Shiela's Dress

I have been holding this one off and even as I write this I know I won't be posting until tomorrow.  This year my work did a Secret Santa and I got my good work friend Shiela in it.  Tomorrow (as I type this) the presents will finally be shared around.

I decided that the challenge of making  a dress for Shiela would not be to hard given the time and budget, it doesn't hurt that as a personal trainer she is fit and has a figure you could hang a sack off and it would look great.  Having said that the project did not go without some detective work.

Firstly I had to ascertain her favourite colours.  By deviously questioning her on her outfit one day and her thoughts on the colour pink she told me her favourite colours were yellow and blue.  I went on a trip to Cabramatta where all great fabrics are hiding and managed to pick up a Japanese polyester crepe for $6/m.  It wasn't blue and yellow but rather a pastel stripe that had blue and yellow in it but I fell in love with it so close enough right.

Secondly I had to select a pattern.  I had originally thought of going with a 50's style but having found the fabric I knew it was going to have to be more a 70's style dress - which probably was a safer bet as lately Shiela has been right into the Maxi dress.  I remembered a pattern I had at home.  I had bought it way back in 2006 as a possible "leaving outfit" for my wedding but got to busy to make anything.  It had been sitting around unmade for years as I realised when I had gone to make it that the open back and drappy nature of the style would certainly clash with my large bust and requirement to wear a bra at all times to restrain the girls.

Lastly, and this was my most devious trick of all I had to find out what size to make.  I casually asked her if she would wear a dress I had made once but never fit into (see the perfect dress) and brought it in for her to try on.  Lucky for me it was a perfect fit AND had a hole in the side.  I brought it home and put it on Mavis, twisting her dials until I had it fitting her.  I now had sheila's size based on the measurements of Mavis.  Crafty little cat I thought as I began to cut out the pieces of the dress.

As you can see in the picture below the material has a stripe to it, a very very obvious and multicoloured one.  So I painstakingly lined up the pieces on the fabric so that these would match then cut.  Now here is where you learn that I am used to working with one sided fabric.  When sewing together I made the skirt pieces and then the bodice in it's entirety.... clipped i seams and all - only to discover that I had flipped my top pieces.  Being late at night I instantly went into meltdown and decided that as I had already cut in there was no going back.  I was half way round joining skirt to bodice when I realised I could just swap the skirt pieces.  I put it aside to finish the next night realising my brain was beyond thought when it had taken me that long to work out that simple a solution.

So unpicking occurred and the dress was completed well in time frame with the lines neatly matched up, which I am sure you understand gives a much more professional finish.  And the line ups were my only mistake... well that and sewing a button hole for the belt to go through onto the bodice back through 4 layers of material.... lesson learnt, unpicking buttonholes is the suckyest of all unpicking.

As a side note the whole thing is lined in cotton (white) that is part of the stash for just that reason... sometimes you just have to line things.

So the update is now in - Shiela has the dress and really likes it - however she has noted that she would like the back to be split as her natural stride reaches the limit on this one. I have promised to make the amendment.... yes more unpicking.

50’s elegance meets 70’s Curtains – somehow all works out well

This is a dress that I made when I first set out on vintage sewing. I believe it was the 2nd vintage vogue pattern I attempted. The original pattern reminded me strongly of Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn. It has an inbuilt elegance about it that I found captivating (as I always do). I however do not possess the grace of Audrey Hepburn or the elegance of Grace Kelly – more closely resembling a bull in a buffalo stampede.

The pattern seemed easy enough to follow, and in truth it came out very quickly and easily. The simple lines of the 1950’s style does tend to make a dress within a day that is in no way compromising on finishes for speed. I chose to make it however out of an orange floral cotton that I had picked up for I believe about $3/m at spotlight on sale.

When I bought the cotton I had envisioned a 1960’s shift style dress and in truth the material did share some resemblance to some 1970’s kitchen curtains. I however have always had a love of the ridiculous and what some would call ugly. I find things fascinating that are not what you would call traditionally pretty, so I bought up 5 or so meters of the stuff knowing that one day I would find the right thing to make out of it. Plus I love yellow and this orange/goldenrod was close enough to qualify.

Now what made me match the elegant vintage vogue dress to the 70’s chic curtain fabric is long beyond me. Something must have made me connect the two and likely it had as much logic involved in the decision as a Salvador Dali painting, and yet somehow in the finished version it seemed to work. I have had many compliments on this dress which by all reason should be an atrocity and an insult to the eyes of every living creature. I have no idea why it works just that it does and that I really do love it.

I did have to make some small changes to the dress to make it work for me – and Ange incorporated those changes when she made her version (visible in our avatar picture on the side bar). The first was to change the back from standard buttons to the elastic button loop stuff. The machine I had at the time apparently had a one-step button hole but I’d be damned if I could figure it out. The elastic loop stuff was just easier – and since I was using non standard buttons (they are little orange flowers) the elastic is a god send.

Having said that the 2nd change I had to make was to move the button row. It actually goes at an odd angle to the edge of the dress, this is because the sizing on the pattern (and all standard patterns of modern design for that matter) is odd for my body shape. I am very front heavy but my back is teeny tiny by comparison. The buttons did make this alteration very easy to work with.

Lastly and the very visible in the picture is to change the neck line. This pattern has a very heafty amount of fabric in the gathering of the bust line. I think in the light weight floaty fabrics you would generally use this would not be a problem but in printed poplin it was. Basically as I stated above I have an impressive bust measurement that basically sits out in front and not in back – all that gathering was making me look like I was all boob.

