When I was “researching” historical costumes for my first foray into the Regency era, we watched Pride and Prejudice (the mini-series and the film) as well as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The latter, campy as all get out, was inspiration enough to make me want to make Elizabeth Bennet’s cotton dress, coat, and her battle version with the pants. Yeah, of course I bought a pattern as soon as I watched the movie, because who doesn’t love a versatile outfit while fighting zombies? First I made the cotton dress…
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If you’re no stranger to the blog, you know I have a thing for sheets and curtains. It’s just cost effective, especially if they’ve already had a first life on a bed or window. In this case, I purchased sheets for this project. Now I know her dress has little taupe triangle thingies in the pattern, and that’s fine, but I had a hard time finding that pattern and opted for little blue flowers instead. Do I care about complete screen accuracy at this point? Nah. And keep that in mind later when I take more liberties. I used McCall’s 7493 pattern and cut 2 dresses at the same time for efficiency (the yellow dress is here: A Simple Regency Summer Picnic Gown).
Sheets: Becky Cameron Soft Floral Patterned 4 Piece Sheet Set – Queen – Light Blue
The consruction was very straightforward and I didn’t make any modifications. Just for fun, and will probably remain unseen unless I wear the dress by itself, I pulled some blue glassy plastic buttons out of my button jar that used to live on an old cardigan. The seem happy on the new dress.
And just like that, the dress is finished! I have the outer coat from the image below cut out and ready to be sewn whenever I get around to it, as well as some black leggings and a black underbust corset. So, more on the rest of this versatile outfit later…
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