Rosy’s 1950’s style dress!
Hello again! I hope this blog post finds you well, and that you’ve been enjoying the warm weather! I couldn’t have finished my new dress at a better time; its perfect for wafting around in the sunshine! If you read my last blog post, you’ll know I don’t particularly enjoy hot weather, but its far more tolerable when one has a new dress to wear!
I chose this fabric, as I absolutely LOVED the broderie anglais border, combined with the beautiful floral print, on black viscose. It’s certainly not a combination you see very often, so I snapped it up!
I wanted to make a full skirted 1950s style dress. It had to have a gathered skirt, if I was to keep the border at the hemline. A skirt like that is very simple to do without a pattern, so I initially thought I would set myself the challenge of drafting the bodice from scratch…but I lost my nerve! Plus, I knew it would take me a while to draft, toile, adjust, retoile etc etc and I just wanted to get this dress made ASAP so that I could start (as mentioned above) wafting around in the sunshine!!
I ended up choosing the Sew Over It Betty dress bodice. I downloaded it when SOI gave the pattern away as a gift, on International Women’s Day, last year. It is a simple, yet chic, sleeveless design that I felt would match well with the luscious fabric. For the skirt section, I simply took my hip measurement (45″) and cut two pieces at 45″ wide x 33″ long (my desired skirt length plus 1/2″ for the seam allowance at the waistline). Finally, I added pockets; every dress should have pockets!
For the photographs here, I have styled the dress with a big fluffy petticoat. Its just perfect for adding extra swishyness (is that a word?!?!)to the full skirt, and really helps to create a glamorous, vintage sillhoette. I’ve also added a black cropped cardigan, a vintage pearl necklace and a big pink floral hair clip. There are so many pretty colours in the fabric, that I was spoilt for choice on which ones to pick out. It will be fun to use different coloured accessories to create varied looks. Plus, it will be a great excuse to have a rummage through my collection of hairclips and vintage handbags!
Funnily enough, after all my waffle about twirling in the sunshine, it was raining when I came to take pictures of the dress, so they all had to be taken indoors!
Well, thats all from me today. Thanks to you dear reader, for taking the time to peruse my little blog post and thanks to Felicity Fabrics for the beautiful fabric. Until next time…happy sewing everyone!
