vintage patterns

Monday, January 30, 2012

Fashion, Sewing and a Beautiful Picture

Here is the finished cotton dress with quite a few changes to the original pattern. I was thinking of modeling it myself, but Millie does such a great job, and she wasn't doing anything else at the moment. Some day I will pose for photos in clothing I make and even outfits thrown together for a day, and I do throw together some pretty funky outfits. But, I want someone with me, like my daughters, while I'm at it, so it can be an adventure in fun, and, my daughter are pretty good at throwing a 'look' together.

The dress is from a 1949 Sue Burnett mail order pattern. The fabric is 100% cotton at $2.00 a yard from Walmart. I didn't like the way the original dress fit when finishes, so these are the changes I made;

* took off the sleeves and used them for a hankie-like detail at the shoulder. I have narrow shoulders, so this detail drew that area in a bit.
* I lowered the neckline about an inch and took the center seam in, also about an inch, I also have a small upper chest. And added two vintage buttons.
* I placed the ties toward center front to give a bit more definition to the waist.

So all in all, I think this dress with make a nice summer gardening dress for 'urber' cool wearing in the heat of the day and maybe to wear to the lake.

This Millie girls has such a cute figure ; ) Her namesake is from here Millie the Model


My next sewing projects are just for fun because neither one will fit me nor could I wear them. I would have definitely wore both of the following outfits some years ago and loved them. I guess it is like a middle age crisis and the red sports car thing.
The dress above is draped on the dress form. It is three yards of polyester chiffon (remember I usually work in inexpensive fabrics  at $1.50 a yard, although I do love silks and satins). I would have loved to make this dress floor length, but I bought the last three yards, not enough to hit the floor. So, for this dress I am going to have to draft or drape the pattern from scratch, it should be fun. I did post this on Facebook.

This next outfit I had planned to make two year ago and put on line as one of my custom made numbers but never got around to it or to create my custom design shop, including jewelry and home decor. I can't seem to come up with a catchy all-inclusive name for the shop. Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

The border print set for this vintage fabric with the pants and tunic. I must of had this pattern when I was living in Southern California


McCall's 9676 from 1969 Summer of Love
I really like the dress in this pattern also, hmmm, super cool.

Which reminds me of the colorful 60s flower power dresses for a wedding treasury Jolene of Jo Retro made on Etsy.

And, now the beautiful picture I scored today, enjoy!


Sunday, January 15, 2012

Finished dress and next new sewing project

I finished the dress, it was a very simple pattern to make and did not take long at all to sew. I love the way it turned out and will be adding it to my wardrobe, with some minor changes. For one I made it to short, don't know how that happened, but I guess I miss measured, duh! So, I will be making some side slits and wearing it as a tunic over creamy white leggings, pants or shorts.

It looks fab on  Millie, but she is 5' 7" and a size 2, I pinned the dress on her to give it more definition, but I must say it does look good on me too, I'm just a tad larger than Millie ; )

She's got legs....
And, she is a runway model...
The important thing for me when making this dress was getting the pattern on the fabric placed where I liked it. See the uncut fabric and pattern I used here.

My next project will be this cotton dress. So the challenge here will be to see if I can make it with just 2 yards of fabric. The pattern is actually a full length nightgown. I picked up this fabric at Walmart for $2.00 a yard 100% cotton and was just thinking of making a blouse. So, if I can't turn it into a dress, it will be a blouse.
This is a mail order pattern from Sue Burnett 8458, mailed from San Francisco May 13th 1949, the fabric 100% cotton, dreamy.

Are you working on summer or winter fashions? I know my readers are from all over the world and the climates very from place to place, but summer is my favorite time of year for fashion. The Fall is my favorite for eating the bounty harvest. What is yours?

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Now the girls have taken up modeling or is it just play?

While my daughters were visiting they decided it would be fun to play dress up. So with a closet and several dress racks full of vintage clothes and a few wigs this is what they came up with.

Here is Crystal in a 1960s white chiffon go-go dress with silver beading on the yoke, by Miss Elliette California. She went with the long blonde wig. Her 6 year old daughter posed her and also did some styling for us, she is very good at it, for being a beginning stylist.
Ahh yes, Penelope, wearing a 1960s culotte outfit in a bright bold neon print, Alice of California. She is donning a short black curly wig with a pair of silver cateye glasses and head scarf (yes, I know two different eras, but, it is all good)
You go girl! Red lips and all.
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Crystal in a 1970s psychedelic palazzo jump suit, custom made. She wanted to go blonde and curly, hmm...
This is my favorite outfit a 1940s rayon palazzo jump suit with a very wide hot pink sash, custom made. I may just have to keep this outfit for myself. This is also one of my favorite wigs, which I don't wear, I only use them on my mannikin, Millie.
And our stylist!

