More than a Dress

The matching dress for the Chanel jacket is completed. What's brilliant about this dress is that it can be skirt and a pinafore too. Watch and be amazed....

Dress on its own = dress

blouse worn on top = skirt

Dress with jacket = suit

I made a matching belt, using two leftover buttons as a buckle. Just measure your waist and add a few inches for overlap: cut some interfacing to size to stabilise the fabric; mark buttonhole placement so that you can breathe comfortably: make button holes and sew on buttons.

Dress with shirt underneath = pinafore

Isn't that brilliant?

The pattern for the dress is Vogue Vintage V1137 (and as I write this Vogue are having a 48 hour $4.99 sale on all vintage patterns). This is the dress that goes with the opera coat.

No real major alterations done except that I lined the whole dress whereas the pattern only calls for the bodice to be lined. Seemed a bit silly to me to line half a dress. I didn't add the pockets.

There's a pretty little V at the back too but the shoulders do lie right on the edge of the natural shoulder and so ribbons to hold bra straps may be in order. Because the tweedy-boucle fabric was a bit bulky I sewed the zip in by hand. It's not invisible, but then the pattern doesn't call for an invisible zip - it being 1950 and all that.

SWAP '13 item number 2 from Audrey completed.
Was that a leopard I hear roaring?