1914 "Antique Dress" Reproduction!!

*Warning* Photo Heavy Post!!

Good  Monday to you all!!  I hope that you had a wonderful month of June!  I do apologize for my absence, but the relief I thought would come after the Anniversary party didn't, in fact the anxiety got worse, along with other symptoms that I had been having but are now stronger.  We have discovered that I have adrenal fatigue (sorry Facebook friends if you are reading this again!!) and so I'm taking steps to correct my wacked out stress hormones and attempting to heal myself!  I have put off posting about my Silver Anniversary dress because the thought of taking photos of the dress, editing them and the writing about it caused me no amount of stress.  I really enjoy writing about my dresses and love editing the photos and doing my research and many times a post takes about 1-2 hours.  Well, right now, that is just so overwhelming.  But yesterday I felt good enough to take the pictures and edit them and today feels like a good day to blog about it!  So here we are!

Long ago when Mom and I started planning for our Silver and Gold Wedding Anniversary party, I knew exactly what dress I wanted to recreate!  This magnificent beauty from Antique Dress!!  I seem to have an affinity for this website and their fabulous dresses!! (Remember my 1898 Wedding Ensemble?) The combination of silk satin, gossamer lace, copious quantities of waxed orange blossoms!!  My mouth watered and my eyes dilated just looking at her!

I had originally planned on making it out of silk satin and some lovely lace I found on eBay from China, but family issues, the hard time Colton was having with school along with his depression, mixed with my own personal health/anxiety issues caused me to put this lovely dress recreation on the waaaaaay back burner and relegate it to the "maybe some day" file on the computer.  

Well....the closer it got to the party date, the more excited I got about making the dress and even though I had my 1898 wedding dress, I wanted something special just for this special day.  Then happiness occurred and Greg said he needed to go out of town for a job and was taking Colton with him!!!  I don't like it when my Greg is away from me, but this time I was, "Yes!!  I can sew literally ALL DAY and not have to worry about what I'd cook for dinner or putting make up on or leaving the house for anything!!!!"  I didn't have the time or money to order silk satin so off to the local stores I went. I ended up making it out of a really nice weight poly satin from Hobby Lobby and lace and wonderfully soft, drapey, veil tulle from JoAnn's bridal collection!  

Cody works so he was gone from the house 8:20-6:30, so I quite literally sewed non stop, breaking only for food and the powder room.  In the evenings, Cody and I went out which was fun as we seldom have time alone, so those Mama/19 year old son times were so sweet!  Greg and Colton were supposed to be gone Wednesday night until Monday or Tuesday evening...5-6 whole days to knock out this surprise dress for the party!  Well, Sunday afternoon, Rosie Dog started barking furiously and I look out the window and there is Greg's pick-up and trailer!  I bounded out of the house, I was so happy that he was home!  Gone was my 1-2 extra days of non-stop sewing, but I didn't care cause my love was back home!  In all actuality, it was foolish of me to think I could get the dress completed in that time because 90% of the making of it consisted of draping the lace and soft tulle.  The dress took me waaaaay longer that I had originally thought...over 110 hours!! In the end, the crazy press to complete it and all the hours was totally worth it to see the look on my Greg's face!!!

I eventually want to add orange blossom vines to the front of the dress and over the shoulder, but I need to locate more original blossoms.  I am also going to be making a new suite of underwear to go under it.  The sheerness of the tulle at the shoulders kept me from wearing my already made princess petticoat and corset cover, so new undies are in the planning stage!!

Fabrics Used: 

Poly Satin from Hobby Lobby

Soft poly veil tulle from JoAnn's Bridal Collection

Lace from JoAnn's Bridal Collection

Patterns Used:

Dress Base: Laughing Moon #104 greatly modified

Over draping: all tulle and lace draping was draped by me...that took the longest time!!

Following are images of my dress followed by the original.  At the bottom are "action" pics of me wearing it at the party.  I did a lot of editing as any shade of white on a sunny day photos horribly!!!

Again, photos of the original dress, courtesy of  Antique Dress

Here she is!!!

Action Shots!!

I hope you have a lovely week dear readers and friends!!  I am off to watch Austenland and contemplate future bridal dresses that need to be made by September!!

Blessings!

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