{Works With Her Hands} - 1830's/1840's Dress

Every spring and fall at Genesee Country Village, we put on special Hosmer's Inn Dinners. If you've never heard of them, or never gone to them, I would definitely recommend checking them out! Anyways, I usually get the play the hostess (A.K.A. Mrs. Hosmer), and this year I decided that I would like to make a dress of my own for this role.

However, there was the trouble of buying fabric again. Thankfully, I have awesome friends who also do historic sewing and who are always willing to pare down their fabric stash. I got the fabric for this dress from a friend in exchange for doing some sewing for her.

Both of my inspiration dresses are from the Victoria and Albert Museum. They are late 30's, early 40's. I wanted the bodice and upper sleeves of the first dress, but the lower sleeves of the second dress.

Thankfully, I had help from an expertise seamstress at the museum. She helped me drape the bodice, and pointed me in the direction of some great tutorials for the rest. Koshka The Cat was my main source of help. I used her 1840's Daydress as a guide for the sleeves, and the 1855 Ball Gown for the bertha. I sewed the bodice entirely by hand, which considering that every single stinkin' seamed is piped, was so easy feat! But, I got the dress done the morning of my first Hosmer's Diner, and it was a grand success!

I didn't get around to taking pictures of it that night, though, so here are some pictures from the Celtic Faire at the museum this past weekend.