in re: the live chat last night. Here are a couple of me in the sheer dress. In the first one, I am the one on the right. The other one is a close-up of the dress (and the smoking cap I made)

Hey Red, nice repro. Smoking cap is cool too.

thank you on both.

The gentleman who rec'd it really likes it & he get compliments on it.

WoW!! Are you a fellow civil war re=enactor?

Nice pics. So good to see you. Thanks for sharing. But...What is a smoking cap?

Very cool smoking cap...they are very hard to find these days and yours looks very authentic. The re-enacting sounds like fun...here people get together for medieval re-enacting, the costumes are amazing.

Great pictures!

Smoking cap is one of those Victorian "frou-frou" things. Men were supposed to wear them so the smell of smoke would not get into their clothes/hair.

I made that cap from a pattern in an 1876 Peterson's. the cap is linen and silk embroidery thread. It was a great chance to learn/practice embroidery over tissue paper; drawing the pattern on tissue paper, embroider the pattern, and the tearing out the paper.

The pattern is such a classic Greek key pattern that it's pretty timeless for 19th Cent flair.

I am a reenactor, but I lean towards the "experimental archaeologist" For me, it just takes more than wearing the clothes. I have to do the activities and learn the period to get more into it. Luckily I am with a couple of folks who want to do that sort of thing.