SweetPea's Christmas Dress is from a vintage Hollywood Pattern and has a Coat Dress style. While I don't think there will be a "next time" for constructing with this particular pattern, I would *highly* recommend a muslin first should the opportunity present itself again. Thankfully, I was very careful with the modifications so the corduroy wale was not affected.
Pattern calls for *optional* shoulder pads which I was not planning on sewing. However, after the first fitting, the dress just did not hang quite right. When I added the shoulder pads the drape was much, much nicer.
Buttons are vintage and the white ones reminded me of little snowflakes.The white ric rac trim was an afterthought, but proved right away to be just the right touch. The little green button was a loner I had in my stash - a most perfect shade of jade-ite green. Now if I could only convince my son that he needs a vintage jade-ite green button tie tack to go with his matching necktie!
