• 1940s Floral Evening Gown •

This is probably one of my favorite posts of the whole year!  This gown was another one of my projects for Remembering WWII, and I absolutely love it.  But then, I love evening gowns, so........ :)

I purchased this pattern from Lady Marlowe Patterns on Etsy last year, with the intent of turning it into a fabulous little rayon day dress, and eventually an evening gown.  It took a while to come to fruition (as always), but I finally did make the evening gown, and it really worked out well!  The pattern is for a day length dress, obviously, but with just flaring and lengthening the skirt (by about 12.7 feet, you know....), it turned into a very fun evening length dress.

Oh, and you really can't see them, but I promise I am wearing my Royal Vintage Marilyn pumps with this dress.  ;)  I can't wait to add to my RVS collection, they are all by far my favorite shoes ever!

The dress features an asymmetrical design with a right shoulder yoke and gathers, echoed by a "midriff panel" on the left bodice that also extends into the skirt.  I did not make a mockup of this pattern at all (hello, time squeeze), so I was super leery of how it would turn out, but it really did work well!  I just love the sleeves on here as well; the ruching adds such a fun detail!

I had been saving this rhinestone belt buckle for years, and it finally found its perfect home.  :)

I also discovered that belting works so well for rayon fabric-covered belts!  I have made a rayon belt just using my interfacing method (see post here) in the past, but being it was made of rayon, it ended up stretching/wrinkling a bit.  I am definitely a fan of belting, especially if you can find the webbed sort as opposed to the commonly available solid, very stiff variety. 

Not only did my "V" brooch match the belt buckle, but it seemed quite appropriate for the USO show at RWWII.  :)  That whole event was SUCH a blast, and it was just an amazing experience to be able to have a small part in it.  I met so many amazing veterans, I wish I could spend so much more time with them!

Among other highlights, I was able to catch a ride in this tank as the belly gunner after one of the battles, and that may or may not be one of the highlights of my entire life from now on.  ;D

As for the location for these pictures, my mom and I were headed to opening night at our local philharmonic when we passed this glorious line of trees on both sides of the street.  We pulled in, parked, and took pictures on what ended up being the sidewalk in a local park!  It made a gorgeous backdrop, and I was thrilled that the one-way street it was on was facing the same direction I was, so I did not have to see any gawkers.  ;)  I really, really feel uncomfortable when there are an abundance of people looking on when we are taking pictures, but it is often unavoidable unless we are in our own backyard!  The leaves are gone off of these pretty little trees now, but it was a perfect location at the time.  And we made it back to the car right as some horrendous winds and rain started!  Score!  :)

Thanks for visiting, and for all your sweet comments of late on all my blog posts!  Contrary to what one might think, I have not had time to blog (or sew, or......anything) for the past month; I had one free day last month in which I penned them all and scheduled them to automatically post.  It has, in fact, been one of the most incredibly hectic and emotional months in a long time; the week that we got back from Remembering WWII, our church had revival meetings each night, so that meant racing straight from work to church every night.  A day and a half later we received news that my grandma had passed away, so we immediately headed to Minnesota for a week to spend time with my dear grandpa and of course to be there for the funeral.  As we pulled back into town from that trip, we got a call letting us know that my sister had passed away that very afternoon, very unexpectedly and very suddenly.  She was not in good health, but the reason for her passing was not stemming from her health problems, so it was a huge shock.  Needless to say, the next two weeks were very hectic and full of emotion with planning of her funeral and so forth.  So all in all, October has come and gone right before our eyes, in a very different way than we had planned it!  We were to have been at a couple of reenactments and an out-of-state antique meet having a grand old time, but the Lord had other plans.  He knew my grandma was going to pass when she did, and had me schedule time off of work for another event during that week, which was a huge blessing.

All that to say, thank you again for your sweet words!  :)  I'm hoping to get back to some sewing soon, along with a busy work schedule, trying to practice the piano more than I have been, reorganizing the sewing areas in our house, and just everyday life.  We'll see how it goes!

