1837 Doll Dress

Recently finished a new dress for Harriet, my Sewing Academy cloth girl doll, intended to represent the year of Queen Victoria's accession. 

 

Partying like it's 1837.

I started with the low-neck dress from her pattern (c. 1855-65), and then made a few changes. For the bodice, I shortened it slightly at the waist, while bringing in the sides as much as possible (thereby reducing the amount of fabric in the darts: this isn't very obvious at doll scale, but the few original dresses I've examined from this period have weirdly straight bodices shaped more at the side seams than through darts or gathers).

The most obvious change in the sleeve: I used the basic straight sleeve as a size reference while scaling up an original mid-1830s sleeve draft from Patterns of Fashion I. This particular style gets less extreme after 1836 or so, so I used five rows of very close gathers at the head of each sleeve, trying to make the a more late 1830s look with a sleeve that is close-fitted just below the shoulder, balloons over the upper arm, then fits tightly over the forearm. I don't think the close-fitting top of the sleeve comes through at this scale (the finished effect looks much more c.1835 to me), but it was a weirdly-satisfying exercise to sew it this way.