Sew Over It 1940s Tea Dress Pattern Review

Sew Over It 1940s Tea Dress

For an old fashioned industry, the home sewing world sure does change quickly! The Big 4 pattern companies release and retire dozens of patterns each year, and there is always fanfare about the newest indie pattern launch. With all that’s going on in the community, it can be easy to overlook patterns that have been on the market for a few years. Well I’m here to remind you that there are some phenomenal patterns out there that probably aren’t popping up on your Instagram grid every day. The Sew Over It 1940s Tea Dress has been kicking around since 2013, and I can’t say enough good things about it! It’s a classic design, vintage-inspired without being costumey, and is perfect for petites! 

Sew Over It 1940s Tea Dress

The Pattern

Pattern Description

The 1940s Tea Dress is one of Sew Over It’s early patterns, and you can tell that lots of love went into the drafting and grading. It’s a vintage-inspired day dress with a gathered bust, paneled midriff, above-knee skirt cuffed cuffed elbow-length sleeves.

Sew Over It 1940s Tea Dress

Sizing

I made a UK10, which is the size I would have expected to make based on my measurements. I’m a true petite (short waist, short legs, short arms, you name it!) and didn’t need to make any adjustments. I assume that means that most non-petite folks will need to lengthen the bodice and/or skirt.

Sew Over It 1940s Tea Dress

The size range isn’t great. It tracks UK ready-to-wear UK8 to UK20, or a 32” to 44” bust. I just saw on Instagram that Sew Over It plans to expand their size range to a UK30! Hopefully, they provide more inclusive sizing for their existing patterns in addition to new ones – I think this dress would be really cute on a wider range of bodies than it’s currently drafted for.

Pattern Adjustments and Design Modifications

I didn’t make any! This was the first fitted pattern I made where I didn’t need any adjustments. It doesn’t matter your size – this just doesn’t happen! 

Sew Over It 1940s Tea Dress

Construction Tips and Tricks

So far, I have made the 1940s Tea Dress twice and have a few tips and tricks to highlight:

  • Bust Gathers: The first time I made the dress, I followed the notches when placing the gathers. Like many other sewists, I found that it concentrated the gathers too far toward the center and created a weird-but-only-noticeable-to-me puff. The second time I made it, I extended the gathers so they essentially track the underwire on my bra. And voila! No more weird puffs!
  • Zipper Length: Use a 22” zipper. I don’t care whether you have an 18” or 20” zipper in your stash, it’s not going to work for this pattern. The back neckline comes up quite high, so you need the extra length. I used a 20” zipper I had floating around for my Archive Lilac version, and lots of shimmying is involved to get into the dress. This isn’t an issue in my 22” zip version.
Sew Over It 1940s Tea Dress
  • Lapped Zipper: I used a lapped zipper instead of an invisible zipper. I highly recommend it for a more “authentic” vintage look. I learned this technique from one of Gertie’s tutorials, and now it’s my go-to zipper installation method. 

The Fabric and Haberdashery

The 1940s Tea Dress is made for Liberty Tana Lawn. Liberty’s classic floral prints are perfect for the slightly twee lines of the dress. I love them together! I used Elysian Tana Lawn in the orange colorway and Archive Lilac Tana Lawn in blue. For a size UK10, I used just under 2 yards of fabric.

Sew Over It 1940s Tea Dress

It’s hard to see in the photos, but the center front bodice has the most darling decorative covered buttons. The Archive Lilac version was the first outing of my new-to-me manual hand press machine for fabric covered buttons. After seeing something similar in Bird’s (from @birdysewobsessed) amazing industrial equipment-stocked home sewing space, I decided to take the leap. I make a lot of shirt dresses and find the Dritz fabric covered button kits too flimsy, so I was in the market for something more professional. I haven’t had a chance to field test the machine-made buttons yet, but I’ll report back when I have a verdict!

Keywords: Pattern Review, Sew Over It, Sew Over It 1940s Tea Dress, Liberty of London, Tana Lawn

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