The blouse
Many huge thanks to Facebook groups and friends for helping me figure out what on earth was going on in the photo. With their help, recreating this black Edwardian gown has been far less challenging. Not easy, but possible.
Turns out that during a very few years, including the 1903 of this gown, there was a fad for rows of ruching on gowns. The reality of this is that they are really just rows of gathering stitches. The difficult part for my try at this gown is made more difficult because I am trying it on ultra light silk chiffon. So, my rows of stitching have pretty much zero chance of being perfect with my current patience level. Yes, I could have spent more hours on getting every row perfectly lined up- but as it was it was hours and hours of stitching.
