Hollywood 1413 - The Easter Outfit That Wasn't

Hello everyone, happy summer 2018 to you heat loving people out there. You all are currently flooding my instagram feed with giant smiles on your faces as you gleefully break out your sandals. "Finally it's warm and I can ditch this sweater" you exclaim! I'm glad you are enjoying yourself, heck I can semi empathise having grown up with a beach loving father and sister and a weather neutral mother.  They never thought the summer sun was a hateful orb sucking up all their life essence while simultaneously stabbing them in the eyes. Only I would be huddled under an umbrella hissing with distaste while successfully trying to read in the eye searing glare.  Yes my friends, in my immediate family I'm the sole possessor of the nordic and/or vampire genes of my ancestors.

If you're a long time reader of the blog this is no surprise. I've been bitching about summer for probably as long as I've been blogging and will continue to do so. However I will admit to liking two things about summer. One - fancy summer shoes and Two - wearing rayon dresses. My closet is full of rayon dresses, but there's always room for more. Which brings us to some sewing actually done in 2018......gasp! So let's talk about Hollywood 1413, aka the Easter outfit that never was.

Here in southern Pa you have a 50/50 chance that Easter Sunday is going to be either 55 degrees or 85 degrees. There is no inbetween. In 2017 it was 85 degrees and my version of Hollywood 1025 was not heat appropriate.  I wore it anyway because by god my sewing plans were not going to be ruined by a freak heat wave. However the memory of unwanted sweating did trigger me to choose a flirty short sleeve dress pattern for Easter 2018.  It would look lovely paired with some stashed rayon from Gertie's JoAnn's line from the year before.  See, a match made in heaven.

Hollywood 1413 is full of 40's design detail goodness.  The bodice features a ruched center that is created by putting a seam along the neckline that extends down toward the bust.  This makes it possible for center of the bodice pattern to be extended/more ease added. This extra ease is then gathered back into the seam area and sewn in place.  A jaunty little self fabric bow completes the neckline area.

The skirt features 3 tucks that radiate out of the left hip and a sewn in cascade. The front skirt is pieced at the left hip to give you a seam for the cascade. Finally a bow belt balances out the bow on the opposite side of the bodice.

The back is pretty plain Jane with standard darts and no design details. Not that I'm complaining..... there were plenty of new techniques and hand sewing in this design already.

The sewing goddess has been very generous with larger sized 40's styles this year and this pattern happened to be my bust size of 36 inches.  Would I have purchased this in a 32" bust and graded it up?  Probably not.  That ruched bodice detail might have discouraged me from trying. As it was the pattern only needed minimal grading through the waist and hip to fit.  Used my cheater method of slapping .5" on the side seams and called it good. 

I did reference the instructions a few times since the drafting for the bodice ruching was totally new to me. All the neckline edges are faced which means there is a set order of sewing that needs to happen or you'll bungle the whole thing up.  Good news is that the original pattern drafter did do an excellent job giving you reference/placement points. There are various sized circles in the neckline area to help you line everything up.  After reading the sewing steps twice I was able to see what needed to be done and use these marks to assemble the neckline properly. 

The skirt was a bit easier since sewing tucks is pretty much the same on any part of a garment. The cascade was a no brainer, just hand hem and insert into the seam.  I only wish my nails looked as good as the illustrations while doing a rolled hem.

Hollywood 1413 was finished in plenty of time for Easter 2018, a whole month ahead of schedule! It didn't matter though because Easter wasn't 85 degrees this year.  Instead we came down on the 55 degree side of the coin. Obviously Mother Nature is trying to neg me by looking at my sewing plans and making the weather the opposite of whatever's coming out of the sewing machine.  Oh well, as you all may remember I put on Hollywood 989 and saved this dress for hot weather.  Now we'll be best buddies until the blessed Fall breezes arrive.

Pattern
Hollywood 1413 (pictures above)

Fabrics used
Rayon from Gertie's JoAnn's line in 2016.

Pattern changes/alterations
1. 1/2" forward shoulder adjustment to both shoulder and sleeve cap.
2. 1/2" extra ease added to waist and hip.
3. Dropped the bust dart 1.5" and waist dart point the same amount.
4. Added a .5" of length to the bodice.
5. Made .25" sway back adjustment.

Confessions/Advice
Not too much to add here for this pattern.  Will note that I spray starched the rayon fabric before cutting to make it less slippery. Then all the pattern pieces were carefully cut out on a single layer, keeping the selvedges parallel with my cutting board. This method worked with with this rayon which was on the less slippery side of the spectrum.

Husband Comment
"The swirly pattern on the fabric works well with the loose fit." - I think loose fit actually means the design elements. If that's the case he might be learning something about sewing after hearing me natter on about it for 13 years.

My Final Thoughts
This pattern perfectly scratched my intermediate sewing skills itch of wanting a bit of a challenge.  It was neither too easy or too hard, but jusssst right.