HMP-150 Infant Dresses

 Managed to finish one project in April/May: a set of infant dresses for the newest Fort volunteers. As usual, I used Liz Clark's pattern.

Size 2 dress with high neckline, smooth fit bodice and slim short sleeves.

One of my favorite parts of this pattern is the ease of customization. I made 2 complete dresses, with a second (one size larger) bodice for each, and was able to use different style elements every time.

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The other size 2 dress, with a yoked bodice and long straight  sleeves.

This was also the first time I made resize-able dresses. The skirt was made to the largest size, and hemmed long to cover a pre-crawling baby's feet. Sewn to the size 2 bodice, it has a generous overlap at the waistband; when it's too small, the bodice can easily be removed and switched to the next larger size (though the hook and eye on the waistband will need to be moved, and tucks taken in the skirt once baby starts crawling.)
 

Size 3 bodices: both with boat necklines, the blue is yoked and has short loose sleeves, the orange plain with puffed sleeves.

Purple Silk Cross-over Bodice, c. 1840

 

Purple silk dress, c.1840, from The Met.

 

Looking for 1850s dress inspiration, I stumbled upon this fun c.1840 silk dress with a surplice/cross-over style bodice. At first glance I took it for an early 1860s dress with relatively large coat sleeves, but from the side view, it's more clearly one of those fun shapes that appears post-1836-sleeve-collapse where the sleeve is gathered/shirred down close around the upper arm (and visually smoothed out here with a jockey) then balloons out again a little above the elbow, only to get tight again around the forearm.

In the close-up views, the fabric appears to be a satin; and I'm very intrigued by the small edging detail on the sleeve jockey: overlapping loops of perfectly color-matched satin-covered cording. I'm very curious about whether that was a manufactured-to-match trim, or actually pieced from the same fabric as the dress.