I might have a new favorite.

I know I promised pictures of the big, edwardian project I've been working on, but haven't had a chance to finish some of the details yet, and my corset is on loan to my mother so she can use it as a guide for putting hers together. I did take a few pictures of the (VERY wrinkled) petticoat, blouse and skirt just so you can get a quick peak at the ensemble. Hopefully I'll have that all finished up soon. 

In the meantime, however, I made myself a new everyday dress. It's from a mail order pattern I've had in my collection for a while. I don't have an exact date on the pattern, but it looks like a very early 40s design. It's Anne Adams 4811. I wanted to make something a little different than most of what I have in my current wardrobe, and this softer styled shirtdress was just what I was looking for. The rayon challis print that I used for it makes for an incredibly light, comfortable summer dress. 

I interfaced the collar and front facings to keep the edges nice and crisp and support the buttons/buttonholes in this fairly limp-bodied fabric, and the drape and feel of the whole dress is wonderful. I ended up needing to grade all the seams in at the waist, as well as grading them in slightly over the bust and through the shoulders. The pattern as is was surprisingly rectangular, despite the very shapely envelope illustration. I'm very happy with the final fit of the dress. The only other real change I made was to shift the bust gathers up about 1.5 inches (as some of you may have seen in my query on Sew Retro). The original position of the gathers was ridiculously and unflatteringly low, even if it had been an earlier 1930s, droopy chested dress. Moving them up made a HUGE difference to the overall look of the dress. I actually wasn't sure how much I was going to like it once I started assembling the pieces, but now that it's finished I honestly think it might be my new favorite dress. I kind of want to make three more. 

This dress will definitely be getting a lot of wear this summer and into the fall. It's nice to have something with a slightly different silhouette than most of my other clothes, and the colors make me really happy. I've got enough of the fabric left for another project, and I think I may whip up some sort of 1930s style Hooverette, or maybe another version of my other favorite dresses:

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of my edwardian ensemble (Please excuse the wrinkles. They were in a bag forever while waiting to be finished and ironing all that fabric just wasn't in the cards yesterday, especially since I was putting all of it right back in a bag.) 

Hope everyone is having a good start to the week!