So easy. Sigh.

Doesn't this pattern (from Linda's Sew Be It) look just SO EASY? I mean, it's probably not something you can make in an hour, but then, the cuter stuff never is. (It takes time to grind the cute into the fabric, you know. Laboriously. By hand.) But it looks so easy TO WEAR.

I love those patterns that want ONE HUGE BUTTON, because my One-Huge-Button collection is vast; it contains many, many One Huge Buttons picked up hither and yon. (I used to, in my less discriminating/more magpie-ish days, buy completely ratty, holey, unwearable vintage, just to cut the two remaining buttons off of it. Then I would lose one of the buttons. This is how One Huge Button collections are born.)

I'd make this out of a ditsy floral, I think, green and yellow, with a big green button and green piping around the pockets. Or a red and black geometric with a red button and piping. I might even pipe the yoke. Except I'm not buying this one, because it's slightly too small for me (Size 14, B34, I think). So one of y'all do it, okay, and then send me a picture of the dress you make?

I have to say that I've made quite a few of these Anne Adams newspaper patterns, and they're usually very good -- clear directions, go together well. As soon as I get a new battery charger for my camera (I can't find the one it came with, which leads me to believe I left it in some hotel room, somewhere, grrrr) I'll take a picture of a couple Anne Adams dresses I've made that I really liked. If I remember. Nag me, okay?

Comments

[Megan]

I have only recently discovered your lovely site, and while this dress is darling I mostly just wanted to thank you. I feel such a breath of fresh air reading about dresses and sewing and fabric instead of worrisome world news for a little bit each morning. Your sweet endeavor brings beauty into the world (and inspires me to dust off my portable Husky Star). I thank you.

[Anonymous]

Look at this one! http://blog.higherthings.org/superanan/article/2739.html It's mine!!! Mwahahaha!-Anan

[Margo]

What a beautiful pattern! I know what you mean about that yoke making it look so easy. I have a nagging question and I'll just fit it in here: when you measure bust, do you measure the fullest fullness or is it something else? I'm confused and I'm not about to bid on some delicious pattern that, heavens, I'd have to try to alter (I'm rather inexperienced YET).

[Donna]

Erin, do you actually wear dresses on a daily basis? If so, did you always, or is it something you decided to do that required a change from the daily jeans/pants/top uniform of most women in America today?

[Janet]

Thank-you for featuring a mail order pattern.These hold such a special place in my heart. I think such patterns might have been the root of my pattern/fabric/sewing "thing."I remember cutting the ads out of the paper and coloring them.I love Anne Adams, too! Thanks.

[suzie]

Margo,Sewing patterns assume we all wear a b cup. If you wear a c cup then buy patterns by the high bust (just under your arm pit) and make the dead easy full bust alteration.

[Laura]

I love Anne Adams and the other mail order patterns too - I have several Marian Martins & AAs waiting to be made.

[Keri]

"It takes time to grind the cute into the fabric, you know. Laboriously. By hand."LMAO because this is SO TRUE!!!!!!!I made a top over the weekend I'd surely have thrown out half way through (all that %&$*&$ basting!!) if I hadn't been loving it so much!!!

[saidee]

There is something wonderful about those newspaper patterns: I remember always looking at them in the paper as a young teen, but they were outdated, or too old for me, then. I do have some from the fifties, children's patterns that my mom and my aunt ordered. They are in their mailing envelopes with the postmarks, clear dates, The Modesto Bee, and Marian Martin on the outside too? I can't remember now. I adapted a little girl's sun dress for my final flat pattern class project a few years ago. It worked! I was amazed! Toddler pattern to half-scale mannequin to size 10 dress form and the dress actually fit the form!

[saidee]

forgot to say I love BIG BUTTONS too! And using just ONE is fab. I hope I live long enough to use all of mine, and yes, buying old stuff for the buttons: a time-honored tradition where I come from! Related to this: my mom always cut the buttons off my dad's worn-out shirts(she made all his work shirts)because they chose fabric and buttons for them together! The buttons were always so cool they were definitely worth saving.

[Sasha]

Cute! That reminds me of a Marian Martin dress pattern I've been thinking of making, it has a similar easy-to-wear feel to it. No big button or pockets though.http://www.flickr.com/photos/39083467@N00/532809207/I just found an Anne Adams apron pattern at the thrift store and I always think that cute apron patterns are just a few modifications away from being a dress, if I could ever actually get to that.