Anne Adams, we meet again

On the drafting front, Anne Adams and I have had our differences before.  But I'm happy to say that with the continued improvement of my sewing skills, I was able to take it in stride this time around, and I really like the finished product -- definitely a "make again" dress!  (Incidentally, I picture Anne Adams as a stern, bespectacled home ec teacher.    Whereas Marian Martin seems just a little bit more fun-loving.)

Anyhow, the dress!  It's a mail order pattern (number 4753) from the 1950s.  I like it a lot, but short of extreme plastic surgery I will never have the bosoms to fill it out.  I'm wearing a padded bra in these photos.  It doesn't make a dent.   (But I will  wear the dress anyhow, though maybe not to work.)  I had hoped that the lightweight fabric would make the extra leeway look more like ease and less like space for rent ... it almost does.

With trusty sidekick, ready to investigate
the Case of the Missing Boobies.

I wasn't sure how this was going to work out, so the fabric's some cheap stuff nabbed from the clearance section at High Fashion Fabrics a few months back.  The plaid's approximately lawn-weight, and the burgundy material is also fairly lightweight.  And has a sort of polished shine on the "right" side -- ew.  So I used it wrong side out.  There's not actually any burgundy in the plaid, but it "goes", as they say.  The dress is fully lined in a pink poly-cotton batiste (As usual, I just cut the pattern twice, and cut interfacing from the facing pieces and fused it to the lining pieces at the appropriate places.)

I shamelessly re-used the belt pattern from the Colette Peony to make the belt for this dress.  Since the sides were too angled for me, I lopped off the angles -- now the pattern pieces are just two rectangles.   I used the plaid for the gathered section in front, and the burgundy fabric (with some interfacing) for the back pieces.   I really dig this belt -- it's fairly easy to make, and looks more refined than a simple tie belt.

Look how I matched my plaids for once!

This was one of those patterns that bore signs of previous use -- the skirt pieces were pinned up to make the length shorter without losing fullness.  (I decided that losing fullness was the better route, and just lopped six inches off the bottom).  The previous seamstress had already shortened the sleeves as well -- not quite evenly, but it worked out without much fuss.

Now, the drafting issue:  the bodice piece had this little hump on it, and I could not for the life of me figure out how it was supposed to fit with the neck yoke.  The instruction illustrations don't show them, either.  I ended up just trimming them off, but I am bemused.  Why on earth were they even there?

Original version with "hump" on top,
shown with my "humpless" second draft.

I'm working on another version of this dress, this time out of rayon challis, which is one of my favorite fabrics.  I removed about an inch off each side of the upper bodice, and I'm hoping that plus the more drape-y nature of the challis will resolve the issue in the bust area.