Granny’s Teens Era Wedding Dress (Continued)

 So, for some background.  Granny lived in Browning Settlement, in East Texas, near modern day Tyler.  The dress in made of cotton and the detail on the bodice is (to my best memory) fabric – although it looks like lace over black.

It was a December wedding and the groom moved in with the bride and her father.  Ida was the youngest of eleven (yes, 11) children and the story goes that she promised her father that she would stay at home to care for him and never marry if her promised her the house and the land it sat on.  Grandpa Browning apparently liked Mr. Thompson and approved of the marriage.  Grandpa Browning passed away 2 years later, leaving the home to Ida and Mr. Thompson.  My cousin (Ida’s granddaughter) lives in that home today.

For size, Victoria was about a girls size 12 and about 4’9″.  Now I’m sure Granny wore this with a corset and petticoat but she wasn’t much bigger than Victoria here who was in stocking feet and a tank top and bike shorts.

The dress buttons up the back, although we only figured it out after these photos were taken.  It looks like it has a small train.

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Granny’s Teens Era Wedding Dress

As I prepare for the Titanic anniversary dinner, I was reminded of some photos I took of my daughter in my great-granny’s wedding dress.  Granny (otherwise known as Ida Elizabeth Browning) was born in 1874 and married in 1913 – the fact that she had children AT ALL at that advanced age (> 39years) surprises me – and she had 3 of them!

 

Granny was VERY small.  My daughter takes after her a bit.  These photos were taken in 2009.  My cousin has the dress – I wish I lived closer so I could borrow it and put it in a vintage display…

Ida’s daughters – Mary and Carrie

Granny – I think about 1940 or so.

Titanic dress

So in preparation for the Titanic event my local costumer’s group is having, I’ve been researching inspiration for a dress and contemplating a corset…  This is not my favorite era and I’m not quite in love with making a dress for it as I’m not sure that I will be wearing it often.  However, I have a friend who needs some work and I can do a sort of layaway payment plan with her…

After loads of research, here are my drawings…

The base fabric is an Olive colored poly shantung. For the brown overlay, we are using part of an old dress that I wore 10 years ago in Las Vegas.  The dress was great for Vegas, but not wearable anywhere else in the CONUS. (le sigh)  Anyway, the Vegas dress was turquoise with a sheer beaded overlay.  Its the overlay that we want to use.  We are pulling the 1920s style handkerchief hem up to the waist so that we can see the pretty olive fabric below.

I am on the hunt for a pretty shantung fabric in a orange (I call it pumpkin) but if I can’t find it I will use a pretty paprika color shantung for the waist band.

I have been vacillating about participating in the 1911 Corset Sew A Long.  I’ve enlarged that pattern and picked out some fabric, but I have NOT purchase any other supplies. So we’ll see how that goes.

Here are links to some of my favorite inspiration pieces…

http://blog.fidmmuseum.org/museum/2010/05/tunic-dress-c-1912.html

http://www.polyvore.com/1912_dress/thing?id=11621304

Happy sewing!