New Retro dress from vintage pattern

I have three daughters which most people who follow this blog know. My oldest just left junior high and is now in high school.  I was thinking a few weeks back I am going to have a lot of girls in high-school going to formals at the same time real soon.  The thought of buying  3 brand new formals at  the same time is sort of  nightmarish to me both in price and time and modesty concerns.  So I decided I would make some and find some new thrift shopping ie still have tags on them.  I have made a few dresses as of late so I can get better at adding zippers and doing linings plus my children can wear these dresses now.  In the summer I hope to make a few fancy simple classic dresses in larger sizes and set them aside for my daughters to pick from for their formals.  They have all agreed to this, so it should be fun.  They get to help pick patterns and the fabric  from my stash and then we make it.  Then when the dance happens which ever dress they fit into at that time they can wear.  Sounds fun to us maybe not to others sort of the unknown on which dress you will get to wear to which dance but at least it will be modest and one their mom made which makes them happy.
I have also found a few brand  new still have the tags on them formals at some thrift shops that had some weird attachments/ embellishments on them probably why they never sold in the first place  buit the bones of the dresses were great.  I have revamped them and removed and re-sewn parts of them.  So now they are just simple floor length sheath  dresses very elegant not the gaudy as all get out as they were to start with.  We have two black ones and a burgundy dress this way in different sizes so that will be added to their pool of dresses to pick from. None of the dress were over 15 dollars each and one was 8 dollars so not bad cheep new and now pretty too.

The white dress was the start of this trip of getting better at zippers and linings.  Why am I worried about this after having gone through Mom's dresses
 which are lovely some of the construction in them made me cringe at the  thought of them being washed/ laundered or dry cleaned wrong, and the dress just falling apart at the seams literally.  Some parts of Mom's dresses are literally held  together with safety pins.  I want my daughters to not be worried about that.


I have made a second dress from the pattern  I used on the white dress.  One of my sister-in-laws thought it was mom's pattern but that is not the case it is one I bought on etsy.  I wish it had been one of moms that would have been extra neat to do. 
This dress is brocade golden in color and has a peach/orange lining.

This go round I have used view three for the top and added the darts to the front as my oldest daughter is a little smaller in the rib cage than the  second daughter is.  I lined the neck area with the outer dress fabric and I used yellow vintage seam binding at the sleeves where it might be seam so I hopped with shadows it might blend into the outside color and I used orange at the waist to encase that seam so as to not have the stress of the wait of the fabric pull that seam apart.

My children go to a school that
goes from k - 12th grade so they never truly get a junior high
graduation.  I felt sort of sad about that as my children know I had an eight grade graduation and they feel sort of let down that they don't get one.  My oldest can wear this Sunday and call it her graduation dress as I did make it a few days before the end of eighth grade year for her to wear.  So to me it is the same thing.
 
This dress can be  worn with an orange or yellow crinoline nicely and I have both.  I guess if she wants a real large hem she could wear both but that may be pushing it a bit.  I have yet to add any embellishments to it.  I was not sure if I wanted to or if I should leave it real simple and plain.  As I think it will look nice with the crinoline and a simple strand of pearls (costume pearls that is becasue of her age).
My oldest daughter is asleep at the moment or I would have photos of her in it.  Yesterday was the end of the school year party and well I think it wore her out.  If I add more to it or my daughter wears it I will make a post with those photos so you can see what it looks like on.