The Rocket Age dress (Simplicity 3580)
Fabric is a drug. I discovered this the first time I saw Michael Miller’s Painted Rockets.
Five minutes after first laying eyes on this print I knew I had to have it or live the rest of my hollow, blighted life haunted by irreparable regret. I also knew exactly what I would make with it. It was as though the heavens opened and the Craft Gods spoke: Let There Be a Rocket Age Dress.
Simplicity 3580 is a classic Mad Men-era shirtwaist dress. I bought the pattern at The Vintage Peddler.
And here is the finished dress. I can never get over the wonder of looking at (or wearing) something I made that was only a picture in my mind a few days before.
Store-bought clothes are so miserably skimpy these days that a skirt this full feels totally luxurious. I would love to see how this looks with a crinoline, but I’m not sure I have the guts to actually wear one.
I feel like a glamorous teacher in it (Miss Swetnick?), or the genteelly alcoholic mom in a Raymond Carver story.
This dress went together without many tears, except for the sleeves. (See below.) I wish I’d started sewing on quilter’s cotton instead of on linen and wool, because it is so well-behaved and forgiving to work with. It holds folds extremely well. And creases. Working the wrinkles out of an acre of cotton every time I wash this dress eats up nearly an hour of my life. I hate ironing so I rarely bother to do it properly. This is only one of many, many reasons I would make a lousy ’60s housewife [mops spilled sherry off laptop with sleeve].
Lessons Learned:
- Choose your interfacing with care. I guess it’s one of those things that only comes with experience, but I keep choosing interfacing with the wrong hand or weight for my projects. In this case, I was in a hurry to finish the dress so I used some interfacing from my stash, which turned out to be too crisp and made the collar and bodice front a little stiff.
- Let go of hem paranoia. I hand-finished the hem to this skirt. I put in way too many stitches (as in every 1/16″), often picking up more than a single thread of the skirt fabric, and pulled my stitches too taut, all in the fear that the hem wouldn’t be sturdy enough. This resulted in hem show-through on the right side of the skirt.
- Don’t trust the pattern blindly. I had all sorts of trouble with the set-in sleeves, partly because the pattern wasn’t particularly well drafted, partly because too much ease was allowed for a cotton fabric and partly because of my own ineptitude. Subsequent research suggests that many commercial patterns have badly drafted sleeves and inaccurate instructions (too-large seam allowances, for instance) requiring you, the seamstress, to redraft the sleeve and set it in according to your own lights if you don’t want puckers and drag lines. If anyone else has figured out a fix for this problem in similar patterns, I’d love to hear it.
- Foundation garments allow for glove-tight fitting. I fitted this pattern to my figure without foundation garments, which resulted in a more relaxed fit because my measurements can fluctuate slightly. For the true Mad Men fitted-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life look, I would have had to commit to period foundation garments and wear them every time I wore the dress.
Still, I like this dress — just putting it on creates a sense of occasion. Cocktails in the bomb shelter at five!
I just followed a link over here from Zoe’s blog. WOW. This dress is fantastic. I love your styling, too–the lipstick, the belt, the shoes, the gorgeous kitchen.
OMG- How stunning! Love the funky print and your styling is impeccable. Thanks for sharing. Love your blog.
Marie
Just found your blog thru Colette Patterns and I soooo love what you’ve got going here! Can’t wait to dig in and read all your posts. And I love your pics, especially the dress with the red cabinets! Michael Miller fabrics are also a new fave of mine. Keep up the amazing work!
Must say, I’m in love with the fabric choice. I too have fallen in love with some of the most outrageous prints – most recently a small flamingo print that I’m just salivating over.
Also, I adore your red kitchen, I’ve often dreamed of one quite similar. Belt and shoes to match. Where do you get such gorgeous accessories?
Can’t wait to see what you come out with next!
Belt from Accessorize, shoes from a vintage shop. I actually hate shopping for accessories, so I tend to just buy everything in red. Including the kitchen!
I love that skirt!!! The way it looks sort of pleated rather than just gathered. The horrible thing about falling in love with a vintage pattern which someone has sewn up is that I’ll probably never find a copy of that pattern and even if I do it won’t be in my size. (I know nothing about changing the size of a pattern.)
