Sewing while on holiday? Not a feet-up do nothing at a beach resort holiday but a visit to my Mum- without husband and offspring, where the weather was warm and sunny and and I wasn’t working … so definitely still a holiday!
While still home in the UK I’d bought and had some patterns delivered ahead of my arrival, just to save international postage, no sewing was intended. Well I only lasted 6 days without sewing before this 1940’s Hollywood shirtdress just begged to be made up.
The pattern was one size smaller than needed so I just added ½inches at waist and hip seams as I cut out. It had many many perforations needing marking for the pleats… I cheated big time and used a lead pencil to mark (no chalk to hand and pins kept falling out of the loose weave linen). Unfortunately many of those dots ended up on the right side as that was how the pleats needed to be folded up but fortunately an eraser took the most obvious dots away. The sewing instructions were minimal – the horizontal slashes that the sleeve pleats go into were therefore confusing at first as the illustration in the instructions really wasn’t helpful and the slash and pleats didn’t match up too well. They got done in the end, a topstitch on the outside helped and cotton bias binding strips on the inside to make it all neat.
The 4 front buttonholes are bound and I bought some pretty shell buttons locally but no belt buckle was to be had…I’m sure I have one at home that will be good. So for its first outing the belt was safety pinned closed. It has its second outing tomorrow being worn on the looooong trip home.

Definitely a pattern I will use again and soon too but in a soft fabric, like a thin crepe next time so it will seem quite different.

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