To fix the issue I added in some small pleating to sew back the neckline side of the halter. It seemed to fix the issue nicely AND had the added bonus of looking like a feature piece of the dress.

All round I would totally recommend this pattern to anyone – it was easy to make, I can ‘t say that the instructions were easy to follow as I don’t tend to look at instructions but from memory they would be no worse or better than any standard vogue instruction page. The finished dress is fun flirty and summery, it can be adapted for both formal evening style (there is even a full length option) or for casual wear. And the biggest benefit is that being a reproduction pattern it is easily available from any vogue pattern outlet – and comes in multisize.

Lady in Red - My second Vintage attempt

Well there is one thing that is for certain about me and my sewing. I don't aim low!!!

It was Ange who started the vintage sewing craze (though me that started the sewing craze in general). As previously mentioned she downloaded a dress from a free internet pattern and got going on it. She was done by the time I started vintage sewing. This is to my memory the dress I chose to make 2nd. My first was the girl dress.

Vogue Vintage 2903 looks phenomanal on the cover of the pattern and to be honest I really can't fault the finished look (though in my opinion the box pleating could be a little more exaggerated on the final product).

I used a red micro crepe that I belive I picked up for about $5/m in a spotlight sale. In any case it was good ot work with.

The pattern though I do recommend with caution. Getting those sleeves in (half attached to dress half to the yoke) was a nightmare and you can stills ee how it didn't quite work.

I hand sewed the yoke in as I could not for the life of me work out how one would do that with a machine. You can see this close up but at a range it is fine. The sleeves are also a little bit tight but I think this was a fabric choice.

Technically I am half way through remaking this for a friend in an awesome teal plaid. Will let you know if I learnt anything second time round.

Christmas Dress

Well Christmas down under is generally a very very very hot occasion with tempratures reaching 40 degrees Celsius and higher (though sometimes the world decides to kick you in the teeth and we get wet cold and windy). With that in mind during stash bust last year I made a dress that although usable throughout all summer it does indeed bring to mind the wonder of christmas - in that it is indeed red and white. I give you my version of Vintage Vogues 2961.

I absolutely love this dress!!! It was made fairly quickly - I believe it took an afternoon of non stop sewing fun and required finishing before 12am to count in out stash bust.

Originally it was meant to be my Elvis dress (see post last year to see fabric). Unfortunately V2961 is not very friendly to stripes and I did not have enough material to be able to line things up (nor did I care enough). The change to the red was simply the first thing on cloth mountain to take my fancy. To be honest I think it was left over from making very fast tabards for a role playing game. A dark blood red colour poplin. The white that I used to line and accent was part of the 75m collection of white cotton we got to make togas for another game. I am slowly working my way through that stuff but I think it is going to take a while.

I think that the white and red complement each other well and the style is very flattering. (I do apologise for all the Mavis modelling photos but I put on a bit of weight this year and thus don't fit to many of my outfits anymore. But I am on my way back down so don't fret). It is technically a 1950's style but it looked great with my 1970s style white sandels for my Christmas party. Maybe I can dig out a photo from then at some point.

One of the benefits of this style is that it can be worn two ways - strapless as shown above or halter as shown here. The halter style however sits much better on a person than it does on Mavis.

So the bodice is boned which I used a real featherweight boning on, so bras is still required for wearing. I will say that the picture on the pattern is not too honest, the skirt does not seem for me to have that real 50's fullness.

In anycase as I said before I do love this dress.

The Girl Dress

In an effort to keep up the habit of posting on here I am going to be doing a series of "Old Projects" in amongst the new ones. I have actually finished a new one - being my onsie, and am almost finished the skirt to match (tonight) but I am camera lazy so you will have to wait till next week to hear about the elation that is the one step button hole.

For Now though I entertain you with what we have come to call the girl Dress - for obvious reasons.

This was actually my first "vintage" experience, and I use the term loosely as it is a vogue vintage reprint (V2960) which is in my opinion a brilliant and almost flawless pattern. Several incarnations have been made and all of them I have seen have flattered the wearer.

Ange has also made one and I would have posted a cool pic of her in it, but alas my husband has let his flickr account relapse so that will have to come later. As for pics of me in the dress, again I must admit a lacking, I have come to discover that despite plans to get photos of our outfits, Ange and I are terrible at follow-through, as such Mavis will model much of these. When I do get pics of the dresses actually on me - I will then update with new pics. I will I swear organise a photo shoot.

Anyway I was supposed to be talking about V2960 right. Well I didn't know if this dress was going to work, I had bought the last of the bolt and had about 2.6m of this material (which is undoubtedly the most awesome material I have ever owned) but luckly for me vogue seemed to have over quoted on the yardage. It did however mean that the girls would have to fall as and where they would. Had I more material to begin with I would have tried to avoid the two knee on the boob thing that is there.

Issues I had included my distinct hatred of button holes (which I have only JUST overcome - this dress is about 2 years old I believe). For years of costume making I avoided button holes like the plague. I invented many ways in which I could NOT do buttonholes, including but not limited to lace ups, zips, button hole elastic and in this instance snap studs.

This has caused one small issue - I am a large busted person, and the dress probably should have been re-sized to have more room in the chestal area for me. However I was as always rushing, took on a she will be right attitude that is so typical to my Aussie brethren and charged forward full steam. the outcome - I kind of need to pin between the top two buttons otherwise the top one pops open willy nilly - not very modest.

Regardless though I love this dress, the neckline is daring but not out there, the shape is slimming in all the right places and I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone. Realistically if the only problem I have with the design is that I didn't fit it properly I can't blame vogue for that.