An embroidered Regency day dress

With a silk bonnet and a velvet spencer.

An indoors look, with just the net cap, made from machine embroidered net (oh my!)

The gown is in the style of the first decade of the 19th century. It has a drop front opening, with the under bodice pinned in place.

It is made entirely by hand from thin cotton in a teal-ish blue. According to some authors cotton dresses were always white in this period, colours being reserved for silk. That may be the case, I have not specialized in written accounts from this period, but at least the colour was used in the period

This is a lovely late1790s gown , worn with the cap so typical of Swedish bourgeois dress in the 18th century, the so-called bindmössa.

From Nordiska museet.

A redingote, 1795

This one, which is from the period 1800-1810, actually is made from cotton, so I may not be so wrong anyway.

From the Museum of Costume in Bath

Later, 1818, but lovely colour. Silk. 

Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This Robe de Cachemire from 1806, while made from woven shawls and not embroidered, has much the same colour scheme as my gown.

Embroidered gowns were vrey common, usually with a broader pattern at the hem, and then either plain or with gradually smaller patterns

My embroidery is made in chain stitch (I can't do tambour stitching, I have tried) with cotton floss. the larger patterns are taken from the cap of my folk costume and the smaller are just made to match.

The direct inspiration were these two gowns. From ca 1808-1810. I like the dark background to the embroidery.

My embroidery is simpler, but then it is also a cotton dress intended for day wear.

I couldn't have made this gown without two important internet resources:

The Fashionable Past, Katherine's dress site

The 19th US Regiment of InfantryCapt. Angus Langham's Company1812-1815's site on women's dresses

In the photos I am wearing the gown with the bonnet that I made for my first regency dress, but I tried it with my new bonnet too, and though I don't think the green ribbons work with the gown I like the shape very much.

Under it all I am wearing the same shift, stays and petticoat as with my old regency dress, though the two latter had to be taken in due to my weight loss.