Domestic Goddess dress

It’s the new year, so that means it’s time for a new dress, right? (Not that I ever need an excuse to make a new dress!)

I’ve nicknamed this one the Domestic Goddess dress, as the cut and floral fabric in soft colours make me feel all 1950’s housewifey. After the photos were taken, I decided to go with that retro vintage housewifey sort of feeling, put my heels on and went to the supermarket then cooked dinner. (Yes, with an apron over the top, even! Very domesticated, no?) This may not sound all that special, but the whole cooking dinner thing is something that kinda intimidates me a little. Sad but true. Hence another of my New Year’s resolutions this year – lose that intimidation of kitchen ware! (For some reason, I’m more than happy with making a wide variety of sweet things, but dinner always seems to fall back to just a few really basic things I’m comfortable with. Hmmm.)

Anyway, I digress.

So, here it is. The first dress of 2010. The Domestic Goddess dress!

Made from a re-released Butterick pattern (Butterick 6582) from 1960. There were two key variations to this dress – the more 1960’s style one with a long wiggle skirt, and this 1950’s style one with the full skirt. I’m more a full-skirt kinda girl, so I don’t think I’ll ever get around to making it up for myself in the wiggle skirt design….

This one is made from a craft cotton, with a pretty little pink floral pattern all over it.

Fitted bodice, ruched shoulders, full skirt (gathered at the waist except for a section across the center front which is left ungathered), self-fabric belt (which is just pinned in the photos, as I didn’t have any D-rings wide enough for it, so it’ll get completed after my next trip to the fabric store). Fastens with an invisible zip down the center back, and a hook-and-eye closure at the top of the zip (which I accidentally forgot to fasten for the photo. Whoops.) (Please excuse the creasing on the back of the skirt – I was lazing around reading a book for about half an hour before we took the photos, and it got a bit crushed!)