So, there you have it, some pretty cool vintage and a whole lot of fun!
 Who do you work with when you go about styling your outfits?

Monday, January 9, 2012

Daughter Decided to Sew

My daughter is visiting for a while and has decided to start sewing. She has made a few things in the past, so it is actually pretty exciting for me to be a part of her newly re-found adventure in sewing. She went through one box of my patterns and picked out a few. Then went through my bunches of fabric, and I helped once I knew what she favored. So, we pulled out several pieces and she came up with a design for the pattern she chose.


The pattern is McCalls 9715 from 1969 and the fabric I have had since the 70s. 
I made this same dress when I was 16. I made it from some blue cotton fabric and the sleeves from a white bed sheet (you know you use what you have) I left the sleeves open so they were very fairy like, flower child I was : ) The blue chiffon I had used to make harem pants for a belly dancing costume, also back in the 70s when I was going to school for fashion design I took a belly dancing class, makes sense right?
When my daughter Penelope (my pattern shop is named after her) is done maybe she'll let me get a picture of her modeling the finished garment. She is also the live model in my Etsy shop.

Any interesting project your working on or maybe a family member. And how does that work, working together, learning anything new?

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Finished 1951 Blouse and New 1960s Basic Sheath Dress

It was a real pleasure working on this blouse and being able to wear it today. Some of the changes I made to the original pattern ~

* original pattern was a size vintage 12, bust 30" I re-sized the bodice to a size modern size 10, bust 36"
* I found out the length was to short in the bust area after I cut it out, so I added a 2" insert at the shoulders to drop the gathered bodice down more.
* The original pattern was missing 3/4 length sleeve pattern piece I wanted to use so I used the 3/4 sleeve from a vintage 1950s McCalls dress pattern. I did not need to make any adjustment to the sleeve pattern, it fit perfectly.
* After several fittings, I did need to take the midriff in several inches, just so it wouldn't hang to loosely, I wanted the blouse to fit close around the midriff for a definitive shape.

It is very comfortable to wear and I feel I have a creation like no other.

I wear this over a white stretch cami because the fabric is see-through.

A side shot, blouse has a zipper on the left side.

A back shot, back has four dart pleats at waist.
Now with the blouse finished, time to work on my next project, a 1960s sheath 'wiggle' dress in a lovely large flower print fabric. the dress is in a size vintage 18, bust 38". I don't normally wear large prints, except for a Hawaiian print here or there. So, this dress may be for a sample sale. I still plan on opening another Etsy store with just my handcrafted jewelry, clothing and home decor designs, just not sure when that will happen.

Because of the print on the fabric, I'll need to place the pattern pieces so that pattern of the fabric will fall very similar to the way I have it pinned on the dress form.

This is the 1960s McCall's 5395 dress pattern I have decided to use for this particular fabric.

The dress has a back zipper and is a very easy to sew pattern. I plan on making the hem an inch or so above the knee, so I won't need to add a back kick pleat.
If I really like it when I am finished I may take it in a bit so it will fit me, otherwise it is one of my sample dresses I  am making because I have lots of fabric and patterns and just love to sew and make things ; ) And, what better way to spend my time. I tend to watch movies while I am sewing, so if there are any good movies to watch let me know. I was finishing the blouse above while watching the recommendations from Amy at Wildfell Hall Vintage, thanks Amy great movies.

Here is a little blurb about my fabric buying ~
I am currently working with inexpensive fabrics, the blouse fabric and flower fabric both came from Wal-Mart at $1.50 yard. Wal-Mart carries mill-end fabrics that are manufactured in several different countries. Not all of the stores carry the same bolts. There are only two places in my area that carry inexpensive fabrics and they are Wal-Mart and Jo-Anns. There is an independent fabric store in Ashland with beautiful fabrics, but a bit out of my price range for now. Newberry's in Long Beach, California use to be my very favorite fabric store, but they closed eons ago and I no longer live in California.

So, off to work on the dress and watch some great movies in the process. If you know of some movies to recommend I would love to know, thanks.