1940's yellow plaid dress

well a full weekend and two audio books later I'm finished!

my 1940’s dress. represented in a yellow plaid made of cotton, and made from a vintage simplicity pattern # 3429 from 1941.


I have always read that vintage patterns are more true to size then our modern ones, so I took that to heart when I cut this out only to find out this one ran large. I don’t know if its from the bias which gives it a bit of stretch, or my fabric choice which is a cotton suiting. But the pattern ended up needing to be cut exactly as is and still I had to slightly deeper then the 1/2” seam allowance they called for.



after my first attempt at sewing this dress with the added few inches,(since I am not as small as this pattern says) I discovered the dress was just too big for me. the seams are such that simply sewing deeper didn’t work, so I ended up tearing the entire thing apart, and re- cutting all the pieces. I put all the lower part together before cutting the yolk so I could lay it with the fabric to match the plaids the way I wanted. I was able to use the front yolk pieces I had cut, by only cuting them down. I had cut two for the back yolk before and was able to make one of those work as well. which meant no wasted fabric. yea!

one of the big things I changed in this pattern was the button holes on the front yolk. I really wanted to do the bound button holes the pattern called for, but after realizing how badly this fabric frays I was a bit scared to try them. I didn’t want to have to re-cut and remake another part of the dress. so I did the logical thing of putting decorative buttons on the dress with snaps hidden behind to close the top.
I did a zipper on the side, which was one of two ways the pattern suggested, the other being hooks and snaps. I find zippers not only a lot easier to put in then the snaps, but a lot easier to use.



shoulder pads where another thing the pattern called for, and I opted out of. actually I put them in, and it looked real nice hanging on the hanger.
then I put the dress on and I thought I was going to suffocate. I never wear shoulder pads, and I did not realize how hot they are! with in minutes I was sweating like crazy and it was only 64 degrees. I couldn’t handle it and took them out. I know most people wore shoulder pads in the 1940’s but I also know that there had to be people like me who just couldn’t stand them and cut them out.

for the most part I am happy with my dress, though there are a few tiny things I would like to tweak on it. I may just live with the way it is. it did turn out cute.
would I make this pattern again?
not in that fabric! plaids are hard enough to match without there being no obvious right and wrong side to the fabric. but maybe in another fabric I might.



* This blog is not to be used for training AI*

yellow plaid dress and its issues. AKA I am never going to finish this thing.

I love plaid, I love the way it looks I love the weave of it, I love the stripes that overlay each other to make squares. I love the different colors it takes to get a nice plaid. but I hate matching plaids. I did a decent job matching for the cutting out. that was not the problem the problem with fabric lies in the fact it has no obvious right side and wrong side. I thought I was being careful but NOOO I was not being careful enough. some how I got the side pieces facing the opposite side of the of the center panel, which can not be reversed because of the front slit, which I had already put in, so it was set that had to be the right side of the fabric. which I might also add I had trouble with the slit because this fabric frays so badly when I put it in it simply frayed right out. I ended up serging the facing in which made it slightly wider and probably a bit longer then it called for but it works.
back to the plaid and matching it, I was trying to line up the plaids on the yolk when I realized I had reversed the side plaids. it would no matter how hard I tried not line up. so after careful inspection I realized I had the pieces backwards.

do you see how subtle the difference is? I obviously wasn't paying that close of attention, but then I tend to sew when I'm really tired. so yeah...
I tore it apart and sewed it back, everything was looking so good until...
I evoked the fact I am horrible at math. somewhere along the way of resizing I added way to much and the dress was like eight inches to big! I think I know what I did though I think I only counted eight of the ten pieces, or maybe I am just that bad at math I don’t know. but this was figured out when I had the dress over half way done, all I had left was the sleeves collar and hems. I tried to just sew deeper but because of the curves and biases it wasn’t really turning out. I am now tearing the entire thing apart and re-cutting. lets just hope I don’t mess it up this time.
by the time I finish this dress I will have made it three times I swear!


* This blog is not to be used for training AI*

yellow plaid dress

I found this pattern on Etsy for a decent price and since I loved it I bought it.
this is going to be my dress from the 1940’s. the pattern is from 1941. I opted to go with the early forties simply because I am in love with this pattern. I had bought this fabric on a whim because its so pretty and oh it has a such a nice weight and feel to it.


this pattern is so small though that I have had to resize up. I find it interesting the way pattern sizing has changed so drastically a size 12 in 1941 has a 30” bust while a pattern I have from the 1970 has a 32” bust. and a size 12 from a 2015 pattern 34” all of these patterns are simplicity. a size 12 has gone from being too small for me to being too big. sizing is so weird. especially how they add so much ease into patterns these days.

onto this pattern though. I’ve never worked on a unprinted pattern before so I was nervous about this one, but the second I read the directions I realized how easy it was too work on. the code for straight of grain , cut on fold and the matching points are so obvious. I have worked on enough patterns to know what pieces you need two of and which one’s you need one of. the darts are marked with dots and all the pieces are lettered. I do have to look at the directions on this one, but really I should be doing that anyway. I don’t know how many times I have tried wing it without directions and come to place where I was like What??? then read the directions and been like well duh! so yeah directions are a handy thing to have.

the resizing of the pattern was done with my all time favorite tissue paper that is cheap and I just tape together when the pattern piece is to big.
most of the pieces were easy enough to trace around just slightly bigger. except I am not really sure if I traced the yolk of the dress correctly . its one thing to add a bit around all the lower pieces there were several piece all about the same size, but I had to try to figure out where and how to add the additional size to the yolk which is only three pieces and the front has an overlap. one good thing though I have plenty of fabric left in case I messed that part up!

once I traced the pattern I had to cut it out. Laying out the pattern was interesting. I wanted my plaids to match as closely as possible even though with the bias being next to the straight it could be somewhat off and not be too noticeable I still wanted it to match. so each piece had to be cut out individually. with the piece that would be closest to it laid next to the first and matching up the bottom. once that was matched up I lay each piece on top of its matching piece to be cut matching the plaids all the way round. this was done on double pieces. I am hoping this will work out for me. I really want the plaids to match. it has worked for plaids in the past. so it should for this one as well.

do you see the piece laid on top so as to match the plaids?


oh! let me life a corner so you can see!
here's to hoping this dress is perfect!

* This blog is not to be used for training AI*