Princess Seam 40s Dress

I pulled my wedding going-away suit out of storage recently and got it all ironed and ready for wearing again, and I realized that I never actually posted a picture of the dress without the jacket as I promised!  (To see the whole suit, you can go to this post.)  I was surprised at my utter lack of a brown brooch to finish the look, but I'll figure out a remedy for that in the future!

I made this dress and it's matching jacket out of some poly-mystery fabric found in a thrift store.  Before my wedding I was a college student on a budget, so in the authentic spirit of "make do"--if not the authentic fabric--I bought the poly-mystery and used a 1940s mail order pattern to create it.  These pictures are after a day at work, so pardon all the wrinkles!

 

I had never done princess seams on a garment, so this was a good learning process.  I need to do a bit more adjustment on the, ahem, bust area to give myself a bit more room, but otherwise it's perfect!  The only thing that threw me off at the time, as a not-as-skilled-as-I-am-now sewist, was that there were no facing pieces at all for the top, which includes the neckline, armholes, and straps all as one continuous line.  Now that I know things, it's obvious to me that bias tape would be a perfect way to finish this... but not then.  So... improvements will come in the future!

It's nice to know I've grown in my sewing skills.  I feel like there is still SO much to learn, always a new technique, some new specialty I'd like to learn.  But at least I am definitely growing my knowledge little by little!

(And look!  I made my first gif! Admittedly, I'm not on the cutting edge of technology, so this is cool to me.)

Outfit details

1940s brown shoes: Decades (Springfield, MO)
dress: me made, Mail Order 3700

red sweater: me-made, Sun-Glo 40 No. 2292
scarf: flea market