Butterick 7598 - if the sleeve fits . . .

The 8th Lady Berwick, who I posted about last week, was herself a skilled needlewoman. When she and her husband took over Attingham Hall it was in need of restoration, and while she did some of the work herself, she also wrote books and articles on aspects of needlework to help fund the rest. On the subject of dressmaking, she wrote that, "patience, courage and a sense of humour" were essential requirements.

Never were truer words spoken. About this project, at least.

Having decided what changes I needed to make to the dress bodice, I drafted wider and shorter bodice pieces, leaving the armscye and sleeve unchanged. I then cut out the toile, with both back and front pieces cut on the fold (sharper minds than mine will immediately see where this is going). I stay-stitched round the neckline, sewed the shoulder seams, trimmed the neckline curves, and replicated the effect of a facing by pressing back and sewing down the seam allowance. Finally, I pinned one side seam together, and tried it on Nancy.

Spot the problem

It looked reasonable, so I then attempted to try it on me. This was when it finally dawned on me that I have got a head and Nancy has not! What made it even worse was that I have got form with this.

When I actually read the instructions properly, I discovered that there should be a zip ("slide fastener") at the back. The pattern includes instructions for inserting one of these new-fangled things, but the method is very different from what I'm used to. The zip is set in with no attempt at concealment. Given that in 1937 it would have been plain metal, it would have looked very visible indeed.

The instructions, and my version

I'm not sure if in 1937 you wanted to show off your zip as a feature, or if the notion of hiding it in a seam just hadn't been developed by then. Certainly the pattern envelope suggests that zips were very new, so making it deliberately visible may have been A Thing.

Zip references on the pattern envelope

This raised the interesting question of just how historically accurate I want to be. Do I go for a visible zip (which will be black, and plastic), even though it will look very odd to modern eyes? Other options are adding a centre back seam, or doing away with the zip altogether and having a slit with a facing and buttons and loops instead - like Simplicity 4463 from five years later. I've put off making a decision for now.

In the meantime, I sewed a visible zip in to toile, and tried it on. I liked the collar, and the bodice fit seemed reasonable, but the armscye seemed very high and the shoulder very wide.

Fitting the bodice without sleeves (or attached skirt)

I then realised that none of the views in the pattern combined the gathered sleeve with the bodice I was using, but looking at the pattern pieces the armscyes seemed the same, so I carried on.

I'm making bodice A, B or F

And started off with sleeve D or E

The sleeve head had to be very tightly gathered, and end result was alarmingly full. The attached sleeve was also partway down my arm! Plus there was some pulling on the bodice, and the collar now seemed rather tight. On top of all this, the armscye still didn't feel right. At this point I assumed that I would need to make a second toile, as so many alterations would be needed to fix everything.

The arrow shows roughly where my shoulder is

The first thing I needed to do however was make a second sleeve, as trying to fix the narrow shoulder issue with only one sleeve was likely to skew the whole thing. I made up the other sleeve design, the one with the pleated head, and then let out the sleeve seams on both sleeves as they were slightly snug, even for the 1930s (when will I learn that I do need to regrade sleeves?!). This time I only sewed in the sleeves at the bottom of the armscye, and pinned them on at the correct point for my shoulders. I much preferred the smoother look of the pleated sleeve head and, as if by magic, all the fit issues had vanished! I was amazed that simply bringing the sleeves into the correct position could fix so many non-sleeve problems.

Much better

This meant that I didn't have to make second toile (yay!), just redraft the pattern pieces with the various tweaks I'd made. Fortunately I had kept notes of everything I did along the way - well over a year later, I'm still mildly stunned by just how useful a proper project notebook actually is!

Pattern redrafted, in theory I could now cut the bodice out and finally start sewing. However, there's an idea I want to try for the dress trim, and this really needs to be hammered out before I begin the construction. What was going to be a 'quick dress' (a phrase which I should ban from my vocabulary) to go with my new hat is turning into a very long project indeed.