One-Hour Dress

Some patterns surprise me.  I start out thinking they're ugly, won't work for me, look bad on a hanger... and then I try them, and they work.  The 1920's fashions are like that for me.  I am not drawn to boxy shapes or straight lines.  The later seasons of Downton Abbey were rather sad, costume-wise.  The wealthy ladies at least had pretty silks and beading, but the servants might as well have been wearing black pillowcases.  So much no.

However, the one-hour dress, a popular DIY pattern from the 1920's, has several points in its favor:

• the name (only one hour, really?);
• the pattern is mostly straight lines;
• the "waist" is really at the hips, which is the widest part of most women, so you can put it on over your head (no sewing in zippers, buttons, or plackets);
  
• the lack of shaping means you can showcase interesting prints or decorations. 

To see many examples of how to cut the pattern, from modern and vintage sources, as well as examples of the dress made up in different fabrics, check out my One-hour Dress Pinterest board. 

I made my first one-hour dress last year.  Basically, I traced a tee shirt that fit me, marked the low hip line, added skirt-width to be gathered at the hip, and cut.  So easy.  For my first attempt, I cut it straight across at the neck, making the front and back pieces identical.  Then I sewed the shoulders off-kilter so the front neckline had extra to drape inward and the back neckline was correspondingly long at the outside edges of the shoulders.  I pleated the back extra to fit the front, so there was fullness over my shoulder.

To sew it up took me about four hours, mostly because I was working with a knit for the first time, and I didn't know how to finish the edges.  And because I made cute bows to cover the area of gathers at the hips.  Well, "one-hour dress" is the name, not a promise! 

Here you can sorta see what I mean about the back extra being pleated to create fullness in the shoulder.