn't I do all of the darts when they said to do the darts? Because I felt that I could get a better evenness and symmetrical behavior of the fabric if I waited to this point, and I was right. Sew the fronts together along the center of the front edge. Take your time here. Make sure that every single last bit of this lines up. Mark exactly where you want the bias tape to end on the front of the bodice. Sew a stay stitch to ensure minimal stretching and a perfect guideline. This is the point where I double checked and remarked all of the boning measurements. Sew boning to the front darts, the center front seam, and the side front seam. I don't know who put the fear of sewing casings and bones into a dress, but they lied to me. It's a straight stitch. It goes exactly where you already sewed something together. You fold the material around the bone, and in the case, you sew it to the seam allowance. That's it. There is no secret here. Sew the sides to the front, create another casing, and sew the boning where the side meets the front. At this point in the video, you are likely about six, maybe seven minutes in. In reality, I've spent a solid two weeks of my life getting to this point. It will be faster next time, because within sewing, experience is everything. We have the front done, mostly, so now it's time to deal with the back. Fold the center back edge of the backs to the fashion side by one inch and a quarter. Do not press, but pin in place. The reason you don't want to iron the fold is because you are about to do a cool flippy thing. Fold the center back edge back on itself over the wrong side by one quarter of an inch and then press just the one fourth fold. With the back facing, turn the top edge of the wrong side by half an inch and press. Then lay the back facing over the bottom edge of the back, the right sides together, matching the side and bottom edges. The back edge will lay over the folds of the back, so along the entire bottom edge. I have now had my nervous breakdown, and I'm ready to continue with this project. Let me show you a couple of things that you want to avoid, or that you want to understand about this pattern. First, if you take a binding and just sort of go over the top, you may make it look absolutely beautiful. However, it will extend your entire shoulder out by half an inch. Take a look. Also, if you do it this way, where you weren't planning on how this attached, please note that the way that worked resulted in half an inch disappearing and being used up. So therefore, if you want to do a binding like this, you need to figure out a way to keep this part open and up. How you're going to plan on doing that with the clever, very clever, oh look at me messing things up. Okay, give me a second. The exceptional clever way that this flipped and closed. I mean, this is beautiful. And like this is just going to slide right in here. And then we just sort of do a nice little seam down there, and then the boning is in. This is great. So, the original point where I did the pleats needs to be further over. It would have to start at the soonest right there. Also, maybe planning that this goes in would be a good idea. So, I love these pleats. It is the only reason that I didn't just rip this apart already and then tuck this down, re-sew this down here, and then this whole thing would actually fit because you can see exactly the measurement that it isn't. Oh my goodness. It's just that this looks so nice and I fiddled with it for so long. And if I have to re-do this, so my choices are stitch rip, flip, re-do these, or cut along here and then have everything even. It just moved in. My shoulder just moved in towards my neck by half an inch. I am sure that I can handle that. Now, the problem with that, though, is that I am not entirely sure where I would attach my sleeve. So, in other words, all of the pleating really needed to exist from here to here. Like, I want you to look at this specifically. From here to about right here, this is where the sleeve would end up. Sew the binding to the front. I suggest finding a few quilting videos to watch to perfect where the fronts meet at an angle on the bias. Insert and sew the boning into the back. By far, this is the easiest one. Sew the side backs to the backs along the curved seam. End the stitching at the dot on the side back half an inch below the top of the extension section. Clip the seam allowance into the end of the stitching. 100% of the directions from here on out tell you exactly where to stop sewing so that you can continue to do the clever flippity do da thing that we did with the side front. It's clever. Just trust it. Sew bodice stays to the back side back and the side back side seams. For curved side back seams, use spiral boning. Start the boning about 4 inches below the armhole and end just above the waist. For the side seams, start the boning about 3 inches below the armhole and end at 1 inch above the hem edge. Create the bone casings and insert them just like you have been. Once all of the boning is in and done, double check everything inside. If you have anything that needs fussing, do it now while things are easy to get to. Then, place the bias tape along the side and bottom edges of the side back extension. Begin and end the tape at 1 inch above the side it's attached with the ends turned over 1 half inch. Sew along the edge starting and stopping the seam at exactly the back side back seam endings. Fold a miter in each corner with a diagonal fold on the underside. You're going to feel very clever when this is done. Place your bias tape along the top edge of the side back extension. End the tape facing 1 inch beyond the seam with the ends turned over 1 half inch. Sew along the edge starting and stopping the seam at exactly the back side back seam endings. The final result looks different because the directions say to make this into a pleat stack and not in a row. Considering how the final result looks, either of these approaches will look fantastic over a bustle. I've consulted with all of my people who know more than I do about this time period and I have been informed that if I really want to be over the top what I do is make hand bound grommets because those metal eyelets that you would put on a corset that's like showing off a bra strap on a ball gown. This would not exist. So we're going to do hand bound grommets. I am currently deeply questioning the choices that I have made in my life that have brought me to this point in time considering that I have 3 done and I have like 17 more to go and each one is taking me a painfully long amount of time so I'm judging myself harshly right now. Hello everyone. I am on day hour. Who knows? I have no idea. I now have 20 grommets that are hand bound. And the funny thing is is that at first glance you go and of course I being the one who did this can do nothing but see all of the mistakes which is