Titanic dress

So in preparation for the Titanic event my local costumer's group is having, I've been researching inspiration for a dress and contemplating a corset...  This is not my favorite era and I'm not quite in love with making a dress for it as I'm not sure that I will be wearing it often.  However, I have a friend who needs some work and I can do a sort of layaway payment plan with her...

After loads of research, here are my drawings...

The base fabric is an Olive colored poly shantung. For the brown overlay, we are using part of an old dress that I wore 10 years ago in Las Vegas.  The dress was great for Vegas, but not wearable anywhere else in the CONUS. (le sigh)  Anyway, the Vegas dress was turquoise with a sheer beaded overlay.  Its the overlay that we want to use.  We are pulling the 1920s style handkerchief hem up to the waist so that we can see the pretty olive fabric below.

I am on the hunt for a pretty shantung fabric in a orange (I call it pumpkin) but if I can't find it I will use a pretty paprika color shantung for the waist band.

I have been vacillating about participating in the 1911 Corset Sew A Long.  I've enlarged that pattern and picked out some fabric, but I have NOT purchase any other supplies. So we'll see how that goes.

Here are links to some of my favorite inspiration pieces...

http://blog.fidmmuseum.org/museum/2010/05/tunic-dress-c-1912.html

http://www.polyvore.com/1912_dress/thing?id=11621304

Happy sewing!