Historical Sew Fortnightly Challenge #9

The Challenge - "Textiles and the natural world are inextricably linked.  Until very recently, all textiles were made from flora (linen, raime, hemp) or fauna (wool, silk, fur), and dyed with flora and fauna.  Flora and fauna also influenced the decoration of textiles, from Elizabethan floral embroidery, to Regency beetle-wing dresses, to Edwardian bird-trimmed hats.  Celebrate the natural world (hopefully without killing any birds) with a flora and/or fauna inspired garment."

I combined this challenge with the Curtain Alonghttp://cursewordsandcrinolines.blogspot.com/2013/04/moving-on-to-next-project.html
and made one dress for both! 

Fabric - two panels of the cream background Waverly Indienne curtains. Which sport a lovely floral pattern just perfect for the challenge.

Pattern - JP Ryan's Caraco jacket pattern (after much deliberation and the a great deal of searching)

Year - post 1750s pre 1780s somewhere in there. I wasn't aiming for an exact year.

Notions - 3 covered button molds, some ribbon and plastic zip ties for bones. 

How historically accurate - I'm going to give this a 5 out of 10. The fabric is a cotton and the print is very close to an original and the pattern is based on originals but all the inner seams were done on the machine with only the visible finishing stitches done by hand. And all the notions are modern and not historically accurate.

Hours to complete - I'm going to give this one about 16 from start to finish. The pattern is really simple and went together really smoothly, which surprised me as I expected to fight it a little but I never really did! 

First worn - not yet. Here Dolores is wearing it with the quilted petticoat and my largest bum pad. Also my fishu to cover the shoulders (which i always have to do to hide the tattoo) and to show off the lite ruched band. I am going to make a much larger bum pad and then a quilted petticoat to fit it out of this same material at some point in the future, hopefully before it gets worn :)

Total coat - the curtains were like 10 each and everything else came out of the stash.