Regency day dress II

For my second Jane Austen Festival I made myself a new day dress. I used the same Cut of Women’s Clothes pattern as I used for my mourning ball gown, this time adapting it for daywear.

Since I was so pleased with the piped neckline on my other day dress I decided to pipe the waist and neckline of this gown in a contrast fabric.  The bodice is lined.

The dress has two-layer sleeves: a puffed sleeve over a long sleeve.

Rather than being gathered all along the edge, the puffed sleeve is gathered to a point where there is a decorative self-covered button. I had never done self-covered buttons before, but I liked them quite a lot.

The long sleeve has a tie and a button.

The skirt is gathered to the bodice and the dress closes with more self-covered buttons.

The features of this dress make it more interesting that my other day dress and I like this one rather better; the fabric is less stiff which makes it nicer to wear. I wear this dress over my bodiced petticoat and a chemisette.

I trimmed a straw bonnet to wear with this dress. I had been planning to use some leftover fabric but I couldn’t make it look right. Also, using the same fabric would limit the bonnet to only being worn with one outfit which I didn’t really want.

Preliminary design.

Instead, I used cream satin trimmed with the same colour ribbon that I had used for the piping. The ribbon is box pleated and the satin is gathered. Inside, the bonnet is lined with a sturdier cream satin edged with blue lace.

A day (and a season of Burn Notice) later, I had a hand-trimmed bonnet. I finished at 2 in the morning