For Julia’s third Mad Men challenge, and my first, I tried my first ever knit dress. I was after a look inspired by Joan. Joan wears many gorgeous figure hugging frocks and often some amazing long necklaces to complement her look.
I used Simplicity 1653 which is a mock-wrap style with wool modal knit. It was a steep learning curve sewing knit for the first time. I have more info over on my blog. Thanks for reading and happy sewing.
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The fabulous Bobbie Barret was the inspiration for my entry into Julia Bobbin’s Mad Men Dress Challenge 3. I chose Butterick 9497, with this lovely purple fabric from an op shop. I decided to make a hat to accessorise, as ‘business’ Bobbie is rarely seen without a perfectly styled hat, fortunately I had the body of a hat I had played around with just waiting to be embellished.
I have had some fun in this dress already, my daughter and I dressed up to watch Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face at a lovely old cinema on the weekend. By special request I had to whip up a dress for her in matching fabric, she also embellished her own hat, the base of which I had at hand. Here we are, it was VERY exciting.
This is the original pattern – I have many more photos over on my blog – this dress really was ‘quick and easy’ and I love it more than I thought, I do plan to make the full skirted version, perhaps for spring.
It has been ages since I have posted here, but I have been doing a lot of vintage sewing! Many separates, that get worn daily – including finishing off other people’s sewing projects, like this lovely gabardine skirt, which came to me through a friend, in a suitcase with fabrics and patterns, mostly 1970s.
I also have accepted a really exciting project, through some very talented women who have set themselves up to run workshops in millinery, corset making and vintage sewing (cool!). I was invited to document and blog a vintage sewing project with their vintage specialist – who in completing her MA designed and made a range of luxurious woollen coats using vintage techniques and based on coat designs from the 40s to the 60s. A couple of her coats are inspired by none other than Balenciaga, I had the pleasure of trying them on when we met on the weekend.
The collaboration was an opportunity for me to find a project that I would find challenging, one using techniques or skills that are new to me. So I brought a selection of patterns and fabrics, we talked and dreamed up several exciting projects, we had to chose one, and this is what we will create. The fabric and pattern are both 1950s, the pattern is unused and the fabric was a gift from a dear friend. I have many more photos on my blog including the projects that didn’t make it – this time. I was excited as I have a few (ahem, well perhaps more than a ‘few’) vintage fabrics that I hesitate to cut into, so it is good to go into a project with someone who has more experience – we both want to do justice to the lovely fabric and the gorgeous pattern. So, watch this space!
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For my entry in Julia’s challenge I decided to channel a bit of Joan. The pattern is Burda 7178 which I think is quite authentic to the period. I love the huge collar and pretty pleased overall, though the skirt could be tighter (or my curves bigger). For more details please visit my blog at http://magscreativemeanderings.blogspot.co.uk
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This blouse turned out even better than I anticipated. It’s a great pattern paying homage to 1942. My inspiration came from an Advance Pattern swatch book. Please check out my blog for more details.
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This is my version of a vintage vogue pattern.
It’s Vogue 8789 which I modified slightly by replacing the skirt with a circle skirt. I also used a few ‘vintage’ techniques such as turned and stitched seams and a hand-picked zip. I have more photos and details of the fabric and construction on my blog barbarajanemade.wordpress.com
Thanks for reading and happy stitching
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I got this pattern from eBay and I can’t wait to try it out. I’ll need to downsize it slightly but I’m still deciding on colours and fabrics…it may take a while!
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I have recently been cleaning out some of my hoard of sewing patterns and books and thought you all might enjoy a few “fashion plates”.
Above is the fashion plate for Peterson’s February 1879. It is the whole reason I started collecting Victorian fashion magazines. I completely fell in love with the black ensemble second from the right.
I love the green and pink in this fashion plate. Fashion plates are all hand colored, so they the colors can sometimes vary depending on the lady who painted them.
For more visit my blog EleanorMeriwether.blogspot.com
xoxo
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Sewing has slowed down to a trickle for me in the aftermath of the Tree Gown (I didn’t touch my sewing machine for a whole week after the ball! lol) so I thought I’d do a post on my blog about a project for my wardrobe that I’ve been pursuing gradually for a few years featuring past makes. It also seems especially appropriate for this (polar vortex – oooooOOOOoooo) year. That is, dressing for “spring” when it starts on the calendar in a climate where it doesn’t feel like it for another couple months: “Canadian” spring. Basically, what this involves is making winter-weight clothes in spring colours; for me, this primarily means wool fabrics. I’m sharing here because several of the pieces in my “Canadian Spring” wardrobe are made with vintage fabrics and/or vintage patterns.
For example:
This skirt is a piece of vintage wool I found at a thrift store. I used this 70s pattern to make it:
And this one (also fabric from Goodwill/Value Village):
This wool satin dress is based off a 1950s pattern that I’ve altered a lot over time:
The fabric for this green wool blend dress isn’t vintage (it’s from Fabricland a couple of years ago)…
but is made from another cute 70s pattern:
All of these pieces are warm enough to wear when there’s still snow all over the place, but help to perk me up when I’ve gotten really tired of winter by March 1.
More pics and info over on my blog
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After all of the indecision over the buttons, I settled for some plain black ones! So here’s a photo of the dress finished and the nice little godet on the back. I would have used a plain black fabric but I didn’t have enough leftovers so houndstooth it is 
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