Regency outerwear

I made a spencer and bonnet to go with my autumn toned Regency day dress. The bonnet was begun in a class at Jane Austen Festival Australia and is made from a straw hat.

The spencer is based on my adapted Sense & Sensibility pattern that I used for the dress. I found it worked a lot better for the spencer. It is comfortable and fits nicely, in terms of me and of the dress. The bodice of the spencer is lined. It does up with a frog and has a drawstring tie around the waist to ensure it is properly fitting.

The spencer and dress are made from quilting cotton, which I haven’t found to be a great fabric for these clothes. It is a bit stiff which means it doesn’t drape nicely and isn’t so comfortable to wear, and it gets very wrinkly in the wash. What quilting cotton does have going for it is the variety of prints available in it; prints being popular during the regency era.

The back. I rag-curled my hair which was recovering from being dyed blue.

I was very happy with how the spencer turned out and I think it turns a plain dress into an attractive ensemble.