Monthly Archives: March 2026

Martha Tudor’s Spring Dress

Posted in Crafts, Dolls, Martha Tudor, Sewing by

The last time I posted, Martha Tudor was in her undergarments. I’ve made tremendous progress and she now has a lovely robe à la francaise for the spring.

The fabrics are cotton, which was popular in the 18th century.

The robe à la francaise is characterized by pleats at the center back of the gown. I found the instructions from The Doll Book downright confusing so I drafted my own pleats.

The bodice also includes a lining that is separate from the outer fabric. I do not know if this is historically accurate but it did allow for lovely draping of the pleats in back.

Here you can see the quilting on the front panel of her petticoat. This was sewn by machine and is backed by a piece of plush flannel to give dimension.

This center piece of the bodice is called a stomacher. It is a firmer piece that is pinned in between the two sides of the bodice. In this case, I cut the base from the back of a notepad, then made a “pocket of the blue and also added a piece of the flannel to soften the front. The lace decoration is vintage tatting I had in my stash.

Yes I hand gathered all the trim. It was more of a pain to stitch it down than it was to make it, honestly!

These are the 3/4 sleeves with French lace. This was a popular style of sleeve in the 18th century apparently.

Modesty dictated a fichu be placed in the neck opening of a gown, like this. This piece is batiste and I hand rolled & whipped the edges. It took forever but it’s perfect for such delicate fabric. The fichu here also hides all the repairs where Martha’s chest plate had been broken. The green beaded necklace came with her.

I also made the mobcap. I measured the distance from ear to ear over the top of her head and then added an inch. I used my compass (thank you high school geometry!) to draw the circle and also an outer circle for the brim. The mobcap is made from lawn, which is a little more still than batiste but still a fine and delicate fabric.

I painted on shoe buckles. My thinking here is that Martha Tudor is already broken and repaired, so changing her feet isn’t going to destroy some collector’s value. Unless it’s 100 years from now. In which case I won’t be around. :-)

I quite like the results! I’m not sure who is next in the project list – I have several to choose from. Stay tuned to find out!

More undergarments

Posted in Crafts, Dolls, Martha Tudor, Sewing by

I kept working on Martha Tudor the last couple weeks and completed two more items. First up was a set of stays.

18th century stays

I used the Susan Sirkis WB14 stays pattern, upscaled it, adjusted it to fit, redrafted the adjusted pieces and then went to work.

I chose to make it in two layers as I find the garments just fit more authentically with enough fabric in them. So I cut all the pieces, transferred the marks and then assembled an inner and an outer layer.

Partially completed stays

The pieces are sewn from the top edge to the waist marking. This allows for the creation of the tabs which were seen on 18th century stays. All seams are pressed toward the back. I found turning to be fiddley mostly in the tabs. I think making these stays in their original size (approximately Barbie doll size) would really be a big pain.

Final steps

I used this white cotton Petersham to bind the top edge and also stitched down all the seams. I also stitched in mock boning channels on the center front panel. I was able to use my machine for some of this work which saved so much time and gave a really clean finish. The final steps were then to stitch the eyelets and the shoulder straps.

A blood sacrifice

I quite like making eyelets for some reason. It’s a sort of zen process to me. But this one got me and I left some of my blood in the stays. That surely portends the rest of the clothes will come together easily, right?

Back lacing

Here you can see I laced the stays from bottom to top which was apparently how they were done in this era. I’ve seen multiple videos and photos of people lacing their stays this way.

Padded panniers

Here are the padded panniers I made. They are basically a figure 8 shape, then folded over the waistband and stitched together. They kind of look like saddlebags to me. The panniers are lightly stuffed with cotton to give them body, but not so firmly they won’t give a little under the weight of the skirt.

So that’s the completed undergarments! I’ve been working on the skirt – it was called the petticoat in this era but didn’t hide underneath the main skirt, it was the main skirt. Interesting how terminology evolved. Stay tuned for that garment coming up next.