Vogue 7219

 So lets kick off then shall we?

Step in shirt dress with or without top-stitch trim has bias collar and full length shirt sleeves; pockets in side seams

Last year I purchased this sweet shirt dress pattern from eBay. It's a lovely dress from 1967 and has all those things you'd expect from a late 60s dress like Bishop Sleeves and the wide tent shape

View B

The thing I like most about this is how the wide A shape of the dress is accented by the delicate shoulders and collar. Although this style is typically for Children, in the 60s this style of dress was very common, as it was on purposely designed to replicate the clothing of the wearer’s childhoods, therefore perpetuating the Youth ideal of the era.

For the first make of this dress I decided to not shy away too far from its original style. I would probably like to make this again one day in a plain fabric, with straight sleeves so that I can wear it to work.

The fabric is a lovely mottled print of Purple, yellow and green on plain cotton and was lovely to work with. I got it from The Fabric Shop in Surry Hills, Sydney.

Being a Vogue pattern, this dress features a lot more couture techniques then the average dress. Some of which I was doing for the first time i.e. a lapped lapel. I even tried tailors tacks as per the instructions!

The front lapel also includes Bound button holes. Normally bound button holes are used for coats and jackets as they look very neat when left unbuttoned. But in this dress which is always done up, I think it just gives a nice overall finish.

There was also a significant amount of hand stitching in this dress, which is all very normal for any well-made garment.

In the end I graded the swing of the dress and the sleeve width down as it was very exaggerated and I couldn't feel comfortable while wearing it in the modern day.

I'm particularly proud of this one, as I think after 17 years of sewing, I'm finally becoming GOOD!