It's Finished! // Sara's Civil War Day Dress (Civil War Clothing, Update 4)

Hello everyone! Our trip to the U.P. went amazingly and I'm super excited to show you'll the time we had! But while we sift through the pictures (and believe me, there's a slew!), I thought I'd take this lazy cold afternoon to share the details of one last item I completed for the Civil War muster for a friend of mine last month!




Sara desperately wanted an actual dress made for her for this year instead of the cobbled together outfits she'd used the past two years. I shared some of our goals for her dress in this post if you'd like to take a look, and oh how glorious a sight for me to see it all completed and photographed here being blogged! I absolutely love those first two pictures that show how luscious the skirt turned out! *heart eyes* But let me give a little backstory as to how it all came together! 




A nice Civil War era dress needs at least 5 yards of fabric, and casting a good $50 or so on fabric was a drawback for Sara though she did really want to invest in a dress for the occasion. So with my thrifty exercised brain, we were able to reuse an old dress I'd made for Bekah out of the solid evergreen you see pictured, for some bodice pieces along with the sleeves. The floral pattern was actually a sheet that Sara had on hand in her sewing bin, which to our delight, (though not super period accurate) coordinated perfectly with the deep green broadcloth we were going to be using! I think for the price of just about $7 in extra fabric of the green I had to purchase, the dress turned out like a dream for her needs!

Pattern details:

I used Simplicity 7212 for the bodice as Sara wanted a more fitted one, but the sleeves that went with it were fitted also, and she wanted them full, so I used Butterick B5831 to meet that specification. The skirt however was totally my own pattern as I had to use the cobbled together fabrics to make it. The end circumference of the skirt was 101"! I stripped the sheet (the floral print) in three pieces with the width we decided for the section of print, and the solid color on the lower half was 4 and a half pieces sewn together to match the same measurement around.
 



The only qualm I have with my end result of this make is that the lining of the bodice shows a bit up the hook and loop closure. I didn't have time to mess with it before pictures, but that'll be a quick fix before next year! Other than that I'm super pleased with how our vision all came together!

(And yes, Sara has a full hoop on in only some of these pics as some were taken day one and then some day two after she'd gotten a steel hoop from one of the reenactor's shops. Otherwise I think we would have dropped the hem a bit more had we known how full the hoop would be as it makes the skirt of the dress just slightly short.) 

Thanks for taking a peek! And stay posted as we'll soon be sharing 

our adventures of our trip next week!

Blessings,

Cassie 

the elder sister