Last year, when the lovely and talented Rochelle of Lucky Lucille announced her Sew for Victory Sewalong, I hopped on board with complete abandon, choosing not one but two 1940's dresses to sew. Needless to say, I barely finished one of the two dresses, mainly because of having to sew the whole thing on my "new" non-electric treadle sewing machine after my Forties electric machine bit the bullet.
This year, in true Elle form, I have managed to leave myself two evenings to finish my make (ironically this is due to the fact that I'm in the process of a full house organization project...apparently getting the hang of time management is next on my to-do list.) Thankfully it appears to be an easier make than the dresses I planned last year were, and I'm hoping that it will be one of my go-to blousepatterns. I'll let you know as soon as it's finished...all being well tomorrow night. Gulp.
Here's a sneak peek of the pattern, fabric and buttons:
In true Make Do and Mend fashion, everything for this project is from my stash. I'm using a drapey crepey fabric in a pale dove grey. I can't for the life of me remember where I got it or what it's made of, but it looks like it will fit the bill. The buttons are vintage, I'm guessing they're pre-1930's and are from Paris. I'm fancy like that. Not really...I thrifted a whack of them a couple of years back. ;-) Being a button-up-the-back blouse, I'm optimistic that my skills as a contortionist will allow me to button this blouse with a minimum of injury, but only time will tell.
In the meantime I thought I'd show you the second dress from the original Sewalong that eventually did get made.
It's the cutest little dress! I can see this being one of my go-to patterns as well. Such a simple dress (after omitting the bow) and extremely comfortable to wear. I used a vintage seersucker in a mustard yellow and warm teal colourway on a white background. It's still chilly around here so I paired the dress with tights and a cardi, but I have the perfect mustard yellow sandals waiting in the wings for warmer weather.
(I just realized as I was writing this post, that I didn't make the matching belt! I think I'll have to whip one up...it looks pretty cute on the pattern envelope.)
I didn't make many changes to the pattern. I didn't have to do my usual full-bust adjustment because of the gathering at the bustline and other than the normal Short Back Adjustment (as I've mentioned before, it's similar to a swayback adjustment, but the excess fabric is removed between the shoulderblades, then the armsrye is enlarged to compensate.) I did fold back and tack down the top of the sleeves because the seersucker is quite stiff and the sleeves stuck out a bit farther than my narrow shoulders were comfortable with (they have a bit of a complex.)
All in all I love this pattern! And...ummm...did I mention the pockets?? I would make this again on the basis of the pockets alone. They make the whole where-to-put-my-hands-during-posing thing so much easier.
Barring another catastrophic sewing machine failure, I'll be posting again soon with my finished Sew For Victory 2.0 project, . Fingers crossed!
Happy sewing!
xox Elle
