1959 Derby Day Dress - Simplicity 3063

Yesterday was our Great Basin Costume Society's "Fancy Fillies Derby Day Tea," where bunches of eccentric people got together, wore weird clothes, and watched some horse race...

Hehe <3

The biggest hat I have is one I snagged on sale at Nordstrom a few years back.  It's collosal, and I didn't have anything at all to match it, so I thought it a good time to put together one of my vintage patterns, Simplicity 3063, from 1959.

I attempted some new-to-me things in this project.  One was pattern matching with this giant crazy plaid.  I had to re-cut the midriff pieces a couple times, but in general it went quite smoothly.  The second was pattern grading.  All of the vintage patterns I have are, of course, at least one size smaller than I wear, but luckily most of them are simple and good practice for grading.  I used the instructions from Threads, and this diagram:

I'm pretty happy with how it came out!  I made a mistake in the grading that meant the shoulders were too wide (a note for next time), but it was easily fixed by taking up the center seam on the bodice.  Overall the dress is a tad big through the waist, but it's better to be able to take something in than have no room to let something out.

Next I need to acquire a decent petticoat to achieve the delightful shape shown on the pattern envelope. :-)

The pattern doesn't match up on the sleeve seams - that was just *too much* for me this time!