Beetlewing Ballgown and the Bath Victorian Ball

Well, it's been a week since we got back to Glasgow after the Victorian Ball in Bath, and it's high time I post some photos. I'll begin, as usual, with a photo of the finished ensemble:

Photo taken by the most obliging Lucas Pitcher of TimeLight Photographic

And here's one of the dancing (I should note that you can only see two thirds of the full height of the Assembly Rooms here - they're incredible!):

It's a little blurry because we're all in the midst of spinning round.

My bling - a pair of modern reproduction scarab earrings, and a real scarab ring from the 1880s!

First things first - the gown is made of ivory cotton muslin, which is what most of the original beetlewing-embroidered gowns I found were made of. It's trimmed in a gold figured silk organza, the bodice is lined in cotton, and it's embroidered with gold silk and the elytra or wing shell casings of jewel beetles. Everything is stitched and embroidered by hand.

This particular type of embroidery is traditional to India, where the beetles are found, and beetle-related embroidery has been used in cultures around the world for thousands of years. The jewel beetle elytra were first used in Europe in the late eighteenth century, as far as I can tell, and gained in popularity throughout the nineteenth. Indian artisans made gowns and textiles for the Western market, but home embroiderers are also known to have picked up the technique.

There are a couple of little tweaks I'd like to make before I wear it again - the main thing will be to add some more hooks into the waistband to connect the bodice and skirt, or maybe just sew the two together, because it kept riding up when I lifted my little T-rex arms. But overall it came out really well - the hem was just the right length (thanks, Emma!), the bodice still fit (thanks, corset!), no beetlewings broke, came off, got snagged on things, or otherwise caused issues, and - best of all - I was not up late sewing the night before!!!

For those who follow me on instagram (@peryn.wn), you'll already have seen a lot of these photos, but I'll compile them all here to show the creation of the skirt. For the bodice, see this post.

The skirt hem is around 200" long, and is embroidered all the way around with a continuous vine of gold silk and jewel beetle elytra.

Here are the wings laid out on the muslin. At this point I thought I only had 500 wings to work with and was being very careful about spreading them out, but then I realised that past-me had anticipated this problem, and purchased 1000 wings instead of 500. Yay! I think I've used about 700-800 so far, but it's really hard to tell.

The first step in the process is the gold silk embroidery. It took a while, but I got into a rhythm pretty quickly. I took it with me to a bunch of events and classes and just stitched away at it. The only consideration was being really careful with the ivory muslin - I've never worked with a fabric I've been so worried about dirtying before!

Here's an up-close photo showing how the beetle wings get attached. The first step is to steam each wing for 5 minutes (I put around 20 at a time in a paper towel in a veggie steamer over a pot of boiling water), and then trim it (this I did with nail clippers) and poke holes with a sewing or leather-working awl. I poked one hole in the top and one in the base of each wing. My friend Emma, who was going to the ball with me and helped with all my fittings, sat with me for three nights and just assembly-lined the beetle wings, for which I will be forever grateful.

The wings get basted down with one pass of regular thread, and then I stitch the gold silk thread down to hold them in place.

Here's the front panel of the gown in progress. I'd like to add more to it - the little flying beetles you can see on the sketch above, for instance - but I'm pretty happy with how it came out and it was all I could do before the ball. 

The photo to the right was taken in the Newark Airport on my way home from Glasgow to Toronto just after easter. I had a 5-hour layover and their internet wasn't working, so I got a fair bit done on my gown. 

If you look closely, you'll see that I was being quite careful about where I used the small wings and where I used the larger ones, and also that all the wings are directional - right or left-leaning - to increase the flow and symmetry of the overall image.

Removing the basting thread turned out to be the most dangerous part of the process, because it had been sewn through in a lot of places by the silk thread that went in on top of it. At this stage I broke two wings, which had to be replaced, and cracked two or three others, which seemed to be stitched in well enough that they were secure. Otherwise, the wings are incredibly strong and hardy little things.

