Victorian Nightie Victorious!

The Victorian nightie project has had a big win. (See the first post on this odyssey here and then last week’s here.)

The pink floral wearable toile got trimmed up and finished off, and Teen wore it last night and gave it the big thumbs up! She’s still wearing it now, and says she likes the collar and short sleeves. She’d hoped it would be a little longer, but alas there wasn’t enough fabric.

To re-cap, the pattern is this one from Creative Dressing by Kaori O’Connor:

I ordered some cotton lawn in black and pale blue (decision to be made when they arrived), and meanwhile sewed one from some pretty pink floral in the stash. Lacking the correct amount, it had short sleeves and was knee length.

There were issues with the too-tight collar, but it got unpicked, neckline enlarged, and re-sewn partly by hand.

While there, I narrowed the collar and put lace on top.

We had some perfect buttons in the button jar, just the right colour and only three. They might be the same age as the fabric. Meant to be!

To gather the short sleeves, I ran a channel of bias binding inside the sleeve and threaded elastic through. Again, I think the bias binding was as old as the fabric.

As Teen and I are about the same size, I tried it on.

And here’s the girl herself, with a seated pose.

The actual, planned-for cotton lawn arrived in the post during the week. To the relief of my eyesight she picked the pale blue rather than the black. It’s already been pre-washed, and potential lace trims have been interviewed.

We’re going with the second from the top, and there’s exactly enough. It’s just like the pink nightie’s lace, so I won’t have to think too hard about it.

I might be able to use the Stoppax Hemstitching fork to add faggoting detail on the sleeves and body.

So it’s all systems go for next week 🙂