50's Era Sundress

50s Sundress

What is a wife to do when her husband finds a show on TV that only mildly interests her? Go online, of course!  That is exactly what I did a bit ago.  I went online to find a cute toddler dress and came across a pattern from the early 50s.  Yes! This is the project for me tonight, I thought.  For those who are interested in seeing the pattern click here.

The only catch to this pattern is that I made the six month size because I was using yarn on hand.  What yarn on hand did I use?  Do you remember the Throwback post?  I used the hot pink yarn from that.  It was some of the scratchiest yarn I have ever worked with!  It was also very dusty and faded rather oddly because of time.  The other thing I noticed is that the dress was very stiff from the yarn.  I finished the dress and decided I would wash and dry it.  I made sure to use laundry detergent with fabric softener in it, and when it was done washing I put it in the dryer with a dryer sheet.  Now why was all of that important?  Because the fabric softener will help make the finished product less stiff and less scratchy.

For those of you who checked out the pattern, I modified it a little bit and left off some of the detail work, and used ribbon instead.  The shoulder detail turned out very cute, and a little more modern.