A Wednesday (Addams) Dress

I mentioned last week that blogging my blue wool dress (about 5 years late!) was in advance of a new dress sewn from the same pattern. Here is version number two of Simplicity 7737, from 1968.

After pinning multiple little black dresses with white collars a la Wednesday Addams and then seeing Kate Middleton in a similar style (not to mention Emily's Valentino-inspired dress in red), I reached not for the latest indie lookbook or simplicity pattern catalog, but into my pattern stash, pawing all the way to the bottom to retrieve this little gem. You can see, compared to version #1, I made some trim modifications.

I drafted a little collar using this ancient Gertie tutorial (rather, I watched it a long time ago and vaguely remembered how she had done it).

You can really see my seam line here because my photographer (my husband--and isn't he doing such a nice job?) is shooting from below but it doesn't look so obvious in real life!

While the first one was in a wool (crepe? not sure) this one is rayon twill and you can see in this action shot it is much drapier.

My finishing on this one is much improved from the original. It's unlined, I'll wear a slip. The side seams are french seamed and the sleeve seams are finished using the faux coverstitch on my machine.  The hem and sleeves are hand stitched. I intend for this dress to last a while! I wear my black dresses to death, since I don't have a lot of "going out" clothes and just reach for anything black. (I'll be taking one step towards remedying this next week though, so check back!)

Not quite sure what's going on in this back view--black is tricky to photograph, isn't it? A decent reason to sew more colorfully!

Do you love the Wednesday Addams look or think it is cheesy? I promise I won't wear it with braids (except perhaps on Halloween!). Any tricks on photographing black? New background ideas for people in constant rain? How do you Brits do it?! :)

dress: Simplicity 7737, 1968 | shoes: cole haan

xoxo,

allie

ps: much love to any readers on the mid-atlantic coast or in the way of the hurricane! i'm tired of the rain and we haven't had half as much as y'all. stay safe and dry!

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