40s linen workwear dress — Victoria Martinez

A pattern so nice it was printed (at least) twice in the 40s, and that I purchased twice in the 20s!

A nice simple workwear pattern with a contrast collar and cuffs (actually a dickey and temporarily stitched on cuffs) that has always caught me eye. Between the two versions of the patterns, the illustrations change some and hem lengths differ, but otherwise, the description and pattern pieces are the same.

As with all of us, I’m sure, I try to prioritize making projects with what I already have though it’s a struggle. This fabric has been in my stash for some time, and I’m quite certain it came from one of the online fabric stores I prefer, I cannot find the receipt. In any case, I pulled it out this summer and said “It’s time to use this”. Then I turned to my patterns and didn’t have to even look through the shelf for a pattern to match because I’ve had the two versions of this pattern sitting on top for at least a year.

This is probably the first/only time I’ve done a good job of pattern matching on a project. I didn’t mess up front center, to my delight. The skirt is 8 pattern pieces, and I tried to match the horizontal lines along the top. I set the yoke so the lines would alternate cleanly from the dress body at the back centre, which was maybe overkill because I also rotated the piece so the brighter white part of the windowpane was vertical for the yoke. OK, but it’s also so cute if you look closely because the way the gathers on the bodice work, by the outside the lines are basically aligned. Great stuff.

Ok so one of my favourite topics: seam finishing!! The bodice is just lovely imo. The yoke is cut single, an element I wanted to keep in a 1940s minimize fabric consumption sort of way. To keep the shoulder seams in particular strong, but also the bottom of the yoke, I trimmed the seam then covered with a piece of polka dot grosgrain ribbon. The neckline is faced, and the edges of this I enclosed in bias tape then hand tacked down. I put in a waistline stay over the bodice-skirt seam. The sleeve hems are also a turned bit of bias tape - this time blue with white polka dots.

The only french-seamed seams are the underarms; the skirt and side seams I did with fairly rough and ready clean finishes. This honestly took a bit longer but I wanted adjustment room in all of them. This also made it an easy operation to put in the zipper - following the Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Sewing instructions. I did put the zipper in 180 from how it should have beenso to zip it closed you need to zip down and the opening faces front and is thus less well-disguised. Hem is just a hem and I eye-balled it really, so it’s not even with respect to the lines.

I think these buttons are so cute for it - three shank buttons with a little compass design on them. And I don’t actually need to ever use them to open or close, but they are functional.

There’s also the dickey, which was an easy sew though I should really tack it down more at center so it doesn’t work its way to being as uneven as it currently does - which you can see quite clearly in all these photos. It has little twill tape ties to tie around the body and slips on over the head so it’s quite simple technically. I’m so glad I made it, as it makes this dress even more flexible and I have already worn it with sweaters and such to reduce the usual shirt bulk.

Overall, A+ vibes on this one!!

Materials: grey windowpane linen, thrifted bias tape and grosgrain ribbon, long-ago gifted or thrifted shank buttons, ancient metal zipper, knit fusible interfacing, white cotton from Matchpoint Fabric (RIP)
Pattern: Simplicity 4992