McCall 3744: The 'Summer Days' Dress

I was itching to make another 1940 McCall dress and wanted something that would transition from summer (yay! summer in Scotland) to autumn and spring.  I had this amazing blue linen fabric in my stash and McCall 3744 fit the bill perfectly.  David helped me pick the pattern for the fabric.  Linen holds the tucks beautifully and there are no buttons (which often tend to sag over time if sewn in linen), just a great streamlined silhouette:

You can see from the pattern cover that you can choose version A with a slide fastener closing (aka zipper) or view B which a button closing.  It comes with long cuffed and uncuffed sleeves and short sleeves.  I decided to sew up view B with the short sleeves and I ended up leaving the button off the yoke front because I liked the neckline better when it wasn't so close to my neck.

This pattern was featured in the June 1940 McCall's magazine:

Here's what the magazine says:

McCall 3774: Dime dots are the smart ones.  Dotted prints are probably more important than ever before.  The dotted rayon-crepe dress has the favorite high collarless neckline and the new slimmer skirt.

hmmm...note to self, find some dime size polka dot crepe fabric...

But back to the linen dress...  The yokes and waist seams are all lapped seams.  Lapped seams are much easier to sew in linen because the fabric holds a crease really well!  The dress also has two sets of tucks on the front bodice which line up with two sets of tucks on the skirt front.  The tucks actually hide the fact that there are skirt front and skirt side pieces.  The pattern also has my favourite types of 40's sleeves--darted sleevecaps!

The back is also really neat in that it has a centre pleat and again a lapped yoke seam.  The back of the skirt is a one-piece plain design:

We took these photos in a semi-hidden area of the city, down one of the secret 'closes' or alleyways.  This one was called:

And this is what it leads into:

Don't these look like fairy tale houses?  This secret close is not too far from Holyrood Palace and the Scottish Parliament.  Definitely a great place to wander into...

I really like the fit of the dress.  It's one of the first ones I've sewn up for the 1940 McCall Project with the slimmer skirt that started to appear from mid-1940 onwards.  I left the dress a bit longer than I normally would--but I think it works well with the dress shape.  I'm planning to make a matching belt too--just searching for the perfect blue belt buckle to match the fabric!

This blue also matches one of my Ness jackets perfectly--so I am all prepared for Autumn as well!

YAY! A fabulous summer dress!  Hopefully the sunshine will stick around :-)