Bonehead no more -- the finished dress

Last time I posted, I was bemoaning the many mistakes I made on this dress, but I'm happy to say, the bodice do-over took and it came out not half bad.  It was worth the extra time (and thankfully I had the extra fabric).  Unfortunately, the stupid cold weather leaves me in no mood to have myself photographed in it, so I sent the dress out to wander the back yard on its own:

1942's Simplicity 4294 in all its sunny glory.

It looks a little creepy hanging in midair like that, but the bamboo makes a nicer backdrop than my sewing room clutter.   The pattern is from 1942.  It has those nifty squarish-inset sleeves from the time, which my gingham does not show off to advantage. However, when I tried topstitching on bodice v1, I didn't like the way it looked, so I nixed it on the redo.  Another design change I made was to make the collar white, which was a definite improvement.  Incidentally, the collar was a bit confusing to me, as the back part of the collar is actually attached to the front bodice pieces.  You sew them together at the center back of the collar, and then sew that to the back bodice.  Once I'd gotten my mind around that, doing my usual full lining was no problem.  

I did some pattern alterations on the bodice as I traced it off, and by round two, I had realized that the set-in belt was way too small.  I added two inches, and wish that I had added maybe a teeny bit more.   I also lengthened the bodice by about an inch, and went with three buttons instead of two.  I waffled for a long time about which buttons to choose: I had red, yellow, and blue, all of which would work.  Blue won, as you can see.

And here's a photo of the dress wrong side out.  As I've done in the past, I both lined the dress and used the provided facing pieces.  I didn't use interfacing (which I hate ... maybe because I've never bought the good stuff) and that was the right choice for the collar (the facing pieces are made out of a medium weight cotton) but the belt could have used some.   I used the main fabric for the belt part of the lining just because.

I finished this close to two weeks ago, and have since moved on to other projects.  I started with a 40s mail order pattern, but it didn't pan out -- the fit was off, and quite frankly, the drafting of the thing was wonky.  It also turned out to be a "teen" sized pattern, though it didn't say so explicitly, and I've found those a challenge to work with, since apparently I am no longer a teen.   I loved the style of this fail of a pattern, though, so I went back to Butterick 6149 and used it as a starting point to draft my own version. I didn't try to make it exactly the same as the one I was copying, but the inspiration comes through clear enough.   I've got that version cut out now ... just need to find time to sew the thing together.