Mad Men Challenge - Plans

The deadline for JuliaBobbin's Mad Men Challenge #2 is fast approaching (the 19th of April), are you joining in? I am! As I mentioned before I'm excited to be able to join in this year as I couldn't last year.

I've got one entry sorted, as my Sewcietea dress doubles as an early Mad Men inspired dress. However I'd really like to try and make a second dress, more in the style of the later seasons. This is mostly because I want to finally get around to sewing this lovely vintage pattern that I found in an op-shop a bit over a year ago:

My bargainous vintage pattern - only 50c!

I've muslined the dress (pic below) and the fit was pretty good. Apart from the fact that I needed to shorten it by a foot. Yes, by a whopping 12 inches! I ended up taking 6 inches of length out at the waist, and 6 inches at the hem. To start with I thought I'd have to add some extra in around the hips as it was a bit tight, but when I took the length out of the waist it brought the skirt up and added the extra width I needed across the hips at the same time. The only other alterations I've made are to shorten the french darts by about an inch, and I'm going to narrow the shoulders by about 1/4".

All the cool kids make their muslins from old IKEA duvet covers!

In the spirit of stash-busting, I am resisting buying new fabric for this and going to make it up in the lovely wool suiting that I bought when Social Sewing when on the Road. It's the bottom one in the below photo. I'm partly happy to do this because I spotted the other day that they still have at least one more roll of this fabric in the Fabric Store, so if I mess it up I can go get more to replace it.

I shall be using the bottom fabric in this picture, a lovely wool suiting

I'm planning on making view A, with the sleeves and collar. I'd like to do the pocket but either I or the previous owner appear to have lost the pocket piece, so I may need to come up with my own and add it on. I've got some black ribbon to use as the trim, and will need to get some buttons. The pattern isn't lined, but I'm going to line my version, so I bought some matching (I know, unlike me!) lining  fabric last weekend.

Cutting time!

I cut out my pieces last night, so now between hemming my Sewcietea dress I will start sewing it together. Hopefully I'm not being over ambitious and I'll be able to get it done in time.

And to finish, a few questions I was hoping you might know the answers to:
- Does anybody have any suggestions for the size I should make the patch pocket?
- Does anybody know any good tutorials for lining a dress like this?
- Does anybody know why the dress front piece is made as a whole piece rather than a cut on fold piece? I've checked, it's symmetrical down the centre front.