Vintage Patterns - One for her and one for him

I just about have my studio set up again, I moved in with my husband and am letting my daughter live in my house, long story. Sooo, other than hate moving, I now have more room for my studio/shop where I sell vintage patterns, clothing, collectibles and jewelry. And, also where I sew, bead, knit, crochet, write and create.

Newly listed are these two 1954 vintage patterns, a robe for the Mr. Although, the Misses may do the sewing, maybe just in time for Christmas.

Oh yes, pipe and slippers, how domesticated

And for the ladies a sweet nautical themed blouse, tucks and side zipper or also called a Middy. If you treasure nautical theme scarfs this pattern would look great to show them off. Only issue is that it is a vintage size 14, meaning for a 32" bust and 26 1/2" waist, not sure how much ease these patterns allow during this time period.

I would work this blouse in a solid seersucker fabric, I know there is some great print fabric out there that would adapt to this style too!

So what do you think, do you sew for your man, are you into nautical sailor theme clothing?

Thrift Finds and a Finished Summer Dress

Let me show you the dress first...

It is a tent dress from the stash of fabric I bought at Walmart for $1.00 a yard and from vintage Vogue pattern 7684. The dress was very easy to sew, two pattern pieces, facings and pockets.

Stash of fabric

Vogue pattern 7684 vintage 1970s

I am working on one more dress from this stash of fabric, to be posted soon. I ran out of seam binding, so the dress will have to wait until I go shopping.

• Here is a quick look at some thrifting I did a few weeks back, maybe its has been a few months now that I think of it, because I already have another bunch of loot for another time.

English plates, bowls and cup form Milton's est.1783, plastic salt and pepper toast, pink seahorse and seashell salt and pepper shakers, a Garfield cup, Santa cups, child's toy cup and saucer, green ceramic kitty 1970s yellow beaded necklace and a hat shaped pin cushion.

For the clothing I found this cool band style denim vest, a pretty blue nightie slip, and two 1950-60s full slips, a very nice black 60s mod mini dress, and orange plaid dress, the brown and black plaid is not vintage but love the mod vibe. 

Now, I just want to end with some photos of the park at Emigrant Lake, where I took the picture of me in the dress.

So, a little of this and a little of that and more to come. Would love to hear about you and connect, so drop a word or two in the comments, until then take care.

A Few Finished Sewing Projects and More on the Way

I wanted to show off a couple of finished sewing projects I worked on last month starting with McCall's 9676 pattern from 1969 using vintage fabric from the late 70s.

I had a similar fabric in black with tropical floral print, but sold it in my Artfire studio.

And, a dress I completed from this stack of fabrics...

This dress was made from New Look pattern 6717. I ran the border print down the side. I love wearing this dress it is so comfortable. I also have the blue fabric cut out ready to sew and another dress in the planning stage and will post when those are finished.

And, along the line of making things, I made this necklace from florist wire. I started to do a tutorial on how it was made, but this is not the original design. and the tutorial went by the wayside. The only part I used that was the same is the purple florist wire. I thought I would have to make a peg beading board to wrap the wire, but this wire works best hand bending in large loops, and the original beads I was going to use were to small for the wire. I had recently found these large hole glass beads I picked up at the Goodwill, six for $0.50 perfect for large chain or wire. The loop-de-loops were created as the wire and beads were attached into a 'crazy' loop design fastened with jump rings where the wire touched to secure the design. It looks pretty cool and different, not something I would really wear, so I may just hang it in my window to catch the light, but it does lend itself for inspiration toward other designs. 

If you are on my blog reading list to the right, then know that I read your blog faithfully and sometimes leave a comment, if you have a blog I would love to visit, just leave a comment. Until next time happy fashion styling.

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!

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?

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?

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.

What I'm Working On

I've been working on some vintage patterns lately, my creative side working. I was given a box of stuff and in it was a cut out vintage dress waiting to be stitched. I thought that would be a good place to start a sewing project since it has been awhile since I actually made something. The pattern was a 1940s sun dress and the fabric was a lovely white cotton seersucker with green and white leaf print.

This is the 1940s sun dress I finished. An Ann Adams pattern 3438.

I used snaps at the side, the pattern mentioned you could use a slider (zipper). I also had some vintage buttons on hand.

The dress comes with a detachable collar that I also made reversible. The original seamstress had cut out the collar in the same fabric so I lined it with a white print fabric I had and added the eyelet trim as shown in the pattern.

