༺ Stitching Stories: Cherry Bloom ༻

How quickly the spring brings blossoms to bud! All the trees are bursting with glorious colour, although our fickle Canberra weather likes to remind us every other day that winter is not quite ready to say goodbye just yet ~ we are still enjoying occasional days of glorious sun. I am also particularly enjoying the posies of dainty flowers peeping their shy heads up all over the place. They are welcoming the warmth of the sun, and so are we!  (✿◡‿◡)੭✧*｡

It was fitting that the first weekend of September was a busy one of celebrations ~ I decided to sew up a celebrating~spring~and~blossoming~things skirt, and wear it to the parties we were attending, two in one afternoon. Whew!

I went with Butterick 5926, a vintage pattern I hadn’t sewn up before. I’m not actually sure what drew me to pick this pattern, but I think it was the slender,  late1940’s look about about, and the patch pockets! {I found out later that it was from 1951 ~ so not actually 40s, but close enough for me. (⁎❛ᴗ❛⁎)} This is my second make for the Vintage Pattern Pledge 2016, and I’m so glad it went smoothly.

~ See? The best ~ patch pockets!! Also, isn’t the blouse perfectly dreamy? The pattern for that wasn’t included, but I sure wish it was! ~ 

I was actually a little surprised that the skirt went together so easily, but it was a total relief to me as you might remember that my last Butterick make was an absolute disaster{I wanted to burn that dress for those that don’t know}!

I added extra inches to the pattern pieces when cutting it out, as my pattern was a touch too small. It was a lazy hack, and not very scientific to eyeball it like that, but it worked out beautifully. It’s a simple make, but one that made me so happy when I put it on that I think it’s become an instant favourite. My inner little girl gave a squee and a spin when I felt it fluttering delicately about. I just love that feeling, and bias cuts do it so well! 

Then I got to give the skirt a perfect first outing, as we had a picnic lunch and after that, a birthday dance to attend. Let me tell you, it’s a lovely dancing skirt. We danced some fantastic historical dances {my favourite ~ along with Scottish and bush dances!} and it spun and twirled just like you want.

I kind of had this vision of pairing it with a white peasant blouse and large straw hat, only to find on the day that I didn’t really have the right white top to go with it. But this peach one worked perfectly, so I decided that would do. I’m glad it did go so well, as I feel the different tone adds an interesting dimension to the ensemble. Plus, I get to save the white top idea for another day, so you know… ✧٩(•́⌄ - ́๑)

~ Project Details ~

• Year: 1951  
• Pattern: Vintage Butterick 5926 {there has since been a different release with this same number for a jacket pattern}
• Fabric: 2 and a half-ish meters of thrifted poly-cotton sheet.
• Notions: One pastel pink pearlescent button, and a pink zip 
• Time to complete: Two days-ish. I cut my fabric on Thursday afternoon, sewed it up Friday afternoon, Saturday afternoon & evening, and finished handpicking the hem Sunday morning.  
• Make again? I definitely think so ~ this skirt is cut on the bias, and I really love how it moves. It’s not the fullest skirt ever, which means it’s economical on fabric, but the cut is fluttery enough to make my wanna-be princess self super happy. Plus, giant pockets forever.  ❤︎꒰ ॢꈍ◡ꈍ ॢ *꒱.*˚‧
• Wear again? For sure! I’m super sad that I managed to mark it on it’s first outing so it’s going in the wash asap, and I can’t wait to try out variations of looks with it.
• Total Cost:  All from the stash, so totally free right?? Haha, no ~ ‘coz I paid for most of the stash items at some point! I think the sheet set would have been about $10.00 and the zipper $2.50. Considering I still have over half of the sheet fabric left, we will say maybe $5.50 in total?

xox,

bonita

༺ ♡ ༻

1950s Pleated Halo Hat | Ooh La La!
Pink Peony Hair Flower | Dollar Shop
Deeply Pink Vintage Brooch & Earring Set | Gift from my sweet friend, A Wild Tea Party 
80s-does-40s Peach Hearts Blouse | The Braided Bandit
Blush Pink Vintage Gloves | eBay
Spring Celebration Skirt | Me Made, 2016
Blossom Jelly Wedge Sandals | eBay

༺ ♡ ༻

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༺ Stitching Stories: Looking for Land Girls ༻

Yay!! I made pants! I actually did it!! 

