After my blonde silk gauze mantelet, I reckoned I’d step back a little in time and show the first mantelet i sewed for myself! A friend in Chile had gifted me a pair of sheer voile curtains that she’d intended to use for a robe chemise. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough fabric for a gown, so she passed them along to me to see what i could make with them. One of the curtains became a ruffled 1780s apron and the other became this white muslin summer mantelet!
This was intended to be a very quick project. My starry-eyed-summer-child past-self had just learned to properly roll a hem, and was all optimistic and about how long it would take her to do her first entire garment.
For the base pattern, I used the net mantelet on page 50 of the Costume Close-up book. I’m taller and more broad-shouldered than the wearer of the original garment, and I adjusted both front and back so that it would hang as i wanted it to.
The construction of a mantelet is fairly simple. I hemmed both the hood and the body. Then I gathered the neckline of each part, and stitched each gathered neckline to a neckband. Then I whipped down a facing to cover the raw edges. Voila.
Garment constructed, It was time to start decorating. I wanted a ruffle from the same sheer fabric as the body of the mantelet – and that is a lot of ruffle. Given that i was still building the muscle memory to do it both neatly and quickly, it took a fair while, and there was a period of time there where my room looked like i was rolling bandages for a very neat, prim Halloween mummy. And all of her friends, too.
Once all of the rolled hems were completed, I had to practice one more skill I wasn’t yet very good at. I had to whip gather my ruffle and stitch it down. Having one wrist in a brace after a fall did not help my speed or my efficiency, either.
But i got there. (Bibbity-bobbity-BOO!!)
The cross-barred nature of the fabric meant that I could break down a 2:1 ruffle ratio with great ease – 4 squares of trim to 2 squares of body. By the time I hit the curves on the mantelet body where the grid broke down, I had both pretty good muscle memory for whip-gathering and I could eyeball the volume of a 2:1 cotton ruffle without needing a ruler.
Of course, it would have been even nicer if I had stitched the ruffle to the correct side of the fabric.
I unpicked, and started again.
And then, of course, I ran out of ruffle, so I hemmed more ruffle and whipped that on too.
I fastened the mantelet at the neck with a wide mint-colored silk ribbon and then it was done. My definitely-very-quick, absolutely-only-one-week white muslin summer mantelet project was complete at last.
This net mantelet in Costume Close-up has proved a good base for many costumers. The construction is very simple, and then you can absolutely go to town on the trimming – you can spend a lot of time happily hand-stitching trims or you can run a gathered ribbon for a quick effect.
The Lady of the Wilderness made a lavender silk version with a pinked trim.
A Fashionable Frolick made a warm winter version in black wool.
Festive Attyre made a long-fronted mantle in red wool,
And Lauren from American Duchess made yet another wool mantle – this time in blue!
