My Victorian Christmas Caroling Costume: Buttonholes of Despair, and Buttonholes of Deliverance

Victorian Christmas Caroling Dress Debut!

My Victorian Christmas caroling costume made from Simplicity pattern #1818 is finally finished, and now I need to catch up with my blog posts in fits and snatches as time permits.  Today I'll share the saga of the buttonholes.

Bernina Automatic Buttonhole Foot 3A with Leveler Accessory

My Bernina 750QE only came with one buttonhole foot, presser foot #3A, shown in the photo above.  I'm also using an optional accessory in that photo, the Buttonhole Leveler, because I'm stitching buttonholes perpendicular to the garment edge over a seam allowance and the automatic buttonhole foot needs to be perfectly flat and level to work properly.  So the Automatic Buttonhole foot for the computerized Berninas really is totally automatic on computerized machines like mine.  You select the buttonhole style you want on-screen, enter the size buttonhole you want and make any desired changes to the buttonhole width and/or the spacing of the stitches, step on your presser foot, and then the entire buttonhole is sewn in one step from beginning to end without you having to do anything else.  Subsequent buttonholes come out exactly identical to the first one.  Sounds great, right?  It is great, BUT...  Notice how BIG that buttonhole foot is?  My dress bodice has boning sewn into a dart that is right near where the buttonholes need to go.  Since the boning was angled rather than parallel to the front garment edge, I was able to sew the first few buttonholes at the top of the bodice with this presser foot.  But then when I got near the boning the foot started to get hung up.  I ripped three buttonholes out of my silk shantung dress bodice, sweating bullets with every flick of my seam ripper... 

I tried the Buttonhole Leveler.  I tried a different accessory, the Buttonhole Compensation Plates (designed more for sewing buttonholes on thick terry cloth or fleece, but I figured I'd give it a try anyway).  Nothing worked.  Finally, I read in my Bernina Feetures book that the manual buttonhole foot 3C was recommended for sewing buttonholes that were either larger than the maximum size of foot 3A -- or for sewing buttonholes "in tight places such as collar stands."  Eureka!

Manual Buttonhole Foot 3C for 9 mm Berninas

I had to wait a day to get the 3C Buttonhole foot, but that was exactly what I needed for this project.  See how much smaller that foot is?  Stitching out the buttonhole was almost as easy with manual foot 3C as it was with the automatic foot 3A. 

Manual Buttonhole on Bernina 750QE

I just had to mark the length of the buttonhole beforehand and sew the buttonhole in 7 steps instead of one.  I selected the same style of buttonhole that I had used for the others, but could not input the length ahead of time.  Then the machine stitched out the buttonhole the same way as before, except that I had to sew down to the end of the buttonhole, then tell the machine it could go to the next step by pressing the arrow on the screen, etc.  It still stitched out the same buttonhole the same way, and the resulting buttonhole would be identical to the others if the stitching on the last automatic buttonhole hadn't gotten denser when the foot ran into the boning.  The two buttonholes on the left in that photo were stitched with the automatic buttonhole foot, and the buttonhole on the right was stitched with the manual buttonhole foot.  I had no trouble with the manual foot whatsoever, even on the last buttonhole that had to fit at the pointy end of the bodice right between the seam allowances and the blasted boning. 

Buttonhole Success!

The moral of this story is not that the automatic buttonhole foot is no good; just that it has limitations.  With the manual buttonhole foot, there is a chance of operator error if I don't draw the buttonholes exactly the same length or I don't stop the machine at exactly the same length with each buttonhole.  If I was doing buttonholes down the front of a normal blouse, the automatic buttonhole would be a godsend.  However, the drawbacks are that the automatic buttonhole foot has to be perfectly flat and level (which is where those optional accessories come in handy), and it simply will not work at all in situations where a buttonhole has to fit into a tight space, like what I encountered with this project.

I'm glad that I ultimately decided to stitch my buttonholes with the same 50/3 Gutermann cotton construction thread, because it's a perfect color match to my dress fabric and my buttonholes ended up looking pretty invisible.

Finished Buttonholes, Awaiting Buttons!

They look pretty good, right?  So then I sewed on my buttons.  I did fabric-covered buttons in Bridal size 20, using the same black silk shantung as I used for the contrasting ruffles on my dress.  I sewed stabilizer buttons on the back of each covered buttons for greater stability and longevity.  This was a pain in the butt, and may contribute to my difficulty buttoning and unbuttoning the bodice with my broken thumb, but whatever -- what's done is done.  I didn't want my buttons to rip through the silk after repeated wearings.

Stabilizer Buttons for Greater Support

That's all you get for today.  Next time I'll tell you how I did the rows of scalloped knife pleated ruffle trim on the bottom of my skirt.  Have a great weekend, everyone!

50 Hours In, and Here's What I've Got to Show For Myself

Bodice Nearly Finished and a Hat Plan

As you can see, I managed to get the bodice nearly finished yesterday with collar facing and sleeves attached, and the lower edge of the bodice finished with bias tape turned to the inside and stitched down by hand.  There is a lot of "by hand" in this project, as I'm discovering...  In case you're just now tuning in, I'm making a Christmas caroling dress using Simplicity 1818 and I need to wear it on December 3rd.

Double Fold Bias Tape Pinned to Bodice Front, Ready for Machine Stitching

Sewing in the sleeves was weird.  I'm used to sewing things that are pretty flat -- quilts and draperies.  Sewing a tube inside a hole was just all kinds of uncomfortable!  I used my free arm and, so I could concentrate on sewing a seam without puckers rather than watching my seam allowance, I used my little cloth guide attachment that came with my #97D patchwork foot.  I am also not used to what a 5/8" seam looks like, since I use 1/2" seams for home dec and 1/4" for quilts.

