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1960s

Simplicity 2154 For a Mini-Capsule Wardrobe

By Akram Taghavi-Burris on July 13, 2018

Review on Simplicity 2154 a vintage reproduction 1960's suit and how I managed to make the perfect spring, mini-capsule wardrobe with it.

On my make nine this year I decided to add a few vintage patterns one of which was Simplicity 2154.

I had mad this pattern years ago but didn’t feel like I had the fit right and I never got around to making the bow blouse.

Anyways, I decided that this year I would give it another go.

A Spring Look

I whipped up Simplicity 2154 at the end of April and choose to use spring colors to make the set. I was really inspired by the floral jersey I had in my stash. This fabric almost looks like upholstery fabric but it’s really soft and I thought the floral colors were perfect for spring.

I chose a coordinating solid for the blouse and the skirt. Starting with the skirt I went with a medium tan polyester fabric that had a bit of stretch to it.

The pretty bow blouse, which I was most excited to make, I used a pink cotton lawn fabric. The fabric has little white lines on it but they can only be seen up close. The lines give the pink a softer baby pink look.

Construction

While this project was pretty stright forward I did make a few changes to the overall construction.

First I found way too much room in the skirt so I ended up forgoing the side zip and added a back elastic waistband.

The Internet was filled with reviews on the bow blouse and how many found that the side zip was unnecessary. I decided to listen to the reviews and leave out the zip as well. Turns out it didn’t really need it and works perfectly as a pullover top.

The Mini-Wardrobe

In the title of this post, I mentioned a mini-wardrobe, which is exactly what I made using Simplicity 2154 as the base. As it turned out I had some leftover floral jersey from the cardigan and quite a bit of the pink cotton from the top. Using this leftover fabric I made a few more pieces that I could mix and match with the individual pieces of Simplicity 2154.

For full details about making this dress and the coordinating pieces be sure to see my full blog post at http://akramsideas.com/spring-simplicity-2154/

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Autumn Leaf Gable Top

By Akram Taghavi-Burris on November 12, 2016

A while back I made the Gable top by Jennifer Lauren Handmade and fell in love. Immediately after making the top I knew I wanted to make a second one, but had to find the right fabric.

Luckily for me, I came across a great autumn leaf print stretch fabric I had in my stash. Not only was it theme appropriate for the season, the colors were all jeweled tones.

While it may be a modern pattern, it has a great 1950’s feel to it with the slash neckline.

As with the first top, I’m in love with this one as well. I love the colors and how soft the fabric is.

This is definitely not the last Gabel top I plan to make, it’s just such an easy and lovely pattern to make.

To read more about my process for making my latest Gable top check out my blog Akram’s Ideas (http://akramsideas.com/latest-gable-top-in-autumn-leaf-turquoise-print/)

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1950s | Blouses | Shirts

Jennifer Lauren Handmade Gable Top

By Akram Taghavi-Burris on August 23, 2016

I recently had the opportunity to review the Gable Top from Jennifer Lauren Handmade.

If you are looking for a pattern to kick off your autumn sewing, this may be it!

I love everything about this shirt, from it’s ease to put together to the overall look.

The classic slash neckline, the sleeve variations , it’s just perfect.

I’ve also been wanting to add a striped knit shirt to my wardrobe for a long time. This seemed like a good pattern for doing just that. Plus, I’m so happy that I managed to line up all the stripes, even the sleeves match up.

Autumn maybe still a week or two out, but I’m already planning like a dozen more of these shirts.

The Gable Top is great example of a modern pattern with a lot of classic 1950’s flare.

To read more about my process for making this shirt check out my blog Akram’s Ideas (http://akramsideas.com/gable-top-jennifer-lauren-handmade/)

2 Comments

1960s | Dresses | Pattern Drafting | Pattern Sizing | Vintage Sewing

Purple 1960’s dress

By Claire on February 11, 2014

Hi, I actually made this dress last December and it was my ‘Christmas dress’. It’s made from a pattern I bought off ebay and the dark purple jersey fabric was bought to make this dress.

This is the pattern. I made view C but with sleeves from view A. I did lower the neck a little as it was quite high and I also had to draft a back bodice as it was missing! I used the back facing and the front bodice and a bodice piece from another pattern to help me draft it.

I needed to make the bottom half of the dress wider to accommodate my big bum 😉 (English pear) My waist and hips are always 2 dress sizes larger than my bust.

I decided to make the skirt a bit A line so I could take out the split at the back. This was simple – I just took the hem out about 2″ at each side and drew a line up to the hip on the pattern.

Don’t you think the girl in the centre has fab hair? If only mine would do that!….

I am in love with invisible zips and have used one on this dress too. I don’t have a ‘proper’ invisible zip foot so I just use my normal zipper foot and my finger nail to hold the zip in the right position while I sew it.

The rouleau strip really finished this dress and was great at hiding the tiny miss match with my zip and under bust seam. So now no one knows it’s there – except you!

I decided against lining this dress but do like to have some sort of lining or slip because isn’t it awful when skirts stick to your tights?! I thought it would be quite groovy to keep the vintage vibe going and make a full length slip. I can also wear it with other things too. This is what I made out of black silk which was not easy to sew on my machine….errrr! Tension issues I think and I hate fiddling with the tension on my machine because it doesn’t seem to like it. I worked French seams and hand finished a lot of this slip. It has a placket on the left side seam with poppers.

I drafted the pattern from an Enid Gilchrist book. I love these books!

I hope you like my dress and underslip. Thank you for reading.

8 Comments

1940s

Finished Vogue 8728

By AStitchingOdyssey on September 14, 2012

I finished this dress back in June, using reproduction vintage Vogue 8728, but fell out of love with it for a couple of reasons. However, I’ve decided to embrace it for the comfortable day dress that it is and I’m so glad I did, because it tends to get a lot of compliments!

The pattern is easy enough to follow and the construction is pretty simple, especially is you use jersey and omit the zip. I love omitting zips! However, I did find that it has A LOT of ease…does anyone else agree? This could be because I used jersey instead of a woven fabric, but nonetheless, I had to cut out the smallest size on top and then take in even more ease. I know my shoulders are narrow and my waist is small, but I’m not smaller than a size 8 for crying out loud!?! So anyway, there was some tweaking as I went along with this one, but tweaking jersey is never too taxing and is quite forgiving in my opinion.

If you’d like to read / see more please do visit me at A Sewing Odyssey!

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