My favorite dress

The dress I'm about to show you was made by me probably in the summer of 1957 or 1958. I puzzled over the date a bit. I did gain the freshman ten (actually more) in college and I look sort of thin in the photos. It's possible I lost the weight in the summer, because I was living with my grandparents in Franklin Grove as their cook and housekeeper, and I was probably not a very good cook. In the summer of 1957 I was in Fresno, California in volunteer service, so I'm leaning toward '58 and think I wore it the first time to my uncle's wedding.

It was a lovely, high quality pima cotton, sort of a gray-blue with little purple cartoonish dogs on it. Sounds strange, but I loved it. The last time I remember wearing it was 1966. By then my rib cage had expanded a bit from pregnancies, and I'd shortened it to go with the 60s fashion.

I'm sure we bought the fabric at Eichler's in Dixon--Mom was a huge fan of their fabric department, and we'd sit a long time on the stools pouring over the pattern books, always avoiding Vogue, and fingering the fabric. You could almost see her fingers itch. Oh, the patience of that woman with three daughters who sewed, and only one who did it well (not me). She paid her dues at home and then again at 4-H meetings, home-ec class projects and county fair contests. Not once did I hear her nag or complain (about sewing), and I can still hear the crunch of the pinking shears on our dining room table.
Here I am, all set to go to the wedding--white shoes with 3" heels, hat and gloves. In the photo above, where I'm hemming the dress (obviously loving it), I'm wearing another dress I made, and I used that pattern several times. That one was maroon, and the buttons may have been gray. However, from the looks of the hem on that one, it looks like I may have sewn the project I was working on to the dress I was wearing. What do you think?

The next entry will be about what else is in those photographs of my favorite dress with purple dogs.

Update: On Nov. 10 I found the negatives for the photos and to my surprise, I'd made the dress in 1956. So, now I have no idea where I was going when I finished it.