The First 1840s Dress

Now that my petticoats are nearly done, it's finally time to start planning for dresses to go over them! To begin with, I'm going to make a simple dress with clean lines from some blue and white reproduction printed cotton I found locally at a great price in the spring. For the bonnet, I purchased some pale gray silk taffeta, and some blue silk taffeta ribbons. I suspect I will add more trimmings to the bonnet, but I'll wait until I have it together to decide what else it needs.



Patterning the bonnet is already well under way. I have a few little tweaks to make to my pattern, and then I will be ready to cut into the buckram!

The Flounced Petticoat is almost done!

The flounced petticoat is almost done! I just have to finish the ends of each flounce. I wasn't sure how I was going to go about that, so I'm stalling a bit while I think. But, in the mean time, I got to try it on! This is it, over my corded petticoat:

Finished Mitts!

As of yesterday, the mitts are officially finished!

Flounced Petticoat

Over the weekend I finished gathering all the ruffles onto cords, and they are now ready to be applied to the foundation of the petticoat!

New event pictures!

Added pictures from our recent trip to King Richard's Faire!

c. 1560s-70s Ensemble: Done (for now)!

This year, I was able to get the dress ready in time to be worn to our annual visit to King Richard's Faire! Huzzah!

  

I am really happy with it for the most part, but I do wish the skirts had a little more oomph, as the kirtle in particular kind of clings to the legs. So, at some point I might revisit this project and see how I could accomplish that. . . And someday I might upgrade my cotton smock for a more period-correct linen one. . . But for now, I'm calling this project done! :)

First draft of the Lizzy Bennett bonnet. . .

I've been battling some serious sleevil with this dress, so I've put it on hold, and am instead working on the bonnet. This is my first mock-up of the bonnet, and while my brim doesn't match the one from the film, I'm not sure I want to change it since I think I like the shape I came up with better! I'm going to temporarily attach the back to the brim (right now, it's just pinned into the styrafoam head) so that I can try it on and see if I like how it frames my face. (Oh, and the giant red bows are just to mark bow placement. The final bows will be much smaller!)