While I patiently wait for the photos of this weekend to come out of my sister’s camera, I’ll share with you the story of the sleeve. While this sleeve did not go well in the making process, I am okay with the end result.
I knew I didn’t want another open sleeve as that is what I used for both green sheer and semi-sheer dresses from last year. I wanted something with shape. Looking at this inspiration sleeve,
this is what I came up with: 
After the sketch, I added a bias cut, double gathered ‘puff’ to the top. I liked the idea of the extra drop before the fullness.
In the drafting, I wanted to make sure I had a good length and a nice curve into the enlarged elbow. I thought this is what I had. It looked pretty good.
Well, not so much…
Full, yes. But, way too long. (do ignore the corset-less state.) So, I took off the bottom sleeve. Cut 2 inches off. Re-gathered. Re-attached. Oh, I also rotated the sleeve, moving the gathered fullness towards the back and added some trim.
Two inches should have worked. Right? …… Wrong. It was still too long:
Oddly, it actually looks longer. Doesn’t it?
To make matters worse…. there was this screaming blue horizontal stripe that was driving me crazy. (again, please ignore the corset-less, dress over the clothes state.)
So, what do I do? What any over-tired, over-hungry, cranky person would do…. I got out the scissors and hacked off the lower part of the sleeves. One big crescent shape. Yeap. And the moment I did, I knew I did bad.
I lack photos of the hacking and the hacked state. I decided it was time to put the dress down and go eat something.
After a few moments away, the sleeves told me they were going to be an open sleeve after all; they were even going to make use of the odd, dipping V in the opening created from the hacking. As such, I finished off the edges and trimmed away… down the outside of the sleeve and around the new opening. I added a second vertical piece trying to play with the curve and down play that blue line. In the end, I am okay with how it came out.
At one point, I thought I would use this sleeve for the show, then make a new one more like the sleeve on Lily’s dress, just longer (these are ‘matching’ adult vs teen dress comparisons). But, after wearing it on Sunday, finding it comfortable, I may just leave it as is. We’ll see what the other photos say.
In the middle of the 1860s we see a transition from the fashionable spoon and cottage bonnet shapes to the hat and smaller bonnet shapes. There were a speckling of styles that show the transition from one millinery era to the next. My bonnet pulls mostly from this first example. The crown drastically shrinks, flattening out, while the cheektabs try various positions framing the sides of the face rather than coming down to the jaw line.
As you can see, the decorations and ribbon tend to encircle the crown and fall down along the remains of the cheektab.
I used the last of my hemp plait for this bonnet over the winter. The box pleating encircling the crown is a silk ribbon slightly narrower than the silk ribbon used for the ties. Just under the brim is a frill of fine net.
If I Had My Own Blue Box: 