A vintage outfit!

A couple of months ago the lovely ladies at SewCrafty asked if I'd do a hack of their shift dress pattern and sent me some gorgeous materials to do it with. However my version did not work at all so I threw it in the corner and sulked for a while.

And then I came to my senses and realised that I wanted to do something with the altitude bird cotton that SewCrafty had sent me so I decided to refashion it into something that I would actually wear. Enter this vintage summer blouse pattern from 1982 (apparently this is the year that I sew the 1980s!).  I hummed and ha-d over what size to make and luckily I had decided on the size 12 because when I got it out of the packet this size had already been cut out. I'm not sure where I bought this pattern from, I'm going to guess it was part of a job lot on eBay but I guess I'm lucky that my size remained in tact.

I'm not really a fan of ruffles but they've been popping up everywhere this summer and I thought the ruffled version of this looked cute without being too OTT so I gave it a go. Although I used some little flower buttons from my stash so I wasn't exactly trying to move too far away from the 'cute' factor!  The ruffles were made from some scraps of a cotton linen blend that I had in my stash.

I want so many versions of this top! I've been searching for a good shirt/top pattern for ages and this might be the one! Although I wish it had a sleeved version as in it's current form, it's only good for summer. However hopefully we've got months of summer left so I can enjoy this for a while.

The shirt was worn on holiday with a new pair of Megan Neilsen Flint shorts.  I seem to have become a little bit obsessed by this pattern.  Personally I think this is a super cute look and is also giving off more 1930s vibes. I made the shorts from a scrap of denim that I had in my stash, that I think my mum donated at one point, and some scraps of stretch cotton.  I also used 2 vintage buttons also from my stash. Basically, these were a great stashbuster!

I used red topstitching on the denim and navy topstitching on the waistband and for the button holes. I have done a lot of topstitching recently and I think it adds a really nice detail but maybe it's time to give it a rest now!  I'm actually wearing these shorts as I type, since the weather in the UK has decided that it's properly summer.  I hope you all have a lovely weekend in the sunshine!

Seriously, how are the 80s vintage?

Have you all been enjoying #vpjuly on Instagram? I've loved seeing everyone's makes and vintage inspiration.  Today I have another make towards my vintage pattern pledge, however, it's a bit different from my usual style. As a child of the 80s, looking at childhood photos means exposure to a lot of bad clothes and even worse hair styles.  So 1980s patterns have never appealed to me much.  Nor is the idea of thinking of myself as Vintage!  Although I may just have to get over this.  

A month or two back, I was on a weekend away in Bristol and spotted this pattern in a charity shop.  Despite being from the 80s, it actually appealed to me, reminding me slightly of the True Bias Southport dress which I have been considering trying for a while as I wanted an easy to pull on casual summer dress.  As the loose fitting, elasticated waist dress is not usually a style that I go for, I appreciated giving it a go with a pattern that only cost me 50p.

I went rooting around in my stash for a suitable fabric and found bits of a lovely chambray which I think may have come from my Grandma's stash and some scraps of a red and white striped shirt.  I thought these would work as a perfect, semi nautical combo.  I made some adjustments to the pattern for a number of reasons.  The skirt is slightly narrower than the pattern pieces as I didn't have enough fabric to cut the full width, I still think it's plenty full enough.  The pattern calls for piping round the neck and arm but I just used binding as I thought piping at the neck and arms would be a bit weird. I did make piping for the pockets though, gotta love a bit of piping.  The tiny amounts of the red and white fabric that I was working with meant that many of the bindings and the belt are pieced together.

I kinda ignored the instructions and made it up as I went along so I can't really comment on what they are like.  They did call for a 1/4" elastic at the waist but I used 1" elastic as I wanted the waist to be more emphasised.  Since this isn't a fitted style, I only had to make one fit adjustment, which was to take it in under the arms by a good 6cm.

Hmm I must stand up straighter!

While it was lovely to work with and feels lovely to wear, this fabric creases like crazy.  I ironed this about a million times but its still so creased.  I guess that's part of the style.  I've never worked with chambray before so I have no idea if this is normal or not.

Overall this is a cute, wearable casual summer dress but don't love it, I guess I still need some work to be converted to the 80s, although thinking about it, one of my favourite makes from last year was this 80s top so maybe there is hope for me after all.  Oh well, I've already planned my next vintage make and it's another 70s one so hopefully my favourite vintage pattern decade won't let me down.