Last year I participated in the Vintage Pattern Pledge and managed to get all my makes completed by the skin of my teeth. And while I’ve been super slow starting with my sewing this year, I did sign up to do it all again.

I, Bonita Vear of Lavender & Twill, pledge to sew at least five vintage or vintage reproduction patterns in 2016 ~ these must include one pair of pants! I also pledge to finish one knitted garment from a vintage or vintage reproduction pattern.

This time, I was also invited to share my make as part of the Vintage Pattern Pledge roundup on Kestrel Makes {and you can check out my guest post interview over here}. It’s taken me a whole six months to get cracking, I think I’ve been dragging my heels after all the sewing disasters I had faced last year. But I finally sat down at my machine and I’m really happy that the first pattern I sewed up this year was my first pair of long anticipated trousers!

I’ve seen Simplicity’s Retro re-release of a 1940’s four-piece suit pattern floating around on sewing blogs/vintage blogs for a good several years now. It’s a great pattern, everyone seems to like sewing it up. Every time I saw the pants I was like: “They look great! I should make those!…But pants are so hard… Eh, I’ll just sew a dress instead.”. This year, however, I put on my brave face, made my pledge to actually give it a go, and whadda you know… It wasn’t that scary at all! (•̀o•́)ง✧

Okay, so they are not exactly the most challenging kind of pants to sew {I’m looking at you jeans…} but any kind of pants have been on my “OhboyIcan’tsewthattooscary” list ever since I started sewing. So I didn’t have to face a fly, any sort of thigh/hip/butt/crotch adjustments ~ thank goodness! ~ or twin top stitching, but I’m taking baby steps towards it, and that’s enough for me at the moment.

The ease of construction and the loose, vintage style of these pants means that this pattern is a fantastic beginner’s introduction to sewing trousers. It went together really smoothly {I only had to unpick a couple of seams when I got the front and back pieces confused, but when I figured out that I’d sewn it front-front and back-back instead of front-back, front-back it was a very easy fix}, and there aren’t any difficult techniques you need to know to make them up.

I did switch out the standard waistband interfacing for Grosgrain ribbon to create the waistband. I like using this couture technique for building the waistband because I feel like the finished result is far more sturdier, actually stands up better instead of folding over or creasing down {like a lot of my skirt waistbands used to do before I started doing this}, and doesn’t stretch out of shape. Plus, I think it makes button holes easier as well! But on that note, yes, my button tab is too long… Whoops!

I also added a pocket into the side seam opposite the zipper, because who likes pants without pockets?? I mean, really…. But I do that with all my skirts and dresses too. I find if it doesn’t have pockets, I’m much less likely to wear it!

I handpicked the zipper and the hem for the pants ~ and while I adore hemming by hand, zippers still elude me when it comes to a perfectly neat finish, so I think I need to keep practising my zipper insertion for sure.

I am so happy with the finished trousers though; I can’t even say. This winter I’ve really been into swing pants ~ I kind of feel like they are the vintage girl’s version of trakkie-daks…. Or pyjamas… Have I mentioned that these things are darn comfortable? (~￣▽￣)~

I’m definitely leaning towards 1940’s land girl inspiration for styling options rather than glamourous Hollywood slacks ~ those ladies had to work hard, and had to have outfits that were not only durable, but also easy to move in. These pants definitely fit that bill, and are a wardrobe staple for me right now. I’m just wondering how many more pairs I should make! I definitely need a navy pair in twill or gabardine, and possibly a pair in chocolate Ponte knit??!

Or maybe I should try my hand at a pair of jeans? If anyone has any recommendations for an easy 1940’s -1950’s vintage or vintage reproduction pattern for jeans; I’m all ears! ( ^ _ ^)∠☆

~ Project Details ~

• Year: Retro re-release of a Simplicity 1940’s suit pattern  
• Pattern: Simplicity 3688
• Fabric: Unknown length of undetermined stretch hounds tooth knit fabric. This fabric came from my Grandmother’s stash. It was passed on from her to my Mom, and then to me before it was finally made up!  
• Notions: Two buttons, Grosgrain ribbon for the waistband, and one metal zipper 
• Time to complete: Two weeks
• Make again? Yes. No doubt. I’m already trying to figure out which fabric I should use next…
• Wear again? Considering that I’ve worn them every day since I finished them up, and I’m wearing them right now as I write this post ~ I’d say so! Haha!!
• Total Cost:  $2.60 for the zipper, the fabric was from the stash, as were the buttons. Not bad, but then I have to count $16.50 for repurchasing the pattern after Miss Three decided to jump on the lounge chair where I had put the pattern tissue and tore it to shreds... So, $19.10 in total.