Emma endured an hour-long fitting to pleat the skirt into the waistband (so long because I wasn't feeling well and had to keep going to sit down, and also because there was a massive amount of yardage involved). Because the hem was already in place, with the embroidery around it, we had to be careful to pleat it in with the hem sitting exactly at the height from the floor that we wanted it. We knife-pleated it from either side of centre-front, with the pleats starting out wide and getting smaller and smaller towards the back. When they had reached about 1/8" at the side-back seams, Emma marked the proper height of the skirt and I cartridge-pleated the rest into place. This is seen on quite a number of 1840s gowns to deal with the volume at the back.

Under my gown I wore: 

- cotton pintucked chemise

- blue silk corset

- quilted rump

- corded organdy petticoat

- cotton organdy ruffled petticoat

- plain muslin petticoat (very kindly made for me by Emma - I would *not* have had time to make one!)

- white silk stockings

- black leather dancing slippers.

I would really like to make a pair of green silk dancing slippers before next time. I have the perfect shot emerald-and-black taffeta for them...

Here's the organdy petticoat over the corded petti and rump. Please excuse the complete lack of chemise; I was getting really lazy in fittings by that point. (This was in the middle of end of term, and I had papers due, so I was basically just tossing on my corset every couple of evenings, doing as quick a fitting as we could, and working away.)

Then Emma and I wandered off to Bath with two ball gowns in a suitcase and a couple of bars of chocolate, and had a ball. =)

Accessories worn with the gown:

- dead beetles of various descriptions

...okay, okay.

- antique 1880s scarab ring (real scarab!)

- modern reproduction scarab earrings (not real scarabs)

- rose hairpiece

- white gloves

- brass bracelet

Made this rose headpiece the night before the ball.

Emma's magical hair-wrangling powers at work.

And the back of my hair, before we dressed for the ball

So there you have it! It took a good few months, but I'm extremely happy with the result. 

I'll leave you with a photo of the original gowns I was inspired by, and a few more photos from the ball. My thanks to Emma (@elpforrest on instagram) for all her help on the gown and for going on adventures with me, and to Izabela and Lucas Pitcher (Prior Attire and TimeLight Photographic) for organizing the ball and making it such an awesome night. Here's to next year!

The dress on the left is at the Kyoto Costume Institute; I'm not sure where the one on the right ended up. 
The photo is from the Cora Ginsburg LLC catalogue, 2000, p. 23.

Another two-handed turn, apparently.

You can see almost the full height
of the Assembly Rooms here...

Couldn't resist a bit of filter magic.

And to close out, here's one of Emma and I at the end of the night, exhausted but happy. And then we walked home in the rain, with two ball gowns in a suitcase. And it was wonderful.

Adventurers, Sewing Magicians, and T-Rex Princesses

Bath Ball Beetlewing Bodice

Once again, it's been forever since I've posted! Sorry about that. I post updates a lot more frequently on my facebook page and my instagram, but all the finished dress diaries will still go here. =)

I've just finished making the bodice for my c. 1847-50 ball gown, which will be embellished with jewel beetle wings (called elytra) and worn to the annual Victorian Ball in Bath at the beginning of May. I am basing my gown on a couple of extant ones at the KCI and on some fashion plates.

First of all, here's my finished bodice, worn with a random 18th century petticoat over my corded petticoat for the full-skirted effect. It's hand-stitched in silk thread, made of cotton, and edged with figured silk organza. I draped the pattern on myself, with fitting help and photos courtesy of my good friend Emma. (Thank you!!)

Now for some inspiration images. First of all, a great, great many further images can be found on my pinboard for this project, including extant pieces, more fashion plates, patterns, etc.

The dress on the left is at the Kyoto Costume Institute; I'm not sure where the one on the right ended up.
The photo is from the Cora Ginsburg LLC catalogue, 2000, p. 23.

Now, there were a lot of potential ways to pleat the bodice, but I fell in love with this Worth 1867 ball gown (it's at the Royal Ontario Museum, where I spent a large amount of my childhood) and wondered whether the pleat style had been used earlier.

Unfortunately, the image link doesn't work anymore...

Of course there are many, many fan-fronted gowns in the 1840s and '50s, but they're usually caught back into a yoke at the neckline. However, I started to find a variety of gowns with a similar pleated or even cowl-neck front which started as a fan at the waist and then never got pulled back into a yoke. There are a lot of examples on my pinboard from the 1840s and '50s, but I'll copy one here from 1846:

A detail from the plate at left

February 1846, from the Met's digital collections

Of course, you'll notice that mine is pleated a lot more like the 1860s one, with defined pleats rather than rounded rolls. I tried to keep them rounded, but the cotton didn't want to support itself unless it was pressed into a pleat, and then they sort of got permanently pressed down as I stitched them onto the structural layer of the bodice. So there it is. I like how it looks and I'll live with the slight anachronism.

