Chemise Dress

About four or five years ago, I got the idea of making my girls all dresses for pioneer day.  It never happened, but I still had the pattern (McCall's M4547) sitting in my closet unused.   While looking through my patterns for a simple summery dress for a bold floral print, I can across it again.  

Although the dress itself was not what I had in mind; the pattern included some pioneer-style underwear.   The chemise up until modern times was a loose shirt-like undergarment (lengths could vary) worn as a bottom layer under dresses, bodices, corsets, etc.  Now it can refer to a simple dress or shirt with straight lines.  The chemise was exactly what I had in mind and in a bold floral print would look nothing like underwear.

This is how it came out.  I was true to the original pattern with nothing altered.  I added some trim in the form of some pink rick-rack above the hemline and used a pink ribbon to gather the neckline.  The pattern is simple - I was able to whip it together in just a few hours.  My daughter loves her new dress; though I wonder what she would think if she knew she was parading around in "underwear."