Going back in time

Today's post is about a pattern I'm very fond of, partly for the style and partly because this is the pattern I used to make my first ever item of clothing, about 5/6 years ago.  It's Style 1241, a 6 gored maxi skirt.  I originally made it with zero sewing knowledge so as you can imagine there were a lot of flaws.  The pattern, while detailed, does assume quite a bit of pre-existing sewing knowledge and I remember spending significant amounts of time on the phone to my mother asking what various things meant.  However, I loved it and wore it until it actually fell apart.  The original skirt was in colours very similar to these and when I spotted this stretch cotton on Goldhawk road I had to have it.

This pattern eats fabric, I used about 3.5m, although the fabric was fairly narrow.  However, I think it's worth it as I love gored skirts, they're so flattering.  I didn't make any adjustments when sewing it up except that the waist band piece is damaged and clearly at some point has had a chunk removed from the middle so I had to create a new waistband piece.  As I still had part of it, I was given the width of the piece an simply had to measure the skirt pieces and add a few cm for the overlap, not exactly rocket science.  I remember the waistband being an issue on my first version clearly this is why and my understanding of how to fix it was sketchy back in the day.  This time, I got it nailed first time!  It's amazing what a difference practice makes!

I may wear this skirt pretty much every day for the rest of the summer now.  Anyone following my me-made-may photos, prepare to be very bored!  Also at this rate there is a danger of my entire wardrobe becoming 1970s themed.

My lovely sister took these photos for me in my local park, thanks Nini. I love this park and the band stand. I saw a couple getting married there last summer and it was so pretty, like the perfect place (on a sunny day) to get married and to take blog photos.

It has just occurred to me that we are now not even at the end of May and I have almost achieved my vintage pattern pledge.  This makes me happy as I love my vintage patterns and being able to fit vintage makes into my wardrobe.  I'm sure I'll properly outstrip my pledge this year as I currently have plans for several more makes and they're not all from 70s patterns either!  How're you getting on with yours?

I don't need a time machine, I'm recreating the 70s right here

I really have caught the 70s bug and despite, in my last 70s dress post, criticising original 70s garments for being made of synthetics I've now gone fabric authentic and created my own polyester 70s number.

That being said my polyester fabrics feel lovely. The black one is a yummy ponte from girl charlee and the tartan was donation from a friend of my mums. I've had the vision of a princess seamed dress using this tartan ever since I received it. I was tempted to buy the By hand London Sabrina dress after seeing this gorgeous version by Ooobop but in the end decided to use a pattern from my stash.

The pattern is Style 4588 which I used once before here. I made a few modifications; I added the same amount of length as last time, this pattern is really meant to be a tennis dress and apparently if you were playing tennis in the 1970s it was acceptable to flash your (matching) knickers! I didn't fancy the flutter sleeves which came with the pattern so used the sleeve pieces that came with a different vintage pattern in my stash, with a bit of rough and ready adjustment to for a slightly different sleeve head. I figured the ponte was going to be quite forgiving and it turns out I was right.  I didn't think the flutter sleeves would work with the slightly rock chick fabric combo. Although I'm not convinced that the puff sleeves work with that vibe either but this would probably bother me more if more rock chick credentials had ever been greater than zero!

 The first time I went out to get photos of this dress, it was so windy that the skirt blew around constantly and this was the best photo that we could get.  Instead we went to look at books on a barge with a band on top.  Add a coffee and that's a winning day out in my book.

What's your favourite style decade?  While I love styles from many different decades, the 70s are clearly winning in my wardrobe at the moment.

Maxing out the 70s vibes

Hi All.  I'm on a bit of a 70s roll at the moment, it's one of my preferred decades for style, although I'm not a fan of the browns and oranges and synthetic fabrics that original 70s clothes were often made from.  So while I tend not to buy 70s clothes when I find them in charity/vintage shops, I have a lot 70s patterns and I'm currently working my way through them.

I've had this pattern on my to-make list for a while. The collar and the unusual V shaped side panels appealed to me. When I was thinking about doing some holiday sewing, I realised that I had the perfect fabric for it in my stash; a slightly psychedelic, rose print viscose that my mother had bought for me in Paris a few years ago.  I hadn't managed to find a use for it yet as the print is very bold and the fabric was super slinky I thought would be difficult to use.

Great combo, no?

As ever, I didn't make a muslin and I was scared of the dress being too small, so I added 1.5cm all over to pattern pieces.  While this was necessary at the hips, and in fact I could do with a touch more ease across the hips when I'm sitting down, the finished dress is a bit too big in the bodice.  It's still very wearable and the extra room made it nice and cool in the holiday sunshine but it's something for me to note for my next version.

In this photo you can just about see my 'tan' on my arms, of which I am inordinately happy with, but I still look stupidly pale beside your average person.  Damn you, pale Irish skin!

With the exception of the collar, the dress was a straightforward make.  Even the side panels, which I thought would be a nightmare, went in easily.  However, getting that collar in was a nightmare, I must have ripped it out at least three times.  It's still very far from perfect but at least the gap at the bottom looks (semi) deliberate now.  There were no instructions to interface the collar but I did as the fabric was super drapey and would have just flopped over without it.  Like a lot of vintage patterns this one provided no instructions about how to insert a zip, nor which kind of zip to use and in fact in this pattern the part where they tell you to put it in is so brief, you'd blink and miss it!  I used an invisible zipper, which gives a nice clean finish.

While the fabric didn't really pose many problems when I was sewing it together, however, it creases like crazy, as evidenced by this back shot.

You can just about see the side panel detail in this shot.  I think these side panels would look great in a contrasting fabric to make a feature of them and I have some plans brewing for another version of this dress with contrasting panels.

There were arm facings included in the pattern but firstly I'm not a fan of arm facings as I feel like they flick out too easily and secondly I didn't have enough of the fabric to cut them so I decided to make some bias binding from some orange cotton that I had in my stash.  It happened to match the orange roses on fabric perfectly which I found pleasing.  My binding could have done with being stretched a little more round the arm hole, although it sits flatter against my skin than it does against Rosie the mannequin!

This was a really lovely dress for floating around in the sun and the viscose felt lovely and cool against the skin.  I now really want to wear it again and I would love the UK weather to oblige (anyone bored of listening to me whinge about how miserable the weather is yet?)  There has been some distinctly spring like weather this week so you never know, I might get a chance to wear it again soon.

This is another make towards my vintage pattern pledge.  I'm doing pretty well towards my goal already, although, at this rate, there's a distinct chance that all my makes will be from the 70s!  I must see if I can use some of my patterns from other decades, I'm feeling very inspired by all the other makes on the Pinterest board.  How are you getting on with your vintage pattern pledges?