Mad Men dress part 2

I'm loving all your comments on a dress I didn't actually make, can't wait to see what you all have to say when I actually do make something wearable LOL!

Anyway as requested, here is a picture of the one remaining muslin on my dressmakers dummy because it is the too small version and there was no fitting it on me:

The other muslins I made have been taken apart and cut up to make paper patterns after I folded and pinned out the excess and drew new cutting lines on, so nothing to show for them except a pile of fugly fabric pieces. This muslin was rescued from the rubbish bin after you all showed interest in it, maybe I should have pressed it so it doesn't look so bad. The first version I made exactly to the pattern (which was too big) turned out beautifully, so it's not the pattern or the instructions, it's just my lame pattern grading attempts.

Anyway, on to the questions and comments. Rachel - I got the pattern from an op shop or garage sale quite some time ago, but I don't know the pattern company because I can't see any company name on it whatsoever, the pattern number however is 5162. I have a feeling it may be a mail order pattern, because it's not in a proper envelope, it's just a bit of paper folded in half with the pattern pieces inside. It's a miracle it all stayed together really, I see so many patterns in the op shops with random tissue pieces floating around. This is a photo of the pattern sheet:

Judy Ross - here is a photo of the front bodice and skirt (the back is pretty plain), and the pattern instructions for creating that pleat on the front:

For the view with the drapey bit at the front, it is actually an extra bit of rectangle piece of fabric that gets sewn onto the front under the belt.

Jean - I attempted to take excess width out across the front evenly, ie a bit from the middle, and a bit from each side because I needed to take 4 inches out, but I didn't try it just taking out the excess in the middle alone. One day when I'm crazy enough to try this again, that will be muslin #5!

Kristine - I did try to overlay this on a sloper I already have, but the sloper I have is for set in sleeves, and this dress has the dolman type sleeves with a gusset underneath, so I couldn't find enough commonality to make it fit. Another possibility I had was to change the sleeve type to a set in sleeve, and just use my sloper by transferring the darts on the bodice to my sloper because I did manage to get the skirt part to fit. However, I ran out of steam before doing this!

And thanks to Anna for letting me enter in the Mad Men competition anyway, but it definitely does not deserve to win since there are so many great dresses already entered.

Sadly no sewing yet this week, I've been busy cleaning all the nooks and crannies in the house after a crazy dust storm we had here last week. Here is what our backyard looked like last Wednesday morning during the dust storm:

And here is what it looked like the following morning when the dust had blown away:

Just crazy! But the good news is that Anna is finally sleeping through the night, well 7pm to 5am which is a painfully early start to the day but it is a vast improvement on her habit of the last two months of waking every hour of every night. I'm looking forward to improved energy and concentration to get things done now yay!