The skirt is pleated — it’s just two big squares of fabric stitched together at the side seams and box-pleated to fit the waistband.
QB, there’s a squillion similar patterns out there — it seems like every woman had a shirtwaist dress in the late ’50s and early ’60s. Alterations are extremely simple to make, even for me — it’s just the basic bodice shell pattern, with bust and waist darts. Go for it!
Cisa: that would be Kathleen Fasanella’s notorious “sleeve cap ease is bogus” post. I had always felt something must be fishy about a process that consistently requires so much struggling — um, finessing — on the part of the seamstress, and Kathleen’s article was a revelation. It taught me to regard commercial patterns with a healthy dose of suspicion and to learn more about pattern drafting so I could take matters into my own hands, although I’ve still got a LONG way to go on that. Sandra Betzina also recommends reducing the amount of ease depending on what fabric you’re using.
However, I suspect this topic deserves a post of its own, so I’ll shut up now.
My feeling on setting in sleeves and the way that patterns drafted is that sleeve ease is bogus. Another blogger I read had a great post about it and I believe she got it from a book or article. Basically, sleeve patterns are drafted with all this ease and large seam allowances that we, the seamstresses, are left to fight with and (in my case) swear at profusely. Unless you have a very particular look in mind, sleeve ease is completely unneccessary for fit. Try it out sometime, see what you think
Stunning! I have such a hard time with collars, but your collar looks perfect, and the belt is adorable with it.
stunning! Well done
hmmm, I love those kitchen cabinets! And the dress is divine!
Something I do with any set in sleeve (vinatge or no) is to baste the sleeve into the armscye, then using heat and steam, steam out/in the fullness, sliding the fabric around in the basting stitches(does that make sense?), it usually gives me nice sleeves without too much puckering. Then I go back and stitch the sleeve in.
Your dress is amazing.
Very sweets dress!
Lovely – I have that pattern too
looks great in that fab fabric.
Must agree that a petticoat would improve the line of the skirt – I lurv petticoats – a nice gathered half slip would be OK if you don’t like the idea of a crinoline.
About setting in sleeves – the trick is to ease in the extra fullness where the sleeve head is on the bias (hard to explain in words – the sleeve is cut on straight grain but where the curve comes down either side from the top of the sleeve head – the fabric will be on bias there). You can “play” with the fabric there and ease in a lot … a gathering thread (not pulled up into gathers) and lots of pins can help. Depending on the fabric, your sleeve will then “bounce” out of the armhole a bit – like a tailored jacket does … which looks nice.
Happy sewing !
I learned how to sew in 1965 when I was 13 when all sleeves were set in. I was taught to first make two gather lines and the top of the sleeve. I think they are marked on old patterns. Then gather. Then match the markings and play with the gathers until it fits. Kind of hard to describe, but you sew well and should be able to figure it out. PS It’s not ever easy!
Great dress and cute fabric. Seems perfect for the dress and you.
Wonderful dress! Adore the rockets! You MUST get a crinoline! That dress would look so fab with a crinoline. I’d totally wear one if full skirted dresses didn’t make me look so terrible!
Fantastic dress. The way it coordinates with the kitchen cabinets enhances your resemblance to a Raymond Carver heroine. Make a crinoline.
This. Is. FABULOUS.
That is so fabulous!!!
I love your dress. You did a fantastic job.
Awesome. I’m in love with your fabric choice.
It’s really gorgeous! I totally know the feeling about fabric… I bought this fabric with cowgirls all over it – had to have it!!! Thanks for the great post!
In regards to set-in sleeves, I usually match the dots they tend to give you on the sides of the shoulder as well as atop the shoulder, then create pleats or tucks in the extra fabric that’s given by the pattern (as for me, it tends to be between those points), creating a fuller top to most of my sleeves. If you want a sleeker sleeve, you may just have to redraft the sleeve yourself, but I think that my way tends to still keep a kind of vintage feel (and cleaner look) that regular gathering might not.
i love it!
The blending of a smart dress in a funky/whimsical fabric is awesome.