Doable Retro Dress

My resistance is low when fabric and supplies are on sale. I admit, it’s my own fault; not entering a store would be the correct step in avoiding getting more stuff. Sadly, I choose over and over again to go into a store to “just take a look” and inevitably find something I want.

I like to rationalize and think that as long as it’s not full price, I’m getting a good deal. This time it was a 1950’s retro dress pattern that was on sale. I do like vintage style items and the pattern had a sewing rating of “very easy” (which I thought was doable with my limited sewing skills). The pattern required quite a bit of fabric (which despite my growing collection of fabric, I didn’t have the required yardage at home) so I decided to get some cheap fabric.

The sewing part wasn’t too strenuous as the pattern and directions were fairly simple. It was my first time using double folded bias tape and it went pretty smoothly (I only messed up one with the fabric escaping from the double folded bias tape encasing). So while I didn’t struggle much over the actual techniques, it still takes me quite a while to sew anything and I spent the better part of the weekend working on this dress.

Is the dress perfect? Absolutely not. There are problems with it—it doesn’t quite fit the way I want (I made slight alterations along the way that may not have been exactly right so the dress doesn’t feel quite right). So I didn’t do a stellar job but it wasn’t too terrible either. The important thing is that I finished it and it was a good exercise in using double folded bias tape.