Victorian Era Undergarments: The Chemise Sewing (Stage 4)

Project 7, part 6 – Ribbons and Lace (Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 here)

Welcome back to the Victorian Era Undergarments project! I spent nearly all day Sunday getting more done on the chemise, and it’s so close to done I can feel it! 😀 The first step was stabilizing the neckline with bias tape. I could have done another French seam to enclose it, but the tutorial on HistoricalSewing.com recommended using bias tape instead for more durability. The neckline sees a lot of wear – not only from general use, but also because it will be constantly cinched and un-cinched to fit it to the body using the ribbons (that will be added a couple pictures down). 🙂

I was afraid this was going to be dreadful considering how hard adding the ruffled lace on the sleeves was, but actually it was super simple, and I definitely see myself using this method to finish future necklines on garments!

There was a line of stitches on the front of the garment from securing the bias tape, but that got covered up by this next stage, which was sewing on the insertion lace. This lace (also known as beading lace) is to provide the anchoring point for the ribbon ties – and also to look pretty. 😀 I bought this from Cock Robin’s Song on Taobao positively AGES ago. I bless my foresight in gathering all the notions I needed before starting this project because I probably would have had a hard time keeping up my momentum if I needed to also buy more things for it.

I could have machine-sewed the insertion lace to the chemise, but because my lace was so sheer I thought it would look better to hand-sew it. So I attached the top, threaded the ribbon, and then sewed the bottom down to encase it!

And with that, I’m nearly done! The last steps are to attach the buttons (and make the buttonholes), and to hem the chemise – then I can move on to the drawers! So I look forward to seeing you back here next time on Mukashi no Sewing! ❤