FOUNDATIONS REVEALED COMPETITION ENTRY
Irene Adler
(click images to to enlarge)
Outline the story …
When I saw the theme was 'Once Upon a Time', as an avid reader of books, my mind was overrun with ideas for countless characters who have enchanted me over the years. I knew that this was the perfect opportunity to challenge myself and create something different to what I normally sew. I decided to settle on making an 1800s coordinating jacket and walking skirt for Irene Adler from the Sherlock Holmes story “A Scandal in Bohemia”. I have always admired Victorian garments, and found it the perfect excuse to challenge myself and aim to create my first historically accurate Victorian piece.
I began researching for this piece by firstly looking at dresses and garments from 1888 to see what styles and elements were popular. I then looked into colour symbolism to decide on a colour scheme for the costume. I settled on red and black to symbolise this powerful character who was able to outsmart Holmes. I found the perfect pattern to help me create the jacket, which allowed me to produce something like I had first envisioned. I then chose some lace and appliques to decorate both the jacket and the skirt, so they beautifully coordinated with each other. In my research, I also discovered that a lot of detail was emphasised at the back of ladies' garments. The pattern I chose for the jacket enabled me to create a large statement bow for the back of the jacket making a strong, powerful statement for this fierce character!
Outline the construction…
For the jacket construction, I chose the Butterick B6400 pattern. I found this a really interesting and intricate pattern, something of which I have never constructed before. It featured some new techniques which I have not used before, including inserting boning and underlining. Both of these techniques challenged me at first, but ultimately allowed me to further enhance my sewing skills and knowledge. I found constructing this jacket a real learning curve and it allowed me to test my hand-sewing skills as I decided to completely hand-sew the jacket. This allowed me to pay attention to every little seam and buttonhole and make it as neat (and historically accurate) as possible. The only real challenges I found with this particular garment was the choice of fabric. I found it kept slipping out from a few seams and exposed a raw edge. This meant having to scan my work and re-sew any seams which revealed the raw taffeta edges. After meticulously scanning my work, every seam was securely sewn and not a single frayed edge could be seen.
For the skirt I used the Butterick B6608 pattern. This was a simple construction which proved to not be too challenging and was sewn up over a couple of days.
Materials Used:
The Jacket:
Red and Black Two-tone Taffeta
Black Floral Lace
Black Lace Appliques
Boning
Cotton Underlining
14 Gold Floral Buttons
Interfacing
Netting
The Skirt:
Red and Black Two-tone Taffeta
Interfacing
Black Floral Lace
Hook and Bar
This dress is so beautiful
You look stunning as Irene, and nice choice of colours for a bold strong female character.
Stephanie, you are super talented and the dress you have made is absolutely beautiful!
Such a beautiful dress and very creative , well done x
Absolutely love this dress, beautiful and elegant… well don to you and your achievement….x
A fabulous, eye catching dress and you look amazing in it.
Thank you so much!
What a strong dress, fantastic.
Thank you so much!
Nicely done. Dramatic. Lovely details.
Thank you so much!
This is so striking and those button hole stitches – delish!
Thank you so much! I find stitching buttonholes so therapeutic but they are tricky to get consistent and neat!
So amazing! I love everything about this! Thank you!
Thank you so much!
Beautiful! I love the red and black colour scheme, and well done for tackling such a tricky fabric, you managed it wonderfully! Well done!
Thank you so much! It was quite tricky working with the taffeta but I got there in the end!