Simplicity 1668 - Dress for a Summer Wedding

I wanted to share with you today the dress I made in August to wear at a friend's wedding. I made view 1 with the scolloped neck and sleeves using Simplicity pattern 1668. The fabric is a cotton remnant I got on sale at JoAnns.

The white you see at the side seam is a pocket.

Unfortunately, I don't have any construction pictures. The directions were pretty straight forward. The dress consists of two skirt panels, and two panels each for the bodice front and back. There is a pocket sewn into the right side seam and the sleeve and neck openings are faced with white cotton. I had a choice of using snaps or a zipper - a slide fastener as the pattern calls it - for the side closer. I decided to use a zipper because I didn't have enough snaps handy.

Simplicity pattern 1668

I had to carefully lay out all the pattern pieces because I had just enough fabric! I cut the fabric and transferred all the markings for the gathers on the bodice, the pocket, side opening, etc. Then the bodice fronts and backs were sewn together and gathering added. Next the skirt panels were stitched and attached to the bodice. Add the zipper, neck and sleeve facing, then hem the skirt and done! Well almost...

This dress has very simple lines and was really easy to make.

It's hard to see the small amount of gathering at the waist and near the shoulders of the bodice in the picture. I found that the bodice was a little too big (baggy!) for my liking so I added small darts to the bodice front and back. I thought about adjusting the side seam allowance but because of the shape of the bodice, particularly the sleeves, this wasn't really possible. Shoulder pads would have helped, but well.... The darts seamed to do the trick though. The waist line looks a bit messy but the belt covers that. :)

So here is the finished dress! The very first photo in this post and those below were taken by Kris Jarrett Photography and Media Production. It's very handy having a professional photographer as a friend.

I'm wearing the dress over a vintage slip and accessorized with a red belt and my red 1940s shoes.

With my friend Erin. Oops! you can see the ruffle on my slip.

Cori making a funny face.

I even got to do a little swing dancing in my vintage shoes!

 And photos of the lovely bride and groom! Congratulations Karen and Seth!

Summary of the Pattern
Fabric: Cotton from JoAnns
Pattern: Simplicity 1668
Year: 1940s
Notions: Zipper, thread
How historically accurate is it? I'd give it an 8 out of 10. I wasn't nessicarily going for a true 40s dress with this project. It's made from quilters weight cotton and the print isn't exactly 1940s, however the pattern and construction is very 40s.
Any tricky parts to the pattern? Not really
Did you change anything? I added small darts to the bodice front and back to help it fit a little better.
Time to complete: A couple days.
First worn: August 2012
Total cost: less then $30
Notes: I didn't do a muslin test for this because I didn't foresee any fit issues. However, I found it to be a little large so minor adjustments were needed. Always make a test muslin! Next time I use this pattern I think I will make a slight change to the armholes as well. I found the arms to be a bit, umm, revealing for my taste.