In a number of period artworks you see variations of Housebook dresses in this lovely shade of teal blue. I guess that it is more the question of what pigments were available for painting than actual fashion, but I might be mistaken. However, friends of mine living close to the old fabric Mecka of Borås in the south-west once called me when visiting a sale in one of the stores asking if I might want some really nice thin wool fabric. Not many colors were available since they mainly sold fabrics for making men´s suits, but they had found this teal blue. So I decided to buy it unseen and had it delivered a few weeks later. And it has been laying in my fabric pile since then. A couple of years ago I started cutting it in order to make a Housebook dress, but the courage failed me halfway through. But after my success with the dark brown one I thought I had to give it a go again, since I really need a summerworthy dress for the upcoming events. So here goes:
It doesn´t look much without the pleated panels does it now? But I made them first since they take the most time, measuring, gathering with many tight seams and fastening seams in the back. I reinforced this thin fabric with a more steady wool I had some scraps of, and it turned out really good.
So, apart from inserting the panels, what remains to do now is to decide whether I want the long wide sleeves as shown above, or tight sleeves or even the open ones i the more Italian style? Good thing I will have some time to figure that out.
