Vogue 8956: Recommended for twirling!

This is Vogue 8956, from 1956. It is my new go-to dress for dancing at wedding receptions! It's comfy and very twirly! Making it was a little tedious, but totally worth it. (All those released pleats! Ack!)

This dress included many firsts for me: Underlining, horsehair braid hem, contour belt, and more.

I should have used one of the crisp fabrics recommended on the pattern envelope so I wouldn't need to underline, but I wanted to use the five yards of loosely woven silk pique my husband gave me for Valentine's Day. I had a major disaster trying to fuse the edges of my underlining to my dress fabric with the wrong fusible product. It was very bad, requiring me to recut pieces and rush order extra fabric. Thank goodness it all worked out in time for the wedding! Details at Chronically Uncool...