xox,

bonita

༺ ♡ ༻

DIY Vintage Hair Tie | Me Made, 2015
Cherry Pointe Knit Top {old} | Collectif
Land Girl Slacks | Me Made, 2016
Tan Prairie Style Boots {old} | Cotton On

༺ ♡ ༻

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༺ Roundup: The Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge 2015 ༻

I’m going to keep this quick as you probably have seen the rather exhustive Stitching Stories posts that I have already done on these items. 

For my records, however, here is the complete list of my Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge items that I made in 2015.

If you recall from my first post about the Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge, this was my goal:

“I, Bonita Vear of Lavender & Twill, pledge to sew at least five vintage or vintage reproduction patterns in 2015 ~ these MUST be patterns that I haven’t used before from my stash!”

And here are the items:

♡ Stitching Stories: Going Dotty for Spotty Cotton

 

♡ Stitching Stories: A 'Round the House Wrap Dress

♡ Stitching Stories: Adventures in Baby Cord

♡ Stitching Stories: Burning the Roses Red

♡ Stitching Stories: The 1940’s Peasant Christmas Blouse

༺ ♡ ༻

There you have it; my 2015 Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge completed.

If you have noticed a trend with these ~ haha! So have I! It is quite clear that I simply adore Simplicity patterns. It’s even more obvious when you look in my pattern stash. I kind of want to sew/collect all of them from the late 1930s to the end of the 1950s {though I have liked a 1960s Simplicity here and there too!}.  (⁎♥ ヮ♥⁎)∠❤

There is something about the style of Simplicity patterns that instantly wins me over ~ I feel like their designs are very “me” and I don’t think that I’ve met a Simplicity from those eras that I haven’t fallen for on the spot! 

Another trend I also noticed ~ barring the Wrap House Dress {which was Simplicity 2275} ~ is that it seems like every time I try to do a pattern from another company, like Advance or Butterick, the pattern goes horribly, terribly, wrong and I can’t resurect it.

Now, I don’t know if this is just down to bad pattern choice, or whether the patterns from Simplicity suit my body shape better, or maybe the Simplicity patterns make more sense to me construction-wise. I’m not too sure, but I do know that I love my Simplicity patterns and will continue to make them this coming year!

And hopefully I don’t run into too many snags if I do decide to make up a pattern from another pattern company! (≧ o ≦) 

xox,

bonita

༺ ♡ ༻

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༺ Stitching Stories: The 1940’s Peasant Christmas Blouse ༻

Thank goodness this blouse worked! That’s all I have to say! …

Haha! Joking! You should know by now that of course I have a ton more stuff to say.  : P

This is my last Vintage Pattern Pledge make of 2015 ~ Simplicity 2483, a 1948 peasant blouse ~ and I hit my goal of five different vintage or vintage reprinted patterns made up from my pattern stash. Yay!

I’m actually super relieved that this blouse turned out so nicely. Mostly because, once again, I ended up having little to no time to get this project done. Christmas was arriving with the speed of a bullet, and I had tons of events to go to, things to do, etc. And you know what else?

I had to grade a pattern for the first time. Yup. I went there…

With all the sewing disasters that have been dogging me through the last half of this year, I really don’t know what I was thinking except that I really wanted a peasant blouse for my Christmas outfit this year?? Simplicity 2483, Veiw 3 was perfect, except my pattern was for a 32 Bust.

….. Yes. Not going to fit. So I just, ya’know, graded it up using this tutorial I found on the interwebs.

I’m surprised it worked, but you know what else ~ I did end up sewing a toile for this. I was way too freaked out about the pattern grading, and the fact that to get my perfect fabric I had to pay $22.00 a metre! *faint!* (ô д ô) I think it was worth it, but you can bet your buttons that I wasn’t going to cut into that precious print without making sure I wasn’t going to stuff it up.

Good thing I did too, because some how I graded too much into the pattern, and with the FBA I also added, the toile was huge on me!