So on to the construction. I began with a sketch of the design, and a fitting over my new corset. The original pattern was modified from the 1840s bodice mockup I made for a different dress last year (it never got past mockup stage, and the fabric is still in Canada), which was done over my 1890s corset as that's all I had at the time. So it needed a bit of tweaking.

I built a full bodice, with cotton lining and a sheer cotton over-layer, and finished the neck edge with piping and silk habotai trim. I then laced my corset around my rolled-up pillow and pinned the bodice over it so that I could drape the pleated layer on top.

I stitched the pleats down over the foundational layer and then edged the neckline with a strip of figured silk organza. This organza also appears on my c. 1815 ball gown, and I have a lot left, so it will probably show up on everything for a while. It's gorgeous stuff though!

I also made some corded piping out of the silk organza, and used it to edge the bottom of the bodice. I then added a strip around the waist like a belt, which you see in quite a few fashion plates. I think it will help define the waist in a sea of frothy ivory.

I procrastinated forever on draping the sleeves, which ended up being kind of curved rectangle-trapezoid things. Not that difficult. =P I stitched the pleating invisibly from the underside and added a further detail in the organza. I'll also add some beetle wings to this detail when I get to the embroidery stage.









There are bones on each seam on the inside, wool-stuffed pads in the side-bust/armscye areas to prevent buckling, and a waist tape to relieve pressure on the outer fabric. The bodice closes with waaaay too many hooks and eyes up the back, and, as on period bodices, the eyes have been individually thread-wrapped in silk thread to hide them and help keep them from slipping open.

This serves as my entry for February: Tucks and Pleats for the HSF/HSM, so here is the HSF info:

What the item is: c. 1847-50 ballgown bodice. This is the first step in the ballgown I'm making for the Bath Victorian Ball in May, and it is based on extant beetlewing-embellished gowns from the late '40s to c. 1850, as well as a variety of fashion plates. I chose this style of gown both because beetlewings are wonderful and because the gowns tended to be made of cotton, rather than silk, which I can afford. smile emoticon

The Challenge: February - Tucks and Pleating (and, if I'm honest, January - Procrastination...I left it for way too long before drafting the sleeves. And they're basically curved rectangles.)

Fabric/Materials: Bodice lining is cotton twill. Bodice outer layers are cotton muslin. Gold trim is figured silk organza. Piping is the silk organza with a cotton core. Under-trim on the neckline is silk habotai. Wool batting (meant for spinning) quilted into cotton twill pads in the side-bust/underarm.

Pattern: draped by me, on me, based on period sources and extant bodices.

Year: c. 1847-50.

Notions: Hook and eye closures (so many of them...) individually thread-wrapped with silk thread; silk thread for the stitching; cotton cord to fill the piping; bones (some steel and some extra-thin cable ties); wool top/batting for the side-bust pads.

How historically accurate is it? The cable ties are not accurate, but they mimic very thin whalebone pretty well. The pleats should be a little softer and rounder for the '40s and '50s, but they creased when I was draping them and that seems to be permanent. There are a bunch of extant pleated ones from the '60s, so I'm calling it okay. One of the bones in the back of the bodice goes too high - it reaches up past the armscye - which was necessary to fix the buckling in that area. I should have interlined it in a stiffer glazed linen or cotton; I know for next time. The rest of the materials and construction methods are accurate according to my research, and the stitching has all been done by hand in silk thread. So maybe 80%?

Hours to complete: haaaaaaah...

First worn: Just for photos. Its first official outing will be at the ball in Bath in May.

Total cost: I think about £20 for all the cotton (including skirts). The bones and the organza were stash; I think the bones were originally about £7 total and the organza is negligible because I used so little of it. The cotton interlining was also stash, and was originally free (excess from a class project in my undergrad).

I will leave you with some closer photos of the finished bodice, and a shot of the beetle wings that will eventually be stitched all around the skirt hem. =)