Well, I might be working on a movie in November and December, so I'm trying to get all the posts up and pictures taken that I can. For some reason, I see the starting of the film to be the cut off date for doing absolutely anything. Which will probably be the case. We will see! Finished this dress over a month ago. Probably getting too cold to wear it now. I'm still having difficultly transferring to winter sewing!
Welcome to my thought process! I saw this fabric in the store and contrary to my mother's opinion (who thought it was the ugliest fabric ever) I needed to have it. It just screamed 40's dress to me and it was so soft and flowy. I waded through my boxes of patterns to be inspired and eventually pulled out a vintage 30's pattern. I don't know why, because I ended up changing it beyond recognition. I liked it, but I wanted to make it a shirt-dress. And I didn't want the waist that high. And I didn't want those sleeves. And the pattern is about 6 sizes too big for me. And I was missing all of the skirt pieces. I should have just drafted a pattern myself! The only thing that really stayed with the collar (which I actually ended up changing as well) and the pleats on the shoulders. Then I saw this dress and decided I wanted that dress. So I took this vintage pattern, traced the pieces for the top, did a slash and lap method of making it a few sizes smaller, elongated the front waist seam, and made the waist bigger so that it would fit some pleats. Then I found a pattern with a 6 piece skirt, which I thought was the most appropriate vintage style and adjusted it to be a button up, which it wasn't. Then I drafted some sleeves, twice, because the ones in the pattern were too 30's for my 40's style dress. And then again because I couldn't move my arms enough.
And I absolutely LOVED the dress when it was finish. Still do, no past-tense about it, it is crazy comfortable. I wish I had one more button on the front, but I sifted through my pounds of buttons and couldn't find another one. Whatever, I have a slip to wear under it, so I'm not going to end up flashing anyone. And I don't care if the colour washes me out, I love it! 40's shirt-dress mission accomplished!
So, I won't even tell you how PISSED I was when I discovered this pattern from Butterick a couple weeks later, and though you might not be able to tell from the truly horrendous fabric they used, but it is basically the exact same dress. Damn. Great minds? Luckily, drafting up this pattern didn't really take me too long, and I want to think that I like it more because I did it on my own ;)
Anywho, pleats are topstitched, all the inside seams are finished, and I had just gotten back from wearing it out so I didn't press it or do my hair, lol. Sorry. You can tell my shame from my total lack of a picture with me looking at the camera.
I won't let such a beautiful vintage pattern go to waste though, someday I will make a proper recreation of it!
\\While writing about my thought process on this dress I remembered once in university when I was writing a paper about The Odyssey, and I came up with a vague outline for it. I started in on a 20 page paper and part way through my line of thinking evolved, just built on idea after idea, until the end paper didn't resemble anything like what I had originally planned, rewritten about 4 times as I had epiphany after epiphany. The concept for the end paper wasn't even in my remote conciousness, and I didn't really notice until the end. Some things about us never really change, do they? Just sit back and let it evolve.[\]