Victorian Barbie - part 2

So last time I left you with a complete overdress.  This time you get the ruffled skirt and the hoop skirt.  Exciting?!

I've made a couple of hoop skirts in the past, but they haven't been very successful.  I've left it too late and just cobbled something together.  This time was going to be different.  I found an excellent tutorial here.  I just used plastic coated boning for the hoops, but otherwise they're pretty much the same.  I particularly liked the way the author measured a doorway!  It turned out her daughter was about the same height as Charlotte, so I'm afraid I just pinched her measurements!  I did make the top couple of hoops smaller, but that was due to the size I made the ruffle skirt.  Here's Charlotte in the completed hoop skirt.

It looks a bit odd in shape at the top, but it looks fine with the ruffle skirt over the top.  The fabric isn't spread out evenly either, but this was just a trying on session to see what size I needed to make the elastic waist.  I evened thing out once all the sizes were right.

Next up was the ruffle skirt.  I made an A-line skirt long enough to go over the hoop skirt and almost reach the floor.  To make an A-line skirt, I normally draw a rectangle on greaseproof paper the length I need plus hem and waistband width.  I measure how big I need the waist to be and divide by 4 for the width of the rectangle.  For this skirt I made sure the skirt would be big enough to pull down over Charlotte's head because it doesn't have an opening for a zip.  I then add on seam allowances to that.  I cut the rectangle almost into strips an inch or two wide (they are still all attached together at the waist).  I then just place it on a fold of my fabric and spread the strips out evenly.  The picture shown obviously isn't Charlotte's skirt, but you get the idea.

So the spread out rectangle becomes one quarter of the finished skirt.

After making the basic skirt I then spent a whole Saturday making and attaching ruffles.  It was all very straightforward, if very boring.

One completed ruffle skirt.

By this point Charlotte was more dress than child!  And then she tried the overdress on as well!

Look at the pattern matching around the zip!  It was more good luck than good management (although I did actually tack the second side of the zip in before sewing, for once), but I'm still pretty impressed with my bit self.

After the trying on session I did add an extra bit of ruffle.  I know, like this dress needs more ruffles!  You can't see in theses pictures, but when she turned to the side there was a gap below the bodice where you could see the waistbands of the underskirts.  I sewed a short length of ruffle to the bottom of the bodice to cover it.

And finally, a gratuitous couple of shots of my favourite girls.

Guess what Katie wants for Christmas!

Victorian Barbie - part 1

Charlotte's birthday was coming up.  Rapidly.  And I eventually got around to asking her what she wanted.
"A pair of high heeled boots", came the reply.
"Excellent", I thought. "No sewing involved there."
There was a slight pause, and then, "And a Victorian dress."  Oh.
"Well you can have one or the other."  Internally I was begging her to pick the boots.
"I'll have a Victorian dress then please."  D'oh.
A search on the internet later and she found this dress...

Check out those sleeves!  The same company also make something similar in pink...

that we decided would be better to base Charlotte's dress on.  No sleeves for one thing!

I called the post 'Victorian Barbie' because when I ordered fabric I ordered it in cerise rather than baby pink.  And boy, is it pink!  I decided to do the dress in three parts: the pink overdress, the white ruffled skirt, and the hoop skirt underneath it all.  I also decided that as it's probably Charlotte's last princess dress (mind you, I've been saying that for about four years!) that we would go as big and over the top as possible.  If a thing's worth doing...

I traced a basic bodice pattern and then altered it to suit the style of dress.

I thought the best (read easiest!) way to do stripes on the bodice was to lay white ribbon on the pink fabric.  Check out the pattern matching!  You can also see the Barbie-ness of the colour.

I wanted rouleau loops down the front of the dress.  I've never made them before, so bought myself one of the gadgets.  I love it!  First I made the tube.

Then cut it to size and pinned it to the dress.  I tried to line up the loops with the ribbon stripes so they'd be evenly spaced.

Pinned.

And sewn.  Yes the top ones stick out at funny angles, but I'm still super proud.

And here's the bodice just about finished.

The satin frayed a lot.  I have pink fluff all over the house because of it.

I then cut out a skirt.  I just cut a big rectangle.  The length is the length I wanted the skirt to be.  The width is three times the width I wanted so I could gather it up.  I rounded the bottom corners as I thought it would look better, and more importantly, I thought it would be easier to sew on the bottom ruffle.

Bottom ruffle pinned ready for sewing.

After the ruffle was sewn on I had a bit of a break.  I went to the local shop, quietly chuffed with myself.  Chocolate may have made it into my basket as a reward.  It was all going so well.  On my way back home I was thinking that I only had to attach the skirt, leaving the gap in the side for the white ruffled skirt to show through, and put the zip in the back and then the over dress was done!  Put the zip in the back.  Put the zip in the back...  Then it hit me.  I'd made the skirt in one piece.  There wasn't a place for the zip to go down the back of the skirt!  I didn't panic (well not much anyway).  I thought the easiest thing to do would be cut the skirt into to bits, attach them to the bodice separately, then there'd be a space for the zip.  Which is what I did.

Overdress complete.  Coming up in part 2 we have the exciting (ok, not so much) tales of making the ruffle skirt and the hoop skirt.  And we have the part that you all want to see, pictures of a child in the dress.