1860's dress

I finished my 1860’s dress today. a coworker invited me to be in a parade on saturday. she does civil war reenactments. and since I was nearly done with this dress I went ahead and finished it. what better incentive then a place to wear it. I have seen the details on this dress on several differnt dressses and fell in love with it. as time consuming as it was to aplique the details it was actually easier then I thought. I knew I could do it I just had to figure it out. which meant studying pictures of the design till I figured it out. I used cotten yarn and zigzaged it on. I like the way it turned out. which is good considering the hours it took. I do have to admit to getting frustrated on the sleeves I was going to try something slightly differnt on them, but what I wanted proved to be impossible, litteraly . it could not be done without rewriting physics or somthing. so I settled on what I did, and am happy with it.

what decade shall I tackle next? I’m leaning towrds 1960’s as I have the fabric. but at the same time I’m thinking 1940’s. I have some really neat buttons that came from my grandmothers house and I do believe they are from then.