Making Your First Dress - A Lesson from 1927

I just keep finding things inside of my Woman's Institute lesson books! This time I was looking through Dressmaking - Perfection in Details and this flyer was tucked in the back.
It was most likely included in the mail order coursework as part of the Dressmaking Program.

It mentions a few commercial patterns that one could purchase to make these looks including Ladies' Home Journal 5146, Butterick 1390, Butterick 1561, Pictorial Review 4006, and Ladies' Home Journal 5503.

Enjoy!

Oh, and in other news, look what I just finished!

#3069 Slip Pattern

Making a Kimono Sleeve Dress from the Woman's Institute

This morning I was gently riffling through my Woman's Institute book collection and inside a copy of Dress Construction and Finishing I found the coolest little booklet!

It was meant to come along with actual fabric dress pieces sent to the student to sew, and then return for examination! Can you just image getting a dress in the mail, already cut, just waiting to be sewn together? How fun!

For those of you unfamiliar with it, the Woman's Institute was a dressmaking and millinery instruction school that operated mainly by correspondence.

You can read all about their courses and book in a few different publications including Dressmaking Made Easy, Home Study Courses, and What the Woman's Institute Means to Me.

For your enjoyment, here is the lesson booklet in its entirety.

You can make a dress similar to this by using a straight-line one-piece dress pattern.