Bringing Back a Bygone Era of Beauty in Your Home | Feminine Dress Sewing Patterns Simplicity 2917 & McCall’s 8209

Ladies,

Play house. Dress up. Have fun. So much of our lives are about getting things done in the home for others and on time, that we can forget how the fun and finer things serve our family as well. These are also the things that help us be at our best and enjoy our work more. Your family benefits from the beauty you cultivate in the home as much as you benefit from the enjoyment of it. Every pretty dish, every pretty dress, this is a way that you bring good things to your family’s days and how you enjoy an ordinary day full of work. Weaving beauty into the daily demands is how they get to see you at your best, enjoying your home and carrying yourself with grace because of that beautiful dress you are wearing. You are setting the tone in every word you speak, every action you do, and every decision for something beautiful to be there.

What beauty do you crave from a bygone era?

I was craving a light pink floral dress with flowy puffed sleeves and a Basque waist.

It only took two months to make it.

The slowness of sewing and what it takes to get to a desired end result helps me to vet my preferences thoroughly. Even though I want the dress I imagined now, I will not get it for perhaps months from when I have the idea. I need it to be high quality so that it does not fall apart after all that time spent on it. I have had several dresses come apart at the seams due to not reinforcing them enough. The time alone spent on one goal helps me to be more decisive with my projects. Do I really want to spent months making something with this particular fabric and shape if I do not totally love it and want to wear it for years to come? These projects make me consider every angle of why I like something. As I sit in the glow of a lamp at night making one stitch after another, carefully gauging each next step, I feel very much like a woman of old who would have only owned so many dresses, and who would have taken a very long time to produce even one. She would undoubtedly have taken great care of it knowing what it took to get it. She undoubtedly would have actually worn it and enjoyed it.

We have access to so many pretty things to buy and yet how many pretty dresses hang unworn in closets today? In a bygone era of beauty women dressed beautifully every day and their pretty dresses were worn. The work that went into having them was well worth it. Making your own things gives you a unique perspective on appreciating them. Sadly, inexpensive store-bought clothes are treated with such flippancy, thrown around, washed harshly, then thrown away as they look ragged for new ones constantly. Even our inexpensive items should be appreciated, but when someone has not put in the work to make it and can get another so cheaply, it is often treated poorly. But even inexpensive clothing can look beautiful when washed and dried gently, hanging threads clipped and pressed when needed.

To appreciate your pretty dresses no matter the price point or if you made it, try buying just a few truly beautiful dresses that you love, whether a bit more expensive or not and treat them with care and actually wear them. In fact, it could help you to get rid of your degraded clothing and only own your nice clothing.

This applies to beautifying your home as well

It takes much physical effort, mental consideration and time to curate furniture, lamps, bedding, and decor and to keep it all clean so that your home becomes beautiful. It takes time to make something beautiful but when you put in all that work, there is this glorious outcome that makes people notice it and revel in it. It is to be enjoyed. Bringing back a bygone era of beauty in your home means dressing daily in a way that says your home and your family is important for you to be at your best for them and making that true for their environment as well. You are a part of their environment in everything you portray in your words and dress and everything you do.

Sewing Details

As for how the dress was made, I recently made McCall’s 8209 basque waist dress and was intrigued to have the same dress but with a fully enclosed upper bodice instead of straps. The solution was to fuse the upper bodice of one of my favorite sewing patterns Simplicity 2917 to the lower bodice and skirt of McCall’s 8209 for the rest of the dress.

The princess seams of each pattern’s bodice were nearly identical, so I traced out the upper half of Simplicity 2917 and traced the bottom half of the bodice from McCall’s 8209. This gave me a fully enclosed upper bodice, and I used the Simplicity 2917 sleeves from view B. From the waist down the dress is McCall’s 8209 giving it the Basque waist, and an ankle length gathered skirt.

Favorite Features

My absolute favorite part of this dress is every part of it! How could I choose? I love princess seams, the gathered skirt, the Basque waist, the long flowy puffed sleeves, and the light pink floral fabric. I also love the tie at the back waist that was not included in either pattern. I added it to have the option to wear this dress loose or fitted and a tie would give me the ultimate tailoring control. I adore the thin ties that form into a discreet bow, which I tie rather small and fall romantically down the back of the skirt in a rather long length. The floaty effect of this is quite a subtle beauty.

The Fabric

This fabric is a rayon challis, and this one was very thin and hence, see through. So, I made this dress fully lined with a rayon challis as well and due to this fabric type fraying ferociously, every seam on the lining and the dress was fully enclosed with French seams.

Favorite Eras of Beauty

The Laura Ashley brand was at the height of popularity when I was growing up and it embodied many characteristics that I enjoy about historical fashion: femininity, floral prints, cotton fabric, bows, and long lengths. This brand and some other specific eras of dress are good points of reference for me when choosing what styles to buy or sew. This is very important when curating beauty in your home and wardrobe. If you know what you like you can study it to emulate the style. However, I find the most important way that we create beauty in our lives is by being fairly disconnected from the current culture which promotes trends which are rarely lovely or beautiful and rarely home or family focused.

Fashion Features that Make Women Look Graceful & Beautiful:

Fabric with pretty prints to hide daily life of dirt & stains to be with children, pets & to be outdoors.

Fabric in pretty colors that communicate cheerfulness and femininity.

High necklines that do not show cleavage even when moving and bending.

Length longer than knees to not show upper thigh when sitting, moving, and bending.

Wide dress straps to hide bra straps or sleeves to cover the upper arm which is not the most beautiful part of a woman and can actually look quite masculine without sleeves, and sleeves add beauty while covering this area.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:2

It is not only okay to be old fashioned, sometimes the most beauty is found in bringing back a bygone era of beauty when people adhered to a standard of excellence and decorum in speech, behavior, lifestyle and dress. We can bring back beauty into our wardrobes and into our homes by admiring these good things and embracing them and not seeing them as just something historical, silly, or over the top. Enjoy the blessing of building your home in this beautiful way, loving your husband and your children and being like Christ to them.

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CHRISTIAN LIVING – FASHION – HOME