Making the 1968 dress

This is such a fun dress. It is one of the few vintage patterns that I have in a larger size so I actually needed to grade down to fit me. It was a challenge since I did it manually and am used to grading up so I got turned around a couple of times. I used a great Balenciaga cotton twill print from Mood Fabrics. Since it was cotton, I pre-washed the fabric - bad idea. The fabric was not as vibrant and showed white flecks on the surface. It's not horrible, but I should not have washed it. It also shrunk. I did not have enough fabric to cut the armhole facings.  Luckily I had a roll of red bias tape on hand so I used it to finish off the armholes.

This is one pattern that acknowledged when a buttonhole was just decorative. Though there is a bound buttonhole, it is does not need to function. This pattern was quite large even when graded to my size. I do not know if it is because it is a mail order pattern and graded slightly differently or maybe I messed up when manually grading. I needed to take it in almost an inch on each side. The other proportions on the dress were fine. I just needed to adjust the side seams. I would be interested in seeing if the digital pattern has the same issue.

Other than that, the dress went together smoothly. You need to pay attention when attaching the collar but everything else was easy. The dress is very comfortable to wear. I have a pair of red suede boots which really complete the 1960's look.