Many years ago before I was married, I made up a dress using a Jean Muir original designer pattern from a magazine. The fabric used was a fine Light Blue cotton jersey, at that time one of my very few forays into jersey sewing and it was a ‘special’ dress. I remember I wore it twice to attend concerts at The Mayflower theatre in Southampton. The first time was to see the group SKY and second time to watch Wayne Sleep with his dance troupe. That dress is long gone and in any event I am sure that it would no longer fit me.

The thought of the dress remains in my ‘treasured dress’ memory and just by chance I came across a collection of vintage Vogue patterns featuring Jean Muir designs. I decided to do some further research to see if I could locate the original pattern.

Unfortunately I could not find the exact same one (probably because my original came from a sewing magazine) but I did find Vogue 2883 printed back in 1973.

This is almost the same dress with the exception that mine had long sleeves into a deep buttoned cuff and did not have a zip closure at the back. The pattern that I purchased from a seller on eBay is a size 16 – Bust 38 ins so will need to be drafted up to fit me.

As I am not especially confident about that process, I also purchased a copy of McCalls #M5640 for woven fabrics which has a similar shaped yoke, full short sleeves and gathering front and back.

I believe that I can utilise the yoke and sleeves using a jersey fabric and design a high-waisted band to replicate the Vogue dress. Depending on the amount of fabric that I have in my stash, I may make long sleeves, otherwise the flutter sleeves will look good and balance out the full skirt.

I have a few other projects that need to be completed in the next 4 weeks but after that I full intend to spend some time slow sewing a replacement ‘special dress’.

13th February 2020