• Chocolate Bonbon 1950s Dress •

So sorry for the unannounced absence!!  Life can get pretty busy at times, and, well, a lack of photographs can be rather preventative to blogging as well.  ;)

This dress is one I made early this year for our southern vacation, but the only picture we took of it was this one:

:P

We always have these grand plans when we go on vacation; we make new, fun outfits, and we figure on taking the most wonderful pictures in the most wonderful locations while we're there.  Instead, we get a minimal amount of coat-covered, messy-haired, typical vacation photos.  Which is fine, but not quite what one needs for blogging.  But that's just the way it goes.  ;)

I purchased this fabric at Hancock Fabrics (boohoo!!!) a couple of years ago on the clearance rack for only a dollar or two per yard.  There was only 3.125 yards, so I was very limited in what I could do with it.  I always wanted to make a 1950s s'more-themed dress, with graham-cracker-shaped buttons, but no such buttons were found to exist, sadly.  :(  In the pursuit for The Perfect Buttons, my mom offered me these *gorgeous* pink ones, which proved to be just the right accent!

Somehow the combination of the brown polka dots with the pink accents reminded us very much of chocolate bonbons, hence the name.  ;) 

I'm amazed the dress squeezed into that small of an amount of fabric, but it did, albeit without enough leftover to make a bound buttonhole (only a very slight exaggeration).  I even managed to eke out a 2" hem!!  The skirt is made of two widths of fabric, so it is approximately 90" around.  Just enough to accommodate a petticoat and give that '50s silhouette!  :)

As for the design, I took a page from Lily's book and made a front-closing bodice with an underlap, like her fruit and lemon dresses.  I used the collar area from Butterick 6055 and my basic bodice sloper for the rest of the bodice pattern, varying things here and there to suit.  For the front opening, I simply left the center front seam open and faced it, sewing an underlap piece into the left seam.  The buttons were then sewn onto that underlap piece.  Since the neckline was a bit low, I pinned in a small modesty panel. 

 I ended up miscalculating the front shoulder width, due to having forgotten about the front shoulder dart, but somehow it came out perfectly nonetheless!  I should make mistakes like this more often; they make my sleeves fit even better!  ;) 

I managed to match the dots up on the front bodice, and placed the buttons smack-dab on top of them.  ;D  

These poor sleeves met with a near-death experience; I wanted that ricrac slit detail on my sleeves, but since they were not kimono sleeves, it was not so easy to do.  First I tried sewing the ricrac into the seam with the facing, clipped and trimmed the seam to within an inch of its life, only to turn it and find out that the ricrac had gotten sewn into every place except where it was supposed to be.  What happened next was this:

.....along with a lot of thoughts as to how to make this dress look decent as a sleeveless one.  But after a day or so of brooding, I finally decided to tackle it and see if it could be redeemed.  Thankfully, it could and did.  I ended up sewing the ricrac on after the facing seam was sewn and turned.

So all in all, it was a fun dress to make, despite a few hiccups along the way.  And it is such a fun (and comfortable, yay!!) dress to wear, I might just have to try another rendition someday!  :)  

Have a lovely week, and enjoy the gorgeous fall season!

~

If you haven't done so, do check out my Etsy shop for a new listing or two!  I recently added an adorable ruffled tote bag, featuring the cutest novelty print.  See the listing here.