This past Hanukkah, my husband gave me a sewing machine as a gift. I have been wanting to learn how to sew for a long time because I love vintage clothes but it's impossible to find them in good condition, let alone your own size.
So I set out to find a lovely sewing teacher in my town to help me and this was the first creation that I wanted to do. After scouring through all the archive patterns from McCall's, Buttericks and Simplicity, I decided the first dress I wanted to make was McCall's M7433. It's a lovely dress from the archive collection from 1943.
I picked this dress because I really loved the cut of it. It reminded me of a late 1930's type dress, especially with the belt. For the fabric, I chose a simple design that was from the Classic Calico collection from JoAnn Fabrics. It reminded me of a pattern that might have made a feed sack dress back in the day.
I only needed two notions too which was a huge plus for me. It called for buttons and also a belt buckle. The buttons I chose were super simple but for the belt buckle, I wanted something special. I chose a gorgeous old flower buckle because it looked very vintage.
Overall I really like how the dress turned out but it did need a simple change after it was finished according to the pattern. You can't tell by looking at the pattern picture, but the dress is fitted in the hips and then flares out from the thighs. For me, that is very uncomfortable so the pleats had to be opened instead of closed to give some more room.
So would I use this pattern again? Honestly, even though it is so beautiful and I really love it, I wouldn't use it again because of the closed pleat problem. After opening it, it looked more like a dress from the 1950's instead of 1943. It also was a little too short for my liking as well. But I do still love the dress so much, maybe one day I will shorten it.
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