Finished Project: Joan Dress

My Joan dress! (attempting to pose like Joan without consulting the inspiration picture first... blerg!)

Joan: my inspiration

Here's my finished Mad Men Challenge dress, inspired by the lovely Joan. I used a cotton stretch sateen from my stash and New Look 6968.

This project held a lot of firsts for me. To start, it was my first official sewing blog challenge...thing! I was so excited to participate. I've loved seeing everyone's projects progress and am SO EXCITED to see Julia's post rounding up all the entries!

full length shot - thanks, photographer Dad ;)

It was also my first time experimenting with lining. I had some trouble wrapping my head around how it all should work, but got a lot of help from some of you...which basically saved me (read the comments on my "Ides of March" post to check out the helpful tips)! So, a huge THANKS!!

Another first for me was constructing this type of collar, having only ever done a peter pan collar before. I feel okay about the way this turned out. I basically just followed the instructions and didn't alter any of the collar pieces, which I might try doing next time for a slightly different look. Mine didn't turn out exactly like Joan's but that's ok...it's called inspiration! I also decided to omit the gold colored brooch/fastener from my plan, even though Joan had one on her dress. I didn't think my dress needed it.

collar shot

My other 'first' was altering the sleeve pattern pieces by extending them by about two inches - not really complicated or anything. I wanted to go for a more '60s look and felt the cap sleeves prescribed by the pattern were just not it.

New Look 6968 with cap sleeves

Speaking of these sleeves...they were kind of the bane of my existence when it came to attaching them to the actual dress. After I'd gotten the bodice attached to the skirt and inserted the zipper, I tried the thing on and went about pining out the areas that were too big. Word to the wise, when you take off an inch or so from the side bodice seam and about half an inch from the shoulder seam, you've made your armholes that much smaller. As I'm sure you smarty pants have all guessed, this makes your sleeves just a little bit too big to "ease" (hah!) into the armhole. I fudged 'em a bit, but managed to get them in there, somehow. The stretch of the fabric helped make up for the sloppy job.

Anyway, next time I sew anything with set-in sleeves, I'm doing it this way.

I struggled with the lapped zipper a little bit, too. But, at this point, I'm not sweating it!

from the back

That's all, folks! Be sure to check out Julia's upcoming post of all the Mad Men Challenge entries. What fun!