Fashions from Peterson's Magazine: July 1854-June 1855

I recently acquired two volumes of Peterson's bound in a peculiar fashion.  Instead of binding January-December of the same year together, these two bound July 1854-June 1855 and July 1855-June 1856.  I found this quite interesting, as all of my other bound volumes have contained the same calendar year within.  Oh well!  Peterson's listed the table of contents for previous volumes every half-year, so I suppose the woman who owned these didn't want to wait until January to start collecting!  Anyway, here are some of my favorite images from the volume of July 1854-June 1855.  Feel free to share, but please cite my blog.  And enjoy!

Busy Week!

On Thursday, I practiced my Senior Project presentation on Civil War clothing in front of an amalgamation of AP English students (I am one of them) and Human Growth and Development students (I am not one of them).  I think it went very well except I went over time by like three minutes at least (obviously because I could talk about CW clothing forever and ever).  I think the students were pleasantly surprised with my presentation, not realizing how interesting this rarely-touched part of history is.  It was fun!  Now I just have to cut out some parts of my presentation so I can focus more on the clothing.  I mean, I did make two dresses for this project, they kind of warrant more than 3 overtime minutes of hyper speed speech.

Then, on Saturday, the Ladies Living History Society and the Western Female Seminary Living History Society all took a lovely trip down to the Cincinnati Museum Center for their Civil War Days.  It was great because 1. It is air conditioned 2. Lots of people were able to make it and 3. The museum provided lunch for all of the volunteers.  We also got to play a hilarious game of Questions and Answers with some Union gentlemen, which was very fun!  I was able to wear my red dress, but unfortunately, that may be the last time I wear that dress until fall because it is, in fact, wool.  It's so pretty, though!!!  Sigh.

So... about not buying any more fabric... I might possibly have bought two more dress lengths...  Don't yell at me!!  They were only $3.40 per yard and they're 100% wool and 60" inches wide... I couldn't help it.  Anyway, I got 6 yards each of these fabrics:

For this Caraco Espagnol from Peterson's, 1862:

One word--tassels!

For an asymmetrical bodice. My pseudo-inspiration image:

I say pseudo because it is just proof for myself that there were asymmetrical bodice dresses made out of plaid fabric.  I am probably going to do trim differently than this lovely lady.

Anyway, that is all!  Have a lovely day, everyone!