Success!

[atherleisure]

I successfully cut a c. 1835 dress out of six yards of yard-wide goods. I had to sacrifice the collar I wanted and the matching belt with rosette, but I've got a bodice and big sleeves and a skirt of the appropriate fullness. My piping will be heavily pieced, but I'll have enough to pipe every bodice and waistband seam. I am drawing the line at piping the sleeve seams, though I know they did that sometimes. Amazingly, I was able to do it without piecing anything, but since my scraps are so small, piecing wouldn't have gotten me much further. Other than a piece 3" x 1.5 yd, no scrap is more than about 6" square if reshaped to be a square, and there aren't many of those.