This costume has cost me the last nerve…but it was worth it ;-)
I thought this to be an easy costume with the Butterick pattern B6608 as a basis. Sadly the blouse is not included in this pattern and neither skirt nor jacket are close enough to the original.
But from the beginning:
I made the pattern for the blouse from scratch. At first I tried to use another pattern as a basis, but there was nothing left of this at the end. I needed several mockups and much patience until I dared to touch my fabric.
Sadly I still had some mistakes in the pattern at the collar and the sleeves so that I had to start all over again. Since I did not have enough fabric to do that, I had to improvise and save and reuse the back piece from my first try.
After some outbursts of fury the blouse is now exactly like I pictured it. Today I am very glad that I did not give up because now I can take of the jacket and still be in complete costume :-)
The changes of the skirt were quickly made and did not require any test pieces. I added the two folds on the middle front of the skirt. I formed them with double-sided fusible fleece so that they stay straight and smooth.
Furthermore I broadened the waistband and made it out of black satin.
The jacket required two complete and several incomplete mockups. I had to not only adjust the fitting (enhancing the waist, narrowing the shoulders and making it longer altogether), but also change some of the details to match the original. The side pockets in the pattern B6608 were placed too high and not in the right angle and most of all they were reaching all the way to the side seam, which is obviously not the case on the original.
After these changes to the pattern I started sewing, just to find out later that I had to do one more important change: The front button row!
The original has no buttonholes as provided in B6608. The buttons are stitched on and the jacket is closed with hooks and in my case with press buttons. Only this way the jacket will look like it should!
This change in the middle of the sewing process worsend the fitting at the waist, so that the jacket is not as waisted as I originally intended.
Nevertheless I am very glad to have made this change to the front button line :-)
Of course after this sewing thriller the costume was not completed yet.
I searched for a matching detachable collar but had to realise that there is none with the correct form in the correct size. So I had to live with a collar that has the correct form but is too large for me ;-)
The brooch was a lucky strike at ebay. Although its frame is not silver but bronze, the motive of the cameo is excatly the right one :-)
Sadly the boots are just ankle boots and not with a high shaft, but if I do not lift up the skirt they are almost perfect ;-)
Because I wanted to get the hat right as well, I ordered the hat from Ulrike from Hut und Haube and she did this so beautifully! The costume would not be complete without this wonderful hat.
Completed: 2019