1830s Mourning Dress

I have been meaning to make an 1830s Mourning dress for the Rochester Dickens Festival for quite a while now. However, the incentive is fairly low now that I live 500 miles up North,even though we do want to keep taking part in the Christmas Dickens every year.

As can be seen on the Victorian Gentleman page, I did get myself a complete costume in black and red from the wonderfully talented Christine Lorenz from Fantasy Kleidung.de and thus the need for the Mourning dress slipped even further onto the backburner. However, I have all the patterns and the fabrics and it shall be done one day. I am using the Past Patterns 1830s Full High Gown.

Below is the bonnet that I have already made. It uses a straw hat as the base and is executed with slippery fine silk and black feathers, modelled on one of the many 1830s bonnet drawings.