On A Colonial Look

As a follow-up to my last post, which may have left some of you wondering...While not my original intention to sew a colonial style dress, I came across Hollywood Pattern 1205 (1930's or 40's) near the end of September and knew it would be this year's costume and I am exceptionally pleased with how it turned out.

I really loved making this dress and felt very elegant in it! The panniers (the piece from the last post being one of them) are probably one of my favorite parts of this dress just because they're so far from what I normally sew.

Construction-wise, it was a pretty straightforward pattern to work with. The side opening was interesting as I'm not used to having an overlap between the front bodice piece and the back skirt piece and I'm still not entirely sure I interpreted the instructions correctly, but as the skirt stayed on I'm not going to question it. In relation to that, I also ran out of the right size snaps. As a result, my waist band ended up with only two snaps instead of three and the pannier which clearly couldn't be sewn on at the front if I ever hoped to get the dress on or off ended up with just one instead of two or three, leaving me with none for the bodice. Given that I was still sewing them on at around 10 at night on the 30th, I was more than happy to resort to safety pins the next morning for the bodice seam and to keep the scarf/collar in place with the belt piece happily covering them from view. 

Overall, despite the issues with the snaps, which I'll be fixing as soon, I would consider this a very successful project! ♥️