Welcome to Brigadoon

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I ordered a fabulous pattern from 1947 from The Fifth House on ETSY and went to work the first minute I had free. Boston surprisingly has very few options in the way of fabric shops and so I opted for a tartan fabric from Joanne's Fabrics as they seem to be having a "British Invasion" theme to their better fibers. Choosing a brown plaid I set to work and a few hours and a few cocktails later I had a fabulous new dress which will be worn with pride on Monday to the office.

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Dress design 101

When searching for quality vintage you often run into the issue of finding the perfect dress that isn't in your size. I had such an experience the other day and after I wiped away the tears I sadly left the shop only to have spent the entire weekend thinking about the possibility of duplicating the dress in my size. Well I quickly returned to the shop and having found that no one else fit the dress picked it up and took it home only to tear every seam apart and study the construction.

There was a greater issue aside from the small size, it was a summer dress and was designed with a halter top and Fall is quickly descending upon New England. So I laid out some newsprint, set down the dress pieces and traced out the shape and increased the size accordingly and then designed the upper portion to hold onto the detail of the original dress, but to include 3/4 length sleeves. and at 2:30 am that next morning I had a new, one of a kind dress that fit like I wish the original dress had.

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I have already bought fabric for a second dress.