Blue Print Cotton Day Dress

Blue Print Cotton Daydress, Early to Mid '60's

This is another dress made with $1.50/yard fabric from Wal Mart. I really found some great deals at Wal Mart this past year, I tell you what. I love this print and despite only having five yards of it, was able to (barely) squeak out this dress with a few inch square pieces left over in case I ever need to patch or repair this dress.

It is a basic gathered style as was usual for cotton dresses of the period. One piece construction with a dog leg closure and hook and eyes to fasten.

The trim on this dress is of dark red braid and is applied with large basting stitches - just enough to hold it in place but easy to take off if I ever need to. The trim is inspired by similar trim on an original wool dress of the period. The original dress had narrower braid but this was the best I find in my local stores. It is a rayon braid but for now, until I can afford to purchase more accurate trim, it works. The dress is accessorized with a small gold brooch and a baste-in white collar made of one layer of muslin with lace trim whipped to the edges. The sleeves I had to get creative with. I had very little fabric to work with so chose a very slim fitting coat sleeve with a small puff at the top. The puff is sewn directly to the coat sleeve beneath it - the inner sleeve fits fairly closely to the arm. The puff had to be pieced but it is not noticeable and piecing is accurate for dresses of this period anyway.

I could only make the skirts about 130" around or so because I was so short on fabric. Still, the dark color and print of the dress helps the skirt to not look so skimpy. A lighter fabric would definitely need more in the skirt to allow it to lay gracefully over the hoop. I usually like to make my skirts around 160"-180" around the hem. But for this one I simply had to work with what I had. So far this is my favorite Civil War era style dress that I've made just because of the comfortableness of it and the print doesn't show dirt or baby-finger-stains as much as other dresses have.