SSA week 5: 1960s

As you’re probably aware, there was a HUGE shift in fashion that occurred during the 1960s. At the beginning, for girls’ dresses, the waistline raised a little and sleeves were often straight or cut in one piece with the bodice, especially for ease-of-sewing with doll clothes. This was balanced by extremely full skirts, often in stripes and geometric patterns arranged in creative ways. As time went on, A-lines took over and synthetic stretch knits increased in popularity. Our basic puff sleeve bodice was gone! Until the 70s granny dresses brought it back 😉

There is a new bodice for you this week that is SO quick and easy. I was aiming for something in between sleeveless and T-shaped/short Dolman sleeves and surprisingly it took a LOT of trial and error to get exactly the right look. At its simplest, you just cut the bodice on the fold and line it, but to me, ease of cut often means “excellent canvas for decorating” and I’ll go into that more next week! For the skirt, the pictured dress here has 3x the waist measurement fullness.

Happy sewing!

Get the pattern here

SSA week 4 – 1950s

We are in the second-to-last week of the sew-along! Sasha models a 1950s dress put together from previous weeks’ pattern pieces.

I also wanted to share a little bit about golden hour and encourage you to experiment with interesting lighting for your pix.

Please join us on MeWe and share what you’re making!

SSA Week 3 is here!

Welcome to the 1940s dress!
Wartime fabric restrictions during WWII meant long, full skirts were out. The “tailored” look was very popular, and, as I mentioned last week, the main fullness to be found was in the sleeves and shoulders. I absolutely adore the look of these sleeves, which are gathered, but don’t require additional gathering at the bottom into a band. Squared and sweetheart necklines on dirndl-style dresses were popular with both girls and women for informal wear. This was inspired by a dress from the 1942 Sears catalog I saw here: https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ShowCatalogPage/1942-Sears-Spring-Summer-Catalog/0001 Fashion trends are cyclical though, so try doing a search for McCall’s 4082 from the 1990s to see something with a very similar shape.

Get the pattern here

Don’t forget, you can still join the MeWe group and share your creations or just enjoy the eye candy of what what others have posted! There are so many beautiful dresses on a variety of dolls and I’ve been really enjoying everyone’s creativity so far!

SSA week 2 is here!

We have a very 1930s dress this week!

Click here for the pattern. Note that I combined these in a different way than usual this week. PLEASE make sure the pattern pieces printed at the correct size by measuring the inch box before you start cutting your fabric!

If you haven’t yet, please join the MeWe group and share your creations! Note that where it says “handle” it’s asking you to create a username.