Dress Number One

Dress No. 1 is Anne Adams pattern 4789 from 1971.  There was no date on the envelope, but I was able to look it up via the Vintage Pattern Wiki.  Anne Adams patterns were sold via newspapers from the 1940's to the 1970's.  Yes, I remember them.  I am SO old.

I am horribly naive about pattern covers.  I still believe that if only I follow the directions to a fault, my dress will look exactly like the picture.  Sometimes they do-sometimes they do not.  At all.  Like--not--even--a--little--bit.  In my experience, the more fitted the garment, the less likely it is going to turn out like the picture.  Since this dress is a shift-sort-of-thing, I figured it would be close.

I chose this 50's repro print.  It reminds me of kitchen wall paper.  I liked it so much, I incorporated it in my blog header.

After finishing the dress, I think it was a mistake.  The interesting thing about this dress is the details.  The stitching, the pleats and how the dress is constructed would have been better served with a solid dark color, accented with a bold stitch.  The details are lost in the busy pattern of the fabric.

The directions indicated that an optional sleeve was included, but the piece was missing from my pattern.  Next time I will add a small cap sleeve.

PROBLEMS WITH THIS PATTERN:

It is marked as a size 12, which should fit me.  It's a little tight around the sleeves and neck and I had a hard time zipping it up.  So I think it's closer to a size 8 or 10.  So, yeah, it's totally the pattern's fault that I can't zip it up over my back fat.  But seriously,  I do think it runs small.

The corner where the center is sewn onto the sides is a little tricky.  It indicates that you should clip after, but I found that it was impossible for me to sew a sharp angle like that without clipping first.

Another thing is the arm facing.  It's probably just me, but I can never get this to lay straight.  After pressing, it is ok-but this is definitely a dress that will need to be ironed before wearing.  The only other problem I had was making sure that the hem was even.  Since there is a side pleat, it is important the hem is perfect.  I hate perfect, so I had to take it out a couple of times and do it over.  PLEATS ARE HARD.

I think the entire dress took about eight hours from start to finish.  It was pretty easy going, but I would not recommend this pattern for a brand new seamstress.  I went slow and marked all of the darts, hand picked the zipper, hand sewed the hem...definitely not a quick project.

I also re-constructed this knit turtle neck sweater.  The dress told me that she'd like a little red cardigan, but I couldn't find what I wanted.  This sweater was buried in my give away pile because it's too short (Note I DID not say too SMALL).

 I zig-zagged the cut edges and tried to machine sew the hems.  That only worked on the neck.  The others stretched too much, so I had to hand sew them.

I added a piece of grosgrain ribbon to the button-hole side.

So, that's my first dress in my 52 dress project.  Now what am I going to do with it?  It's too small for me...

Do you want it?  Follow my new blog and leave a comment for a chance,...I will draw a winner on Sunday, February 3!

Thanks for stopping in!
Lisa