HSF #26: Celebrate!

I'm going to a New Years Eve party tomorrow, and didn't have anything to wear. Wait, that's not right. I could have worn my prom/graduation dress (all in one ceremony here in Germany), but that's about knee length and a friend of mine wanted to wear her floor-length prom-dress without feeling overdressed. I had some lovely drapey/flowing black fabric given to my by my brother, who had used it to darken his home-theatre but took it down some time ago. I soon thought about making it into a ~1900 Skirt like The Dreamstress or Fashion through History, but didn't think I'd get it done before New Years, as I'm going snowboarding tomorrow and won't really have time to sew anything. But today at about 5pm I couldn't stop myself and started looking for patterns. From the diagram in Fashion through History's post I could tell that it didn't look too complicated, and amazingly googling "1900 skirt pattern" led me to this site. I looked at several of the patterns, my limited timeframe and my tons of free fabric and decided to make the 3 part skirt:

After measuring myself, I made it a little bit longer in the front by lengthening the center front line from 103 to 110 cm. To get even more flare in the back, I enlarged the rectangle from 118x112cm to 130x120cm. And confession time: While I drafted the front piece on a piece of paper and cut it out, I was too lazy to do so (and didn't have a large enough piece of paper without gluing stuff together) for the back piece and just drafted it right ontot the folded fabric. It worked like a charm (and lot quicker than the alternative, too!). 

Due to my rush, I didn't stop to take in progress pictures, but I think the construction is pretty straight forward. I did have to fiddle a bit to get the waist to fit, but those were minor changes. I finished the waist with a facing and did the hem with a rolled hem foot on my sewing machine - thank god for rolled hem foots! (feet...?) I sewed on two snap closures by hand and bam - finished skirt (as long as nobody looks too closely at the inside ;) ). 

I did a quick fotoshoot, but since the party is tomorrow, I'll probably get some better pictures by then. For now, you get this:

I just love how much fabric is in the train, I can easily pull it up and pin/tuck it to my waist for when we're going outside to shoot fireworks at midnight :)
And since this is literally an item made for a celebration, I guess it fit's the HSF challenge number 26: Celebrate!

The Challenge: Celebrate! (a ~1900 three part skirt for New Years Eve)

Fabric: Some synthetic my brother used for darkening purposes in his home cinema. After he took it down, he gave it to me, but he couldn't tell me what it was, just that it had been cheap

Pattern: http://www.marquise.de/en/1900/schnitte/s1900.shtml -> scroll down to the 3 part skirt

Year: it says 1908 somewhere on the website, but I didn't have time to find out if that year applied to my pattern as well. Somewhere around that time in any case

Notions: thread, two snaps -> stash

How historically accurate is it? Not at all. It's historically inspired, but sewn with techniques I'm pretty sure they didn't have in 1900 (rolled hem with a zig-zag-stitch, I think not :D) and the fabric is wrong.

Hours to complete: Two or three, including drafting the pattern. Wow, that went quick!

First worn: Today for some pictures, tomorrow for the party!

Total cost: It's all from stash, so FREE!

I will probably use this for a more historical costume some time, but for now I only have my modern clothes to combine with it. But even though the design of the skirt and the rest is more than a hundred years apart, I think they go pretty well together! 

(Because you made it so far ;) )