Things never seem to go as planned, do they? When I first heard about the #SpringForCotton sew-along hosted by Rochelle of Lucky Lucille, I was super excited. Almost immediately I started to go through my fabric stash a narrowing down my choices of cotton fabric, I could use for this project. I ended up choosing a wonderful vintage yellow cherry print that I was quite happy with.
Next step was to choose a pattern. Again this was pretty easy. I already had planned to make a set number of vintage patterns for my #VintagePledge and felt that my Advance 4906 pattern would be great for this fabric.
So, I had the fabric, I had the pattern, heck I even had the notions, but alas it all got put on the back-burner.
April always seems to be the busiest month at work, since we are wrapping up for the end of the semester. April is also the month I spend most of my free time tending to the yard. So, with little time on my hands and most it devoted to yard work, I didn’t really have time to work on my dress, which I was so excited about.
Another snag in my plans was the amount of fabric. I calculated that I had just enough fabric. However, after cutting the skirt pieces, it seemed I was wrong. I couldn’t get all the pieces for the bodice to fit on the remaining fabric.
I was so upset, I didn’t know what to do. I thought of various solutions and even considered trying some contrasting fabric for the yoke and other pieces. I just wasn’t happy with the idea of mixing and matching with this pattern and was so distraught I left the project on my cutting table nearly all month.
Then after weeks of putting this project off, one morning I went to the cutting table and realized if I angled the fabric just right I would have just enough fabric for the bodice. The pattern pieces won’t be exactly on grain, but I could get them to fit, which was to me most important.
With the fabric issue resolved I was determined to finish this project and finish it I did. I completed the entire dress last night in 6 hours. I know really cutting it close to the deadline, but I managed, somehow.
The skirt pieces were very straightforward, simple 4 piece skirt. The bodice on the other hand had a lot of little pieces pattern pieces for it’s unusual design, but despite how complicated it looked it really wasn’t’. I managed to put the bodice together relatively easy with no issues whatsoever.
The only bit of confusion I had been the inclusion of a “placket slide fastener”, which the pattern instructions made note of. I’d never heard of this term, but after a quick Google search I found a discussion form on this very topic.
What I concluded was, in simple terms, a placket slide fastener was a zipper used in the side seam of the dress. One can use a regular zipper and just sew the top tabs of the zipper together so only the center zipper opens.
With the zipper squared away, I finished my seams using vintage pinking technique. Usually I prefer French seams, but didn’t think it would work for this project, plus I was short on time. While pinking the seams are not my favorite seam finishing it is rather authentic for a 1948 pattern, such as this one.
Another side note is that this dress has ½” seams instead of the standard ⅝” because of limited fabric of the time of the pattern. This is great, since I only had very limited fabric to work with anyways.
One of my favorite things about this patter was the unusual collar with a turned point and button. I love how well this turned out and how well a button from my stash fit with this dress.
The original pattern included shoulder pads, but I opted not to included them in the dress, my hubby suggested that I go back and add them to give more structure to the sleeves. I’m still on the fence on the idea of shoulder pads, but he may be right.
Final thoughts, while the dress was a bit of a challenge to start, it really was very easy to make. Also, I think this is like my new favorite dress!! I love it, I love the fabric pattern, the flow, the style and everything. Expect to see me in this dress a lot this spring/summer.
What a beautiful dress!
I can totally understand the frustration of having to figure out if I have enough fabric for the project once it’s too late to fix! It has happened before, I’m sure it will happen to me again.
The decorated collar is absolutely my favorite part of your work on this garment- its so interesting! And I have to say, I agree that some shoulder pads would give the sleeves a little more oomph. Its weird for me to wear shoulder pads in this day and age, but I think they would work great in this particular design.
Great job!
Thanks Bianca.
The collar detail is also my favorite feature. I bought shoulder pads the other day, to add to dress, we’ll see how it turns out.
What a cute fabric! I love what you’ve done with it. Such a cute dress!
Thank you. I do love the fabric, it’s very cheery.