The Rosette Dress

It is always a privilege and a pleasure to go to Leindo each month.  I enjoy it so.  My plan this month was to wear the lilac shot silk evening gown so I could get better pictures but then I realized I had forgotten to take pictures of the rosette dress last month so I wore that instead.  I'll be in Ukraine next month and possibly in a wedding in August so my next day at Leindo could possibly not be until September.  Scary thought!  I plan on getting the star voile dress stamped and done before then so I can wear that.

Anyway, I posted pictures before of how I made the rosettes on this gown, so I thought I would share some completed photos of the gown.

I wore the gown with an organdy collar and matching undersleeves (You can find the whitework edging and beading at Farmhouse Fabrics, just search lily of the valley and scroll down to the Swiss embroidered organdy beading and edging.  I get most of my whitework from Farmhouse Fabrics-they have a good selection and it is all good quality and natural fibers.).  I put some black silk ribbon underneath the beading on the undersleeves like these original 1850's net undersleeves off Ebay:

I didn't wear a brooch because of the rosettes, but I did wear a pair of "micromosaic" earrings.  Okay.  They're really vintage floral cameos, for which I have not found documentation (floral cameos, that is.  Cameos were usually in human and *occasionally* animal forms).  I call mine micromosaic because they are reminiscent of micromosaic earrings of the time which did come in floral patterns.

My "micromosaic" earrings and brooch

Here are some examples of original micromosaic jewelry sets:

Spaniel earrings and brooch, c. 1860 from Ebay

Italian Roccheggiani Dove earrings and brooch, c. 1860 from Ebay

As for the dress itself, the rosettes have already been shared.  The sleeve caps were supposed to be pointed but it didn't look right so I folded the points up and made a sort of geometric design with them.

They are more even than the picture suggests.

On the bottom of the sleeve, I put strips of velvet ribbon and some covered buttons, just like in the original gown.

I also put more velvet on the bodice.

Close up of the organdy whitework collar.

I'm not sure what I will do next.  I have a while before I do anything else so I'm not pressed for time.  I have LOTS of fabric to keep me busy, though.