The Great War

On April 12th and 13th, I was very excited to make my first visit to Midway Village Museum's 'The Great War' re-enactment. I had unfortunately missed the previous years event and I was looking forward to attending this years with my family.

I always enjoy spending the day at Midway Village and bring my children as often as possible to such events. Their day is spent participating in games that are designed to revolve around the re-enactment, so as they play, they learn and at times I don't think they even realize that they're enjoying their history lessons.

I decided to make a dress that would be fitting for the event. I did some research and I came across a photograph of a dress from 'Downton Abbey'. Amazingly almost every item she wore, I just happen to have in my home. I had the hat, pearls, shoes and almost the same fabric. The Downton dress was beige with light brown stripes and my fabric was beige with forest green stripes.

My feeling lucky about having the necessary items was short lived as I realized that I could not find a pattern for the dress. After I spent some time, actually a very long time of searching for a pattern I decided to just go for it and cut. Honestly, I wasn't too worried about cutting, it was matching up the stripes and hoping that they didn't come out in all directions thus creating a dizzying effect on passersby!

I'm a big believer in 'Better that it be too big, than too little' and so I cut a the dress a little larger than I needed, so that it would give me some wiggle room for any issues that might pop up...they did.

I went through so many fitting issues with the back neckline and shoulders, that I ended sewing into the wee hours of the night. I finally decided to just wear the dress as is, no sleeve cuffs, no lace on the shoulders, but even without them I was happy with dress.

 

I was so tired from staying up late trying to fix my fit issues that I completely forgot to wear my  hat and fan to the event. I was planning on making a matching handbag...oh well.

Although, it was a raining throughout the day and there were many muddy pits to be avoided on the museum grounds, it still took nothing away from the event. I was just as interesting as it could be. I actually think it gave it a bit of an effect on the re-enactment.

As always the museums volunteers were helpful, informative and did what they could to answer every question my kids were asking. The event was fun and we learned so many things about 'The Great War' that my kids actually asked to return to the event again the following year.

I took so many photos that it took me several days to go through them. I couldn't decide in what tone, color, sepia, aged or b&w, so  I decided to make a collage, until I could decide how to tackle my favorite photos.