What a fun project, Kathy! Have you seen the One Hour Dress Pattern from Mary Brooks Picken? It's a flapper style dress pattern from 1924. It has lots of variations so you could make a whole wardrobe of this dress. :)
I bought the e-book from this gal:
http://emailedvintagepatterns.com/in.../clothes/women She does a very good job of scanning and her prices are great.
This was one of about a billion booklets/patterns/books written by Mary Brooks Picken, the founder of the Women's Institute of Domestic Arts & Sciences - they taught distance classes in a variety of subjects - cooking and sewing and anything having to do with keeping house. Women learned sewing to supplement the family income or to support their families.
Amy Barickman put out a charming book recently called Vintage Notions which uses a lot of material from the Women's Institute, so your daughter might get some insights from this "distillation." :)
The mechanical buttonholer makes nicer buttonholes than any I've ever seen. At a glance, they look hand made and they're very secure. They're a bit of a pain to set up, so if I only have to do one, I run it up on a zig zag machine or do it by hand. But if I'm making a shirt, it's worth the time to fuss with it and set it up and mark the shirt properly, etc. Makes a heck of a racket, though - you'll swear your machine is falling apart when you first hear it. :D
Good luck with the project! :)