American Civil War Period Clothing

Dresses

1860s Blue check wrapper/work dress, 2015
Fitted back, with loose buttoned front over a semi-fitted lining, cinched with a sash. Made from nearly a whole queen-size sheet set!
Mostly made with reenacting in mind, since the loose front gives it a much more adjustable fit. Sits right on the line between a wrapper and a dress, I think. The sleeves roll up nicely for working.
Currently has two huge tucks in the skirt to shorten it for a reenacting friend. I rather like the shorter brushing-the-foot length for practicality, and it looks nicer walking through a field than a longer skirt does.
1850s-60s blue print work dress, 2013
Gathered front with front hook and eye closure and gathered straight sleeves.
Due to a pleating hiccup (whose cause I have quite forgotten) the center front of the skirt is flat. Since I always wear this dress with an apron this isn't a particular problem, since it doesn't noticeable affect the fall of the skirt.
My very first 1860s dress, and I think still my most successful. The collar and sleeve shapes look good to my eye, and with proper underpinnings it sits securely on my torso.
It gives me a good shape, with the gathered bodice adding volume to my very limited chest, at least a bit. I originally intended to wear this dress with bust padding in the corset, but I haven't yet figured out how to do that in a way that's comfortable.
Picture
Mid-century maroon fitted day dress, 2016
This dress has a fitted bodice  with front darts and slim coat sleeves, and front hook and eye closure.
The style lines of this are very close fitting, and manage to look not-quite-right for any of the middle of the 19th century. There's the raised waist of the 1860s, but the very slim sleeve and super slim torso look more 1840s. Partly that's a consequence of putting a fitted bodice on my somewhat conical torso, but I think it may also show influence from Quaker mid-century plain fashion, which I have researched on and off again for family history reasons (and curiosity). The vaguely unplaceable dating is more common to plain dress styles. Styled up with  improvised Quaker cap, shawl, and apron, it looks fairly right - but a little too red, where it ought to be more brown.
1865 silk Zouave jacket ensemble, 2013
This consists of a matching washed silk skirt and zouave jacket, worn with swiss-waist and blouse, and matching bonnet.
While I am in the appropriate age group for such fashions, I absolutely detest wearing it. This was originally made to wear while babysitting a museum dress at a town function, and was too small in the waist even at that time. (The original swiss-waist never fit.) It has to be worn over hoop and petticoats, but was originally made for too large a hoop - if I want to use this again for real, I will need to make over the skirt. As it is, the skirt and top-most under petticoat are a good 2 inches too long, and really enhance the ground-suctioning properties of the hoop. I very much dislike the feeling of hoops - it's heavy with petticoats on over, and takes up a very annoying amount of space.
I don't think the construction is particularly period either - there are probably too many pleats in the skirt, or at least executed wrong, and the seam lines in the jacket are decidedly not right.

Other garments and accessories

Bib aprons, 2011-2017
I seem to collect aprons. I've got a variety of white ones in different skirt sizes, and colored ones as well for the fun of it. I put bibs on all my aprons, which I can then just fold down behind the skirt for periods where bibs are not in. I rather like the freedom offered by a pin-up bib - if the bib proportions are off, I can just fold it down til it looks right.
Chatelaine, 2016
Loosely based on historical examples, this is made from a money clip, a random fancy jewelry pendant, some chain, and wire loops. I hook the empty chains up to themselves to keep them from getting tangled. I find this both a helpful device and an annoying one. My scissors tend to fall open as they are attached to it, which isn't ideal, but it is quite handy to have them on my person so I don't set them down and forget where I put them.
The pinwheel on here is my own manufacture as well, made of the lids of salt shakers!
Swiss waist, 2015
Made with the intent of wearing it with modern clothes. I'm not sure if the construction of this is quite right, in particular the closures, which are lacing front and back. It looks quite all right left a bit open, which is good because it shrank enough when I was putting the boning in that it is a bit tight to wear over clothes.
Blouse, 2013
This blouse is to be worn with a zouave jacket. I'm honestly not sure how historical any of it is, since I originally made it riding merely on general shapes. It has a quite short waist, with bodice gathering to a band at the bottom, and rectangular gathered sleeves. The shoulder seam is very low - I'm always torn whether it looks right or too much.

Shapewear

Closed front corset, 2016
Made to replace my first corset attempt, this one make no pretense towards fashionable shape, but rather sticks to the shape of my actual body, It's just meant to get the right posture under my dresses. While the fit is miles better than my first corset, and it does an excellent job of distributing the weight of my petticoats and dress, I find this garment is not stiff enough for my taste. I don't need bust support, so this serves mainly as back support, and I don't think it is stiff enough to do that when presented with a tricky situation.
1860s corded corset, 2013
My first 1860s corset. I tried to go for a very fashionable hourglass shape here, but since I have no squish on my body I resorted to making the bust and hip gores extra big, with an aim towards padding them. However the combination of bad fit and cording makes this corset wildly uncomfortable. I did put it on one of my more hourglass friends with success - for which outing I put a couple tucks in the back of the corset, so that it no longer fits me even in the waist.

Headwear

1861-ish Silk bonnet, 2013/2015-16
Originally build over a posterboard base, this hat suffered a collapse due to a rainstorm and had to be put aside until it could be remade with a buckram base. It is as-yet not trimmed enough. The basic bonnet is together, but it will have lace and flowers stuck in there along the inside top of the brim.
1840-70 Sunbonnets, 2012-2016

My first sunbonnet was the spotted one. It was a compromise because I wanted both an easy bonnet and a fashionable one, so it didn't come out accurate to either. The cording in the brim is a separate construction sewn in after the fact.
The other two bonnets were better researched. These have two layers of fabric in the brim with cording in between.
In properly historical contexts, the gingham bonnet is my favorite to wear, because the white bonnet tends to sit funny.