Morning Cap Godey's Lady's Book 1861

     This is my new morning cap, copied from the August 1861 issue of Godey's Ladies Book.  It is made of white batiste, the finest lace I could find (which still isn't comperable to the laces of the 19C), and blue velvet ribbon.  I followed the advice of the Sewing Academy and pleated the edges rather than gathering them and then whipped the pleats together.  The base pattern was adapted from Butterick 5663.

     Caps in the 19C were quite the accessory for the fashionable lady.  Some were worn as dress caps by married ladies, out of the house to dinner, dancing, the theatre etc.  Some, like this one, were worn around the house in the morning prior to fixing one's hair for the day.  These were usually worn in combination with a wrapper and were sometimes called breakfast caps as they made frequent appearances at that meal.  Keep watching the blog for pictures of  me dressed in my wrapper and caps.  I hope to dress up in them today for my quilting Christmas party.

     I thought I would update you all, as I realize I didn't include the information in the last post.  For the parasol, I plan to recover it as closely to the original as possible.  This will be a functional living history item for myself, and I want to maintain the accuracy of the parasol.  I am currently on the hunt for black silk taffeta as my local fabric shop doesn't have any.  Whatever happened to black being a wardrobe basic?  I'll probably have to resort to ordering a 1/2 yd online - oh brother.