Cream Brocade Ballgown – Complete

Inspired by gowns from the mid-18th century Colonial period, I made this ballgown loosely based off of Simplicity 3723 View D.

I used the Simplicity pattern merely for fitting the sleeves into the bodice and the basic creation of the bodice. I made the stomacher separately from the bodice and closed the back where the pattern placed a zipper. I did not follow the pattern for a sleeve ruffle and instead simply made my own. I pleated the skirt by hand into the bodice and only brought it as far forward as the edge of the bodice came. For the gown fabric I used a cream cotton brocade I found at JoAnn’s.

I made the overskirt out of two panels of fabric, sewn together in the center back by a seam. The underskirt is made out of a dark purple polished cotton in a floral pattern. I hand-pleated the underskirt to bias-tape, leaving about a 7-8″ slit on either side for pocket accessiblity. This gown was not designed to be worn over hoops, but was worn over several petticoats in these pictures.

I hand-stitched the ruching for the sleeve trim out of the same brocade as the rest of the overgown. I used a lighter purple satin ribbon to create the rosettes and sewed those into the middle of the trim above the  sleeve ruffle opening. For the stomacher, I took strips of brocade and machine-stitched a hem using a decorative stitch in a dark purple thread. I then pleated them and sewed them onto the stomacher by hand in a pattern similar to one I had seen on a gown in a museum. The stomacher is made to be pinned to the shift and then the gown pinned to the stomacher.

The gown and petticoat took me about a day to put together, and the hand-stitching and ruching took me about another day (yes, I was busy doing other things ).  I really loved working with the brocade and would do so again in a heartbeat, although this time I would definitely make use of dyes to get some different colours. This gown was sold on eBay in the Summer of 2007.

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Tags: Historical Rev.War period, Original