So I cut the back, the sleeves and the back yoke using the original pattern pieces. Thank you Charlotte for eating my traced pattern pieces.

Then I cut the front and the front yoke with my newly adjusted pattern pieces from which I’d removed all the grading, but left the FBA.

Still with me?

Because the pattern is actually too small for me, the cutting the back from the original pattern turned out to ~ surprise, surprise, make the back too small. Um. Yeah. Whoops.

I decided that, instead of folding over the back panels in the centre to get the interfacing for the button bands, I would sew an extra strip of fabric to each side of the back opening, fold them over, top stitch them down so that they wouldn’t peak out at all and give myself the room I needed for the buttons and the button holes that way.

It worked!

Up to the point when I realised that now the yoke was also too small for the back of the blouse. With the button band modification, the yoke was too short and didn’t reach the edges of the blouse any more, so I had to taper it down to meet the top edge of the blouse, rather than being the full height with an extra button on it as it was supposed to be. You can see the gap in the photo below, where the lace ends, the yoke ends. I think it still looks okay though! It now has a pretty scoop along the back neckline which I like. Alls well that ends well.
₍₍ ◟(• ε •๑)◞ ₎₎ ₎₎

*whew*

Sometimes I wonder why I can’t sew through a pattern just the way it’s supposed to go, but then I realise that it’s mostly my fault for not thinking every step through clearly and realising the implications of what I am doing until it is too late to fix it!   (￣。￣;)

I really liked sewing this pattern though. For the most part, everything went together really smoothly. The blouse is pieced in a way that makes sense {yay!} and allows for a fairly straight forward construction process. I left off the ruffle, but decided to go with some cream lace trim instead, which I think was the right addition to break up the busy pattern and add a touch of interest to the yoke detail.

Also; top stitching!!

I had so much fun top stitching this blouse. I know that sounds absolutely ridiculous, but I discovered a new-to-me trick that experienced sewers probably already know ~ and it’s awesome!  Seriously, it really changed my top stitching method.

I used to try to top stitch with my machine on the slowest setting and be as smooth as I could. This is still a good idea, but at time I had a thought ~ what if I was to set my needle over to the right so that the line of top stitching was at the very edge of my material?

GAME CHANGER!! ✧*｡٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و✧*｡

I don’t know if you can see from that close up of the back ~ but my top stitching came out nearly perfect. Not because I did anything great, just because I moved that needle over! When I did that, the fabric fits neatly along the edge of my presser foot, the stitching is right at the edge of the fabric, and that helps it all to feed through accurately. The top stitching came out so neat and tidy all over my blouse, that now I want to top stitch all the things because it. looks. that. good.

And makes me feel totally profesh. Which I am not. But I feel it. And that feels super cool. I can’t say it too many times: Peoples! Move that needle over when you top stitch!

~ Project Details ~

• Year: 1948
• Pattern: Simplicity 2483
• Fabric: 2 meters of quilting cotton
• Notions: 6 red bow buttons 
• Time to complete: One and a half days
• Make again? Yessss!! I love peasant blouses, and I want them in all the colours. This pattern turned out so nicely I guess I’ll just have to make it in all the colours!
• Wear again? Yup! Well, once December rolls around again. Gold printed holly is pretty much relegated to Christmas time only wear. But I will wear the heck out of it come the Christmas holidays!
• Total Cost:  $54.00 I think? I lost the reciept… Ouch though for a Christmas blouse!! I mean, I love the fabric, but the price per meter is not for the faint of heart. And no, I didn’t total that up when I was buying the components. I tend to see what I want, buy it, and count the cost later. I need to work on that…

So what’s the final verdict ~ novelty Christmas prints for the win, or save it for the table cloths and tree skirts??  (*≧▽≦)

xox,

bonita

༺ ♡ ༻

Holly Bow Fascinator Come Whimsy | Me Made, 2015
Deck the Halls Brooch | Erstwilder {sold out}
Gold Holly Peasant Blouse | Me Made, 2015
The Red Christmas Skirt | Sammy Dress
Hoop Petticoat | eBay
Vintage Ruched Gloves | eBay
Snowy Lattice Knee-Hi | Old
Santa Cruz Beach Heel | Modcloth, Old

༺ ♡ ༻

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༺ Stitching Stories: Burning the Roses Red ༻

 
You guys… I wanted to burn this dress sooo badly….