Now, with that finished, I'm working on a 1951 McCall's blouse pattern using new fabric from Wal-Mart (I love the prints there and for the price it is better than working a pattern with just muslin, I will actually have a finished garment to wear.) The fabric is an open-weave apricot with white cotton shapes. I had to enlarge the pattern, it was a vintage size 12, bust 30", to a modern size 12, bust 36". So we'll see how well my skills are and how much I remember from my year in fashion design school. Oh, and the sleeve pieces were missing from the pattern, but I found a nice sleeve pattern I liked from a 1950s dress pattern. 

McCall's 8648

McCall's 8137, using the 3/4 length sleeve.

The fabric

I have the blouse cut out, but I think I will add some fabric to the back neckline and shoulder area to allow the gathered bust line to drop down a bit, it seems to ride to high across my bust. I like the way this fabric gathers and drapes and the retro look of the fabric.

This is the back of the pattern piece laid out and re-sized. Will post photo when finished.

What is your latest or most favorite sewing project, now, or in the past or in the dreamy future?

Reproduction Vintage Clothing

I have finished a few of these pieces and am working on a skirt and dress that are nearly completed except for the hem and buttons.

I saw this fabric in the store over a year ago and thought how cute, a little bubble goth, a style Kerli posted on You Tube for Seventeen Magazine on How to make a Teddy Bear Necklace tutorial Well, I'm not sure the fabric would actually qualify according to Kerli, but, I liked it, guess I was in one of my 'I need to do something different moods.' I can also see this in an adorable little girls skirt, which I'm sure you can find either on Artfire or Etsy.

 So what makes this a sweet top is the 1974 vintage pattern that was used, it is all girly, girl. I feel the length is a little too short and am thinking about adding some tulle or lace to the bottom hem. Below is the pattern:

 This is a great cotton summer dress from a brown and blue ethnic print. The print reminded me of the South Sea Islands, but the pattern is a McCall's 1959 pattern. I love the full dresses of the 50s done in a tropical fabric especially the designs of  Alfred Shaheen This fabric is very similar to the one in the picture of the swim suit on his web page.

And the McCall's 5235 pattern from 1959:

This is a dress I'm still working on, six months later - I had put it aside - got busy on other things - lost focus -
Borrowed my daughter's sewing machine, because it has a great buttonhole attachment and makes super clean buttonholes (my Bernina is old and requires great skill, or a lot of practice, to make the buttonholes look pretty - no time - no focus - to busy -) So, I borrowed my daughter machine, no instructions, Okay so I figured out how to wind the bobbin, thread the machine and use the button hole attachment, for the last part I downloaded some free instructions, yeah! Everything worked like a peach until I started to sew onto the dress. the machine clogged up and now the upper thread will not catch the bobbin thread, I think I messed up the timing, if a machine has such a thing. And I can't take the darn thing apart to take a look at the insides. Fail!

Enough of that on to the dress, unfinished....

Also loved the tropical print fabric and all those buttons down the front. The trim is a purple linen that picks up some of the purple in the print, the buttons are covered in the purple linen. It took me  awhile to locate the exact match in color of the trim to the print, I searched high and low and finally found it. The pattern is Butterick 6548 from the 50s. The instructions have you hand stitching the buttonholes, like that is ever going to happen, it has been many years since I hand stitched buttonholes. I guess that is why I was so thrilled with the automatic button holer. Hey, I don't use a washboard anymore either, I have an electric washing machine and a dryer too! Indoor plumbing, hot and cold running water....

Now these skirts presented a problem all their own, unprinted pattern pieces! It did take me a while to figure out what the instructions meant when stating on how to attach the front pocket  area. I had wanted to make the jacket also, but those pattern pieces were missing.

The skirt above is an Indian print tapestry ikat cotton fabric with vintage silver glass buttons.

 I layered the buttons on the skirt above. I used a purple bottom button with a green button on that topped by a copper bead, makes for a great button. Once a gain I searched high and low for the right colored button and alas could not find one, even in my vast collection of buttons. so, I did what any self-respecting crafter or auto mechanic would and created my own, loved the look!

The skirt is from Modes Royal 1077 and would lovely in a tweed.

 I am very happy that they have made sewing patterns so much easier to follow and construct, my favorite patterns to sew are Simplicity, I think the name says it all.

If you know of blogs that blog about reproduction vintage clothing, using patterns or clothing I would love to have a link to them, please share, thanks!