Franken-er-New wool Housebook Dress

I’ve been wanting to make my next German dress, also known as the Housebook Dress, in wool.  I had made an over-the-head quick kirtle out of lovely blue wool over  a year ago, but wanted to make it into something fancier.

pretty quick and dirty wool kirtle for a fall event

I had even started the process of  transformation

Chalking in the changes.

The back before the new armskye.

The new armskye. This is a little scary--I'm not sure if this'll work.

but got frustrated with the lack of extra wool, and the need to have a cooler dress overruled my obsession with fixing the wool dress.  I made my first Housebook dress in linen, and it came out pretty well.  There are a few issues that I am still working on in regards to construction:  pleats, closures, and the grande assiette sleeve.

Here are a couple examples of the Housebook Dress as a refresher:

Back pleated panel

Pleats

See the pleats in the front of the dress?  I originally made my pleats using cartridge pleating.

Stitches pulled tight

Which looked *okay*, but after a few wearings and washings started to get all wiggly and weird:

Notice the odd ziggy zaggy folds...

So I thought I might recreate this dress and its pleating system a little differently.  An awesome seamstress, pattern master, and all around awesome lady, Kass McGann, steered me toward a completely different approach:  stuffed pleats.

Stuffed pleats are just what they seem they should be:  little rolls of fabric sewn inside a pleat.

But first, a DISCLAIMER:

This dress is unofficially called “Frankendress” because of its piecemeal nature.  I used a dress that was originally a simple over-the-head jobby, and I had maybe one yard of wool fabric left over to make additions/changes.   Out of that comes my wool Housebook dress.

Here’s how I made stuffed pleats:

Here's a panel that will be sewn into the front of the dress, which has a small cut-out to accomodate it.

Rolled linen to stuff the pleats. These pieces are about 2 1/2 inches by 5 1/2 inches

Here I'm placing a linen roll into the panel (there were already 2 pleats sewn in when I took the picture).

I pin the rolled linen inside.

A running stitch is sewn to catch the rolled linen inside.

I whip-stitch the pleats closed on the inside of the panel, which is lined in linen. I'm left-handed, so my sewing always progresses left to right.

Once the pleats were stuffed, I sewed the upper part of the panel in by hand.

The back panel is in. The funny seams in the panel are a result of being resourceful with fabric.

Closure

It was difficult to achieve full frontal closure on the linen dress, so I chose to sew the front closed and create eyelets in the side so that I could lace it closed.

For the wool dress, I am (so far, anyway) closing it in the front using handmade brass hooks and eyes for the top part, and just eyes for the lower part for lacing.

hooks and eyes above the pleated panel

The brass "eyes"

Grande Assiette Sleeves

The linen Housebook dress had 3/4 length laced sleeves that allowed the hemd (chemise) to show from behind/under the arm.

I felt that the arm-opening could be more *ahem* Grande, so I made it larger, which also required a larger sleeve:

Front of sleeve showing gore

 Almost finished

See how the pleats look like they're "gapping" toward the lower part of the pleating? I think strategic placement of lacing rings on the inside will resolve this issue.

Back view of dress.

So that’s the progress for now.  I am adding burgundy wool to the bottom of the dress and at the ends of the sleeve openings.  The bodice is lined; the rest of the dress is not.  I will wear a hemd and a skirt under the dress.  I need to research whether they wore a kirtle-like garment under the dress, over the hemd, or if it was indeed a skirt.  Any ideas?  Please leave me some constructive comments!

I will also be adding my pleated steuchlein and gefrens projects soon!