1820s late Regency dress making patterns from The Tailor's Apprentice

The new flyer for my soon to be released 1820s late Regency gowns. Get on the alert mailing list today!

These gowns will be available as separate patterns, Diana and Charlotte, or you can 'mix-n-match' to create a different gown altogether!

I believe these are the first 'Mix-n-match' Regency patterns on the market. Choose a bodice style, a sleeve style and different trims for the skirt. You will be able to create a versatile wardrobe for day, evening and dance events. No gown need look the same in your closet. Only buy the pattern part you require!

As the year progresses, more variations will be added to the 1820s Wardrobe Collection.

Diana is based on the gowns worn by the women archers in the 1823 painting Meeting of the Royal British Bowmen, 1823. It can be worn in the colours of the club, or turned into a lovely walking ensemble for an afternoon promenade or, with the right choice of fabrics, into a delightful ball gown.

Taken from 'Meeting of the Royal British Bowmen, 1823'

Charlotte is based on early 1820s full dress (evening gown), with a number of variations for the bodice neckline and different trims, you can create your very own gown to suit your needs and fabric choices.

These gowns will be available as separate patterns, Diana and Charlotte, or you can 'mix-n-match' to create a different gown altogether!

Pre-order available very soon, get on the mailing list to be the first in the know!

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I'm The Tailor's Apprentice and I have created The Miss Page Vintage Pattern Collection. 1940s WWII dress making patterns for the 21st century woman. Patterns created by me from my extant 1940s gowns. All my patterns are available on Etsy and my website where you'll find out more about me as well. This year I am publishing an 1820s gown wardrobe pattern.

1820s archery gown completed ... well almost!

Me and Sam, mirror image

So I completed my 1820s archery gown for the 2012 Jane Austen Festival Australia, with the exception of the long sleeves.

Three of us took up the challenge of creating the gown and all made the short sleeved version due to time limitations.

My gown is a delight to wear, comfortable and it worked very well as an archery gown. I now understand the flat decoration at the front of the bodice, this ensures that the bow string has nothing to catch it when pulled back and released.

Each of us used a cotton Lincoln or sage green fabric, with salmon pink and black trims. However, our skirt trims are all slightly different. Variety is the spice of reproduction historical gowns :)

Me and Sam, front view of my gown

Archery with a modern bow

Antonia and I

More target practice

Did you see that, I hit the bulls eye, woot!

Shooting with a repro 19th century bow, much harder to pull back than the contemporary one, but I still hit the target

Me and Alex from the 95th Rifles, the Grasshoppers

I am extremely pleased with this project, it was fun to create, comfortable to wear and I learnt new techniques. I hoped you enjoyed coming along on the journey.

Earlier posts:
1820s archery gown for Jane Austen Festival Australia 2012
Back view of the 1820s Archery gown - Jane Austen
Toile for Regency Archery dress for Jane Austen Australia festival
Archery gown 1820s ~ making the dress
Archery gown, 1820s - the bodice
Archery gown 1820s - puffed sleeves and van dyke points

Archery gown, 1820s - the bodice

Front of bodice with trims

The bodice on the 1820 archery gown is lovely, the trims, pleats and gathers make it really interesting and gives a quasi military feel I think. Definitely suitable for a British Bow Woman in he 1820s.

My bodice is trimmed with bias strips of dark brown silk and cotton velvet.

The bodice is lined with salmon pink cotton.

Earlier posts on the puffed sleeves are here and then you can travel back through all the posts on this lovely gown.

More photos below:

Front pre-trim

Back pre-trim

Lining of cotton salmon

Back with shoulder and back stripes added

Back with sleeve added

Archery gown 1820s - puffed sleeves and van dyke points

So the sleeves, I love these puffed sleeves and they were fun to create, the van dyke points and the sleeve puffing through it are so Italian Renaissance. Early posts can be found here.

The sleeves are made with four layers, salmon cotton lining, middle layer of netting to hold the sleeve shape, green cotton fashion fabric, and the van dyke points made with the cotton velvet, salmon cotton lining and dark brown silk trim.

There's a lot of sleeve bulk to handle, particularly when gathered, but slow and steady and tacking wins the race lol!

Here are the images of how I put them together.

Get gathers of sleeve correct for armhole

Then attach van dyke points

Outside view of sleeve with van dyke points attached

Sleeve needed an extra van dyke point

Extra point added after sleeve stitched in, a tad irritating to do, but I wasn't going to unpick that sleeve!

Back view with bodice trim

Archery gown 1820s ~ making the dress

In my last post, I finalised the toile and then created my pattern for my archery gown from that.

Today I started making the gown in my fashion fabric. The original gown was made in a Lincoln green plain weave mohair and worsted mixture, trimmed with salmon pink mohair / worsted mix and black velvet. An expensive fabric mix today, so I went for a Lincoln green cotton quilting fabric and trims of salmon pink and dark brown cotton velvet and dark brown silk for the ribbon bias trim.

So here are the images with comments from my day of sewing, my dress dummy is smaller than me sadly and therefore the bodice looks too big, but its not.

Front bodice

Back bodice

Back bodice with skirt attached, a nice nest of pleats

Back, full length view with skirt pinned, liking the drape

Planning the skirt trim with a paper pattern laid out to get the right dimensions, skirt is longer than I need

Checking the paper trim works, yep, the skirt is way longer than I need it to be, so trim looks too high, its not though

Side view

Back view

Marking the line for the real salmon pink trim

Cutting the trim, bonus is that if you do this right you'll get your sleeve van dykes in the same cut

Trim tacked down

The join of the trim, had to adapt it a bit to fit, but it will be hidden in the back folds

Stitching the trim down

The brown trim at the bottom, pinned only

So, getting there, next is to add the bias brown silk trim around the van dyke points and sort out the bottom trim. After that, bodice trims and make sleeves. Beginning to feel I might get this finished for the Jane Austen Festival Australia, only two weeks to go ....

Toile for Regency Archery dress for Jane Austen Australia festival

Its been a while since my last post on this gown. I've been really busy in the 1940s finishing the last stitches for my Miss Page 1940s collection pattern photo shoot in two weeks time. I launch in May and while that may seem a long way away, it certainly isn't if you look at my project plan, argh!

But this Sunday I have some free time so I have made the toile to test my pattern. Here are the earlier posts for your reading pleasure Post 1, Post 2

So, I've been adapting this pattern from Tidens Toj for the skirt and puff sleeves as they are very similar.

I played with the bodice, my original shoulder placement was too high, I've moved it to the back of the shoulder. I also need more pleats on the front shoulder I think.

The new shoulder placement back view. More pleats required here as well.

 Puffed sleeve with vandyke detail, this needs to be gathered into the sleeve head.

 Detachable long sleeve added, it needs more length as these sleeves scrunch up on your arms. I've lost the top sleeve puff with the weight of the longer sleeve, it might need a light 'puff' support to keep the shape. Plus I'll add more gathers to it.

As you can see, the skirt pattern gives the right A-line front and gathers at the back.I need to add more gathers to the side and the back for the fashion fabric iteration.


So, toile almost to my satisfaction, it really only needs some design tweaks. Hopefully I'll sort those today and be able to move onto the fashion fabric next week. Less than a month to the Jane Austen Festival Australia, argh! Will I make it readers .... watch, read and see!