so sad because there is nothing wrong with any of these at all. This is absolutely a work of art and I should be darn right proud that I did this. This is completely outside my normal era and the fact that I was willing to sit down and even make an attempt at this I should be very pleased. I also know that these aren't necessarily the first bound grommets but this is absolutely the first time that I was working through this volume of material and up on this. This amount of material and then up on seams like this. That is really difficult. I highly suggest don't actually add this in until after these are in. Don't do what I did. I thought I could do that and it wasn't going to be an issue and that I was just doing the thing that was available at the time. No, no, don't necessarily do that. But if you do you can still make it work so it's okay. Okay, so the plan for today. I have two things that are left. First things first. I am going to line this up. I am going to get out my measuring tape and I am going to check how this is bending because of the boning. I am not convinced now that this is the same length from here to here and that this is even. I need to double check this. It's weird and every single time I take a look at it it's a completely different thing and I don't like it. Anyway, second. I sewed this together wrong. This is in fact supposed to pleat is supposed to sandwich together and this whole thing should look like that with a seam right here and then it looks like a bow in the back like this. Okay, so my pleating was wrong. I'm going to redo that and then I'm going to get these sleeves in. I know my fingers are in the way but I'm keeping things flat. Yep, see that's it's supposed to be 15 inches and this is 15 and a quarter. Okay, I was right. I was right, I was right, I was right. I am shortening this and I'm going to sew that back down because I had this done and then I questioned myself and then I stitch ripped it and I was totally wrong. I'm going to do a gentle tuck. I'm going to hand stitch this down, tuck this in and iron this flat and then it will match totally fine. This is the front, this is the back and this is the inside. So what I'm going to do here for a second is if I ever use this again I'm going to want this. This is the front this is the back. Ease to fit armhole, ease to form the armhole. These are the pleats and these are going to end up getting pleated up. This bottom part according to the directions we're going to fold this up and hem it along the bottom. Do the pleats and then I'm going to baste in place along the seam line into the armhole. Fit the sleeve to the armhole right sides together, matching notches ends of the sleeve should meet just the top of the shoulder. Ease the excess fullness in to fit, then sew it in place. I am 100% hand basting this in and then sewing. This is on a curve, it is on a tight line and it is going to be very difficult with all the boning to get it to go through the machine and not be an epic mess. Okay. I am going to sew and then I'm going to come back and show you. This is not fancy enough. I do not accept. We can do better. This is 100% the longest, hardest sewing project I have ever done. It has taken me genuinely weeks to get to this point and all I can see are the mistakes because of how long I have been working on this. The funny thing is that anyone else who sees these mistakes really needs to sit down because this is an absolute work of art. I have got everything done. This is the part that comes up underneath and brings up this into this fake bow thing in the back. I have a modesty panel. I have this. This string will get laced up underneath the modesty panel and just sort of pulled up. You can see how it will bloop. That is the technical term, bloop. I would not say that this is necessarily an example of my best work but here is the thing. There are absolutely no raw edges and this is the inside. My outside is pretty darn nice. I have got the sleeves in. I even have a very narrow binding to keep, again, no raw edges. This part, when you sew this, I want you to think about finishing these two before you sew them in here. I am going to take, consider this some hand work and just bind this a little bit. I am going to actually probably iron, tuck, fold and whip stitch that down so that there are, again, no raw edges and I just remembered that. This is the part that, this is really a good example of my hand sewing that changes according to how I can hold the item. Since my fingers and my thumb, especially, is still cranky almost over a week later from taking care of the grommets, I am going to say that this is something that we can handle without an issue. This is the part that we have already seen since you've been watching this, but I can't really remember where I'm at in videoing because somewhere in all of this was high holidays. This truly was absolutely nuts for me to try to attempt to do during this time period. I believe that this is a completed project. I have a bodice, I have a skirt, I have an I don't have an underskirt because this is one big ball gown skirt. It's just one skirt, one bodice, a petticoat, the bustle, the corset, the chemise, the drawers, the stockings, and the shoes. I think everything is done. The next thing that I'm going to have to do is trim this beautiful work of art. Oh wait, I still have one more thing I need to do. I think I'm bumping the camera. Let me just hold this to the edge. Alright, this is loose and I wanted to actually when all was said and done, come in and measure from here to here and from here to here and then take this and on the inside and under, sew these down so that this is perfectly even. I don't want to do a topstitch. I think it will look terrible and there is no other topstitching at all in any of this. So let me get out a ruler and then finish this. Again, you're going to double check your projects over and over again and sooner or later you're going to have something that isn't actually done when you thought you were done. Okay, I'll be right back. If you're still here and somehow you're not a subscriber, this is the point to become a subscriber. Check out the description box and the first pinned comment for anything that I forgot or relevant links. The next thing that I'm going to be working on is finishing this dress. There's just one more episode on this dress and it will be a finished dress. I need to get the pleating on so that there's no petticoat showing. That looks terrible. The white ribbon back here, I hate it. That needs to get covered by something else. And this, I already caught that on something coming down the stairs. I'm not doing that again. No, this is a terrible construction. I violently hate this and this will never be sewn like this again by me. This will get corrected because I am not catching this on anything. I need more accessory. I need more. I need a lot more.