Tag Archives: reproduction doll

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.

Emma’s got a new dress

Posted in Dolls, Sewing by

I promised you I would show you how I upgraded Emma’s dress from the *lovely* lavender polyester she came with, and I’m keeping my promise. I admit it, I stopped working on her in the middle of the project and did something else. Shock! Teaser: it was another doll, and yes I will tell you all about it in another post, soon, I promise. For now, let’s focus on Emma.

I previously showed you her polyester dress, and that was just not to be allowed. Since Emma is styled as a child or youth, I felt a traditional long dress was not right for her. After consideration, I decided on the 1876 La Mode Illustree dress for a youth doll. This is again a pattern that I had to first translate from French, then trace & size to her. Since we can’t do things the easy way, of course I made her some undergarments.

Doll Undergarments

These undergarments are from an 1875 edition of the same magazine, and at first I was thinking I’d make all the underclothes. Then I realized that the dress I wanted to make wasn’t compatible with the longer petticoat, so I set that aside for the time being. Of note however, like how I made the underbodice look like it opens in the front? But really it opens in the back. I admit, I don’t love the underbodice. I feel like I could have spent more time fitting it to her, but I really just wanted to move on to the dress, so I accepted the less than perfect result I have here.

This petticoat should give you a better idea of where I planned to go with her dress!

Here’s the original drawing of the dress I planned for Emma:

Described as olive faye with pink silk ribbon trim

And, here’s what I created for Emma:

This is a fine cotton in green plaid with pink silk ribbon trims. I found this project to be super fiddly! Making the yards of trim was extremely time consuming, and while beautiful in the finished state, I really hated it about 3/4 of the way through, lol. I also know where my mistakes are, and that is always a killer. We are our own worst critics, after all. But, I am very proud of my ability to draft the patterns, put them together with literally no instructions, and create a lovely dress for my precious doll. I have not yet found a hat quite right for her, and I will likely make a necklace at some point. Perhaps a hoop for play would be cute, but I’m not going searching for one.

Thanks for visiting and reading about Emma. Next time, I will show you something truly exquisite!

Meet Nell

Posted in Activities, Dolls, Misc, Sewing by

For someone who is a documented doll disliker, I have become fascinated by them. Not playing with dolls, or displaying them. And not all dolls; I like very specific styles of dolls designed in the mid-nineteenth century. Of course I can’t afford the real dolls – or, more accurately, I won’t afford them.

This doll, Nell, is a reproduction late 1860s-1870s cloth bodied doll. She has China head, hands and feet. I did not make her, but adopted her off eBay. She was designed by Tasha Tudor in 1977. I don’t know much about Tasha Tudor except to say she was an artist who loved dolls. In the 1970s there was a revival of these China head dolls sold as kits for home doll makers. Many brands offered the kits, and I don’t know how accurate they were.

Nell was poorly constructed – her legs are twisted and her arms are attached incorrectly as well as being rather fat. I could have remade her body, but I decided I love her as she is.

Sweet Nell came to me in a truly unattractive outfit. Remember she was made in the 70s. The dress was made from orange sprigged searsucker. Yikes.

Since I want to eventually use my dolls for teaching and display at history events, I could not leave her in this crazy outfit. From the muslin out, I redressed her. First came a new chemise and drawers from white cotton. I figured for a nicer doll I could have some fun with her corset and made her a corded corset with this beautiful brocade I had. Add a nice tucked petticoat and we are ready to keep going.

At some point after the first photos I remade her chemise. I never did like the first run at it. The new one is tucked to the neckband and lays much more smoothly. Unfortunately for Nell, it took me another several months to make her dress. I took a break to decide exactly what to make for her. Since she is later 1860s, I wasn’t limited to typical hoop skirt styles. While the basic bodice didn’t change too much after 1864, skirts and embellishments did.

I spent some time researching exactly what to make, delving into French fashion magazines and dreaming of the garments I would make her. And then I made a basic, almost boring, dress.

The fabric is cotton meant to mimic a patterned wool, which would commonly have been used. I modeled the dress off the amazingly versatile patterns from Liz Clark, modifying them to fit Nell. The skirt has box pleats at the waist, which were a more stylish method of attaching a skirt. It was a bit boring on its own so I added the pink ribbon bow and belt.

Next episode, look for the gift I created for my sister.