Lucile, a dress in a week, 1

I wasn't going to enter the YWU costume competition; not good enough, not inspired, no time etc etc. Then Cathy ran a business course. I was inspired, I was confident, I found time!  There was a week to go!

Nothing focuses the mind like a deadline, so here is my Lucille dress diary :)

I chose the 1914 day dress from Janet Arnold's patterns of Fashion 2.  It's in the V&A collection, so I was able to at least get a glimpse of the original:  http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O14017/afternoon-dress-lucile/

I went with the original colour scheme, but in modern fabrics, as sourcing that much silk would have been a huge investment!

So, fabric purchased, first things first, pattern. My main challenge with this garment was going to be upsizing it from a 26 inch waist to a 39 inch one.

Stage 1, draft the pattern up.  Takes too long. Enter technology.  Take your book page

Scan it into your computer, open it in photoshop, save as a pdf, load into adobe reader, print out at 800% (original scale is 1:8). Voila, full size pattern!

Sellotape them together to make one big one, cut out the bits:

Voila, a pattern.