Edyth's Brown Dress

Note from Dixie: Edyth let me borrow a dress for study and tracing a pattern. This was originally posted on Northdixie Designs in November of 2009. I still have yet to make the dress, but I hope to get to it SOON. This is an interesting dress to look at, because the design is simple and the use of trim can customize it in a number of ways.

The amazing thing about the internet is that I have friends I've never met. :-) Edyth O'Neill is such a friend - she sent me a box of stuff a couple of weeks ago, and in the box was an antique dress for me to study and make a pattern from and then return to her. This was challenging to do as I didn't want to use any pins.


The opportunity to look at this old dress was so fun for me. As I usually do, I took loads of pictures so that I could refer to them later when I make the dress up. If you are an antique clothing buff/expert, I welcome any feedback you have about the dress and it's age. It is a fairly basic princess seamed dress style. My guess after looking at the online collections at Wisconsin History.org is that it's from the 1870's. The brown dress seems to be constructed by machine, but there is also a lot of hand sewing in it's construction. The seams have a kind of twill tape which was attached at the time the seams were sewn. I'm assuming this was done to give stability to the curved seams.

The twill tape was basted to the outer part
of both sections jointed together
and then pressed to the side.

The charm of the dress
is the simple style,
and it shows how applied trim
can transform a basic dress.
There are bias tape bands
sewn at the hem
of the skirt and the sleeves.

There is shark's tooth trim at the neck,
and the buttonholes are done by hand.

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