• 1940s Evening Gown •

I'm very excited about today's post!!  :)  I never thought I would be making, much less posting about a vintage-style evening gown so soon, but it worked out for me to make one just a month or so ago.  There's something fabulous about vintage ('30s-50s) evening gowns; they are more often than not the absolute opposite of today's idea of an evening gown (ie: plunging neckline, strapless, short, tight, slits everywhere, etc.  Not good!).  Instead, they were elegant, gorgeous, and (typically) modest dresses that are nothing short of beautiful.  And who doesn't love wearing a long, pretty dress?!

(See my 1930s and 1940s evening gown Pinterest boards for inspiration.)

 It all started with this gorgeous rayon fabric my dear friend Sarah gave me; I needed to make a dress to wear to a friend's wedding, and this fabric seemed to be just the ticket.  I couldn't decide what style of dress to make for the longest time, but finally decided on a more formal-style evening gown, as opposed to a day dress.  I was still agonizing over the design, but then I saw this dress, the design of which really appealed to me.  Rather simple, and with almost a shirtdress-type bodice, but still very elegant and unmistakably formal.

The only problem with that design was that I didn't have enough fabric!  The skirt I made ended up taking an awful lot of fabric, so there just wasn't enough left for the bodice.  I ended up going to the fabric shop and finding an 18-somethings repro print that matched really well!  It's definitely not a combination you would expect to go together, but I think the two patterns and colors compliment each other nicely. 

I used Simplicity 8050 for the bodice, making the neckline just like the pattern, and adding a (very much needed!!) modesty panel.  I didn't want to try to alter the neckline, as doing so would have completely changed the look of it, as much as it would have needed to be raised.

I looked at '40s evening gown patterns that I could find online to see what the width around the hem was, in order to have an idea of how full to make the skirt.  They were surprisingly full, on average, so I ended up using a vintage '50s pattern for the skirt, just lengthening it, you know.........a lot.  ;)  I really love the way it hangs, and it's full enough to drape really well in the rayon fabric.

I made a cummerbund, using the Simplicity 1459 piece as a guide (although I may have made it wider than the pattern piece, I don't recall).  I did NOT cut it on the bias, however, and it's a very good thing I didn't, as the rayon fabric keeps stretching out each time I wear it!  I already took it in a bit, and it stretched out beyond that once again.  The side "seams" of the cummerbund are "boned" with collar stays, as is the back opening.  We won't talk about the night-before-the-event cheat of using hook-and-eye tape for the back closure.  ;) 

Just reading the directions, the collar seems really crazy to put together, but once you are actually making it, it's quite easy!  It was rather difficult in this case, dealing with one layer of persnickety rayon and one layer of un-persnickety cotton, but it still came out perfectly.  I half expected the dress to come out of the wash with a very shriveled collar, but it came out looking perfect, thank goodness!  ;)  I would love to make this dress up in a pretty cotton floral!

A side note on the fit of 8050; I'm not quite sure what they were thinking when they came up with the measurements for that pattern, but I ended up cutting the bodice out almost a whole size bigger, while having to cut the waist smaller.  If I recall correctly, they allow something like 1" of ease in the bust, while allowing around 4" at the waist.  And they don't want you to wear a belt.  Hmmm.....

Sarah, who is an amazing seamstress, has a gorgeous 1940s-style dress made out of this exact rayon fabric for sale in her shop here, if you are interested!  It is an extremely comfortable-to-wear fabric, very good quality, and has a lot more body to it than any other rayons I've dealt with. The dress is currently on sale, so do check out the listing!  :)

The sleeves of my dress are from a vintage 1930s pattern.  I had read in several different places that the armhole area and sleeves of Simplicity 8050 were not comfortable as-is, so I went ahead and just used a different armhole and sleeve, since I wanted a sleeve with detail anyway.

The true test to see if a dress is really a good one or not, is seeing if it twirls well.

This dress passes the test.  ;)

We had fun finding some new locations to take pictures!  This house is one that was built around 1902-05  (hurrah for one of the very few historical houses/anythings in our area!!), and is quite gorgeous from all angles!  Unfortunately it is a private residence, so we couldn't go and putz around inside, but at least we got to take some fun pictures on the grounds!  ;)  

Thanks so much for stopping by!