The Bag Dresses

Oh yes, these dresses are just as attractive as they sound. Four years ago in preparation for Pennsic my best friend and I banged out three dresses and matching tunics for me to take. Did I mention it took took one weekend to make theses? Yeah.
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These dresses were a nightmare. Neither of us knew much about sewing, none of the hems were double rolled. The dresses were made with modern patterns and never really looked right. They did not have gores in them, they were just to straight pieces of fabric sewed together with some sleeves. Not to mention they were huge on me.

Unfortunately (or maybe not) I don't have many pictures of the dresses. You get the idea though. So, what is a broke college student to do? I really don't want to throw these away just because they suck. I mean it is still good fabric, a few years old maybe. However I only wore them to pennsic that one time. Then it hit me, I bought the fabric a couple of weeks ago to make some Viking style apron dresses. In some of these there is a middle tunic dress between the smock and the apron. 

So it only took me a day to turn at least the blue one into a dress I want. 

Here is the dress.

The matching tunic. 

I wasn't joking when I said how terrible these were. 

Look at the bottom, it is completely unmatched. 

And the bottom of the dress. 

Oh one more thing,

We couldn't get everything to match up right, 

so if you look at the shoulders you will see where I 

bunched up the extra fabric and just sewed it in place.

Don't do this people.

So, first I put on a movie, grabbed my well loved and much used seam ripper, and I pulled every single seam out of the dress and tunic. (Okay, so I wasn't so concerned with the tunic and once I pulled the backstitching I just grabbed the two pieces and pulled them apart.)

So, since Pennsic four years ago I have moved twice,

thrown this dress in the back of a closet, it lived in a 

garbage bag of garb for a bit, and finally was boxed up

a few weeks ago for my most recent moving.

So I ironed it and then I took the front and back. Matched

the shoulder pieces as best as I could and pined it all.

(Do you like my socks?)

Here you can really see how new I was when I made 

this poor Frankendress. 

Apparently I have no pictures of the next part. So, I just took my fabric shears to Frankendress. I made her front and back the same shape. Next I used my serger to put a nice sturdy edge on the body of the dress. The whole reason I am remaking this dress is because I am poor. All of my garb needs to be Pennsic worthy. 

I put aside Frankie now and grabbed her little sister, the tunic. The tunic is going to become gores, to get the dress the proper shape and movement of a period gown.

This was also ironed, and you can really see how 

poorly it was matched together in the first place.

Now, I grabbed the shorter one and measured across 

the widest part of the top. Which was 25in, I halved it

and at 12.5in I marked the top of my gore. 

Then I measured down 25in (just because I liked

the number at this point.) I marked that. 

 Next moved the tape to the far side of the tunic.

Make sure the tape is lined right up to the T 

shape at the top of the gore. I marked down the 

side of the gore.

Next I moved the tape to the left a bit and marked that 

at 25in as well. Moved it again, marked again, until I got

to where I wanted the mother side of the gore to be.

You can see the shape of it here. Now it is just

connect the dots! 

And here is the traced out gore. Isn't it beautiful!? 

I cut it out. As you can see here I wrote gore on it in chalk.

Please, always do this, you will thank me. I have been 

sewing for a few years now and this is still something I do

with every pattern I cut. It really, really makes your life easier.

(Once I sewed a sleeve on to the bottom of a smock

because I thought it was the gore.) 

Now, because we are efficient (lazy) crafters the next step

was to take the gore I just made and lay it on the other half 

of the tunic and just trace around it. However lazy this

may seem it does a very important trick. If you just use the 

gore you just made they both will be the same shape.

When cutting out the first one you just want to make sure the lines are as straight as possible, with the second this isn't a problem because you have already done it. After you've traced the pattern, you need to connect the dots again. This time the most important thing to keep in mind is to cut INSIDE the lines you just drew, because you used the first gore to pattern the second, the second one will be just a tiny bit bigger. By cutting inside the lines you will remove that difference. 

Next I needed to fix the sleeves. In period gowns sleeves

were not pentagonal. This is a modern way of cutting fabric.

So that part were it is pointing to the tunic has to go. 

To achieve this all I did was lay my tape from 

one point to the other, mark it and cut it off.! 

Which resulted in this. Okay, so this is not

a period shape either, but I was starting to

get scared with how much I was cutting off.

So I decided to just leave it be and pretend

they were cut in gussets.

Again I used the original cut to pattern the second.

At this time I also cut the rest of the sleeves to match in size. 

After everything was cut I put it to my serger. Then I took the front and put in the gores, a note on gores, I always back stitch the crap out of the top of gores. I am almost paranoid that it is a weak point in the gown and will tear. (I do suppose I trip on my gowns a lot more than other people) I added the back, sewing it onto the gores then on to the front once I had run out of gore. Next I added the sleeves. With sleeves the best way I have found is to turn the whole dress inside-out and insert the sleeves into the inside of the dress, this will give you a circle to work with. 

Now, I hate using pins once I have sat down at my machine. I poke myself with them constantly, but more importantly I like to be able to change things right as I am feeding it into my machine. I always use pins when doing a sleeve. Also keep an eye out for the seam from the front and back, when doing the sleeve I like to take this opportunity to sew this seam down flat. I take my pins, and insert a finger in between the front/back seam and separate it and lay it down onto what is going to become the sleeve seam. Pin, pin, pin, then sew. When doing sleeves remember to take the drawer part off of your machine, this way you can insert it into the sleeve and just sew around it. 

Also another trick I use when I am sewing. I am still pretty new at this whole gig. I often mess up my seams, and have a hole in the garment. After you've sewn each part run a finger along the outside of seam you just made, any holes will open up and you can fix it right there. No need to drag the sewing machine out later after you discovered it at and event. 

So what does Frankie look like now?

 Definitely still baggy, and still a little large on me. However I will be wearing this under the apron dress. Plus it will still be a perfectly good dress to bum around camp when it is hotter than hades at Pennsic. 

Also with having to rework the neckline it got a bit bigger I think, so  I am going to get a pin for it. Which will make it look when more viking!! Yay! (Like this woman, the bit of shiny nearer her neck, not the site token)

So, what did you think of my first real post? Was there anything that was unclear, anything I skipped or just messed up? 

Thank you

Emelyn de Chelesye