Setting the Sleeves

I am finishing every raw edge on this dress with a serger narrow 2-thread overlock, by the way, overlocking the seam allowances separately after sewing each seam.  My silk fabric frays so badly that it's practically disintegrating before my eyes as I sew.  How do I love my serger?  Oh, let me count the ways...


Once we got the bodice pretty much together (it still needs buttonholes and buttons sewn on), I decided to switch gears and make the ruffled trim from my black silk shantung.  For one thing, my pattern instructs me to finish the bodice with trim and all before starting in on the skirt.  I was also half afraid that, if I didn't have the ruffles already made and ready to go by the time I was ready to stitch them on, I might be tempted to skip them.



Simplicity 1818

I wasted a lot of time yesterday experimenting with how I was going to make my ruffles.  I had already decided that I didn't like the look of the wide ruffles shown in the pattern photo. 




February 1863 Peterson's Magazine

See how the period fashion plate illustration that inspired the pattern has five rows of narrow, flat ruffles or fringe rather than three wide, frilly ruffles like in the pattern photo?  I'd rather have more rows of narrower, flatter ruffles on my dress, and I wanted nothing to do with the convoluted method of sewing rectangles into tubes, drawing lines on the tube, THEN cutting my ruffle strips.  So I cut my ruffle strips the way any self respecting quilter would do it, using my rotary cutter and acrylic quilting rulers.  I don't even know how long my strips are -- I just folded my fabric up selvedges together and cut my 2 7/8 yards into 2 3/4" wide strips until I ran out of fabric, leaving just enough to cover the buttons for the bodice closures. 

Of course the black silk shantung fabric ravels and frays just as badly as the green silk shantung, so after cutting and seaming my strips into one ridiculously long strip, we starched it crisply with heavy spray starch and then I attempted to follow the pattern instructions, finishing the L-O-N-G edges with a "narrow double hem."  Well, first I tried the 4 mm narrow hem foot on my Bernina 750 QE, and didn't like the results.  Too wide, and too fussy getting the edge to roll properly.  Next I tried the 2 mm narrow hem foot on my 1935 Singer Featherweight sewing machine, and it was lovely... but I still had to sew fairly slowly to ensure the fabric was rolling around the metal coil properly, and I despaired of ever finishing the ruffle that way.  What's more, the edges of the long black ruffle snake were beginning to ravel as I handled the strip, and I worried that I would run into serious trouble trying to roll a severely frayed piece of silk by the time I was halfway through hemming the edges.



Silk Shantung Ruffle Strips, Raveling Already

So, SERGER TO THE RESCUE!  I know it's not "period correct," but I was able to get an attractive 3-thread rolled hem on the edges of my ruffle with only minor hiccups along the way, and I was able to serge with the pedal to the metal.  How long did it take me to hem both edges of my ruffle strip?  It took me four hours.  FOUR.  HOURS.  Four hours of running my serger continuously at full speed.  One cone of serger thread (YLI Elite) completely used up by the upper looper, too.  I have no idea how long this strip is, either -- I don't want to know yet.  Don't want to get discouraged.  But I am not going to gather it.  I experimented with the Bernina ruffler foot as well as my vintage Singer ruffler foot on the Featherweight and decided that I just don't like the look of a gathered ruffle for this dress.  I'm going to do a 3/4" triple fullness knife pleat ruffle instead, like the "plaited frills" on many of the mid-Victorian dresses on my Pinterest board. 

Circa 1862, Met Museum

That looks like a box pleat ruffle, don't you think? 

I just hope I have a long enough fabric strip to go around the bottom of my enormously full skirt a few times.  My pattern called for 5" cut width ruffles, but if my math is correct they were only supposed to be about 1.6 times fullness.  I need to put my pleated ruffle trim around both sleeve edges as well as several rings around my skirt hem, and I really don't want to have to buy more black silk and then spend another ENTIRE DAY making more ruffle trim!  I still have to pleat this stuff, too!

3-Thread Rolled Hem on Edges of Silk Shantung

Isn't it lovely, though?

Black Silk Ruffle Strip for Dress, Green Silk Ruffle Strip for Hat Trim

I was testing my serger settings on strips of leftover green dress fabric, and decided that I kind of liked the look of the black edging on the green silk.  So while I still had the serger set for a rolled hem, I made some green silk ribbon strips edged in black thread.  I'll use them to decorate the plain black costume bonnet that I bought on Amazon, because clearly there will NOT be time to make a special bonnet from scratch!

This dress still needs:

1. Buttonholes and buttons sewn on the bodice

2. A skirt (panels are cut and silk shantung fashion fabric has been hand-basted to the silk organza underlining -- Mom did that while I was making ruffles today)

3. Ruffles need to be pleated and stitched by machine

4. Ruffle trim, purchased gimp trim, and bows all need to be stitched to the dress.  (The trim definitely needs to be stitched to the bodice by hand...  But I wonder whether I could possibly get away with stitching my pleated ruffle to the skirt by machine?)

5. White blouse "undersleeves", not even cut out yet

6. Some kind of fichu or chemisette (per the pattern) to fill in the neckline of the dress

7. Decorate the ugly black cheapo bonnet

8. Still need to make a fabric cover for my music binder

9. I need to make a little drawstring purse ("reticule") for my keys, chapstick, etc.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I've already got close to 50 hours into the making of this dress.  I REALLY hope it's more than halfway done!

I'm linking up with Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts, Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt, and Design Wall Monday over at Patchwork Times.