Dress Like Your Grandma Challenge

The lovely Tanya issued the "Dress Like Your Grandma" Challenge and when I read about it I was so excited! I love the fashion of my grandparent's eras. My mother's parents were married in 1947 and my dad's parents in the 1930s. I loved learning about the fashion during the 40's and especially about how it changed due to the war and rationing. I didn't know that the pencil skirt was born in this era due to limited availability of fabric, but it's a fashion workhorse!

Originally I couldn't find any pictures of my grandmother during the 40's/50's and my mom didn't seem to have any either. So I found a picture I liked online and a pattern in my stash that I bought on sale a few months ago. Tanya had also made this pattern and her version is so beautiful! It's McCall's 7433. I made the size 22 and after a muslin, I added 2" height to the button placket and added an inch width at the bust.

As I was finishing my dress my aunt, whom I had asked for pictures of my grandma, emailed me a picture of my grandmother and her family. I was floored to see that my dress was the same style as my great-grandma! The collar is different and so is the color scheme, but it's so similar! The photo was taken around 1953/54.

This my great-grandmother, Grace Adele Blake.

And this is my "grandma dress."

And from the side...

View from the back...

And just for fun, my two year old wanted to be in the picture too.

I was also blessed with the opportunity to go my parents house (we live far from them...like 30 hour drive far). I remember looking through a box of old photos from 1930-1950 of my grandparents and I tried to find it. While I didn't find it, I did find a treasure trove of other photos from my mom's family. This was such a fun way for me to view family history. I've loved old photos but now I see them with a new fascination with the fashion and curiosity of how garments were made. It's also neat to see family pictures and know that they too enjoyed sewing and made their own clothing. I love that I learned my love of sewing from my mother who learned her skills from her mother who also learned from her mother. I love keeping this skill alive even though to many people now-a-days it seems an "old-fashioned" idea. But I love being able to sew clothes that fit my body, in all it's stages, and to make them how I see clothing in my mind.