The only reason I kept pushing on with it is that I didn’t have anything to wear to the Aussie Vintage Girls Meetup, and you know ~ that would have been a disaster….

A disaster I tell you! Oh wait… First world vintage girl problems again.

Okay, okay, not so much a big deal, except when it was.

 
I was using this lovely pattern, and rated at “Easy” I felt sure I couldn’t go wrong! It was my fourth make for my Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge for the year {one, two, three}, and I was thinking it should be fairly simple.

Alas, if only I’d read the multiple reviews of this pattern online ~ I think this one explains it best ~ I probably would have changed my mind!! (ಠ_ಠ)

So I cut the pattern, did my do, and seriously, everything was going pretty well. I had a few of my usual frustrations in sewing the bodice to the skirt ~ why do I always get the bodice caught up in the waist seam? Why??  (╯°□°）╯彡 ┻━┻

But I was about 95% done on the dress when I decided I’d better try it on. *cue ominous spooky music*

So I slipped it on, and the world ended. *ahem 

My world ended.  (┛◉Д◉)┛彡┻━┻ 

The bodice was ALL kinds of wrong, with wrinkles going every which way, and compressing my bust so much that it looked like I had squished marshmallows instead, of ~ well, you know!

I literally freaked out, cried, ranted, raved, and promptly ate half a block of chocolate. Yes. Chocolate.  .·´¯`(>▂<)´¯`·.

Then I left it for the day. I was DONE. I was *THIS* close to burning the darn thing and turning up naked. Hahaha…

No, really….

The next morning I took a deep breath. I thought I knew what went wrong. I’d forgotten to do an FBA. Silly me just assumed that because I was doing a larger size to fit my bust that it would fit. Totally stu-pid! 

I’d forgotten that although this was previously a vintage pattern where technically cutting the larger size for the bust would probably have worked, this was a re-release of a vintage pattern, which means it has also been fiddled with to meet ‘today’s industry standards’ ~ i.e. a C cup bust. Nowhere near close to my size.  Phooey.  {Today’s industry standards are totally wack btw! I have less problems with vintage patterns than I do modern ones.}

So I went back, unpicked the lining {yes, the darn thing is lined and that was already in!}, unpicked the bodice, and half unpicked the zipper.  Then I cut the lining and bodice up ~ added bust darts from the side seams to the point of bust, added extra fabric under the bust in the gather point {which in hindsight I may not have needed. Oh well.}, cut another toile from the hack pattern, made that up, thought it might work, cut my fashion fabric again, cut my lining again, sewed up the fashion fabric, sewed it back onto the dress… Then it was bed time.  

The next day was Thursday and I had one day to get it done.  (″･ิ_･ิ)っ

I sewed the lining back together, then sewed it onto the fabric again, tried the dress on again, realised that the bottom half of the lining was messing up the bottom half of the the bodice by creating needless wrinkles underneath the fabric that showed through, hacked off the bottom half of the lining, overlocked the bottom of the lining to the midriff seam of the bodice, sewed the lining down to the fashion fabric on the bodice with some top stitching, struggled to make the armpits look nice where the lining and fashion fabric where sewn together, failed, hacked at the inside of the dress, sewed some more seams, finished the zipper, decide to sew the hem by machine instead of hand picking because of time, then sewed the hem seam three times around for a deliberate “decorative” look, ruched the front of the bodice to make a sweetheart neckline and pull in the neckline from standing out, then sewed on the pockets, each of them twice because of having to move them around when they didn’t go on correctly the first time. Gave up when one of them was still crooked because running out of the mint green thread I was using.    

Deeeeep breath. By this time it was around about seven o’clock in the evening. Then I tried the dress on again. Yay! More room at bust!  BOO!! TOO MUCH FABRIC BETWEEN BUST AND WAIST!!  (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻  *rage attack* ~ which quickly turned to:

PANIC!   ∑(゜Д゜;)

I quickly skyped my sister to ask for a second opinion and while we were tossing around a. wearing a belt {couldn’t find one that looked good}, or b. sewing up a cummerbund ~ I thought of option c. which was: sew the midriff seam again, pulling in the extra fold of fabric that was wrinkling under the bust. As you might be able to tell ~ this is what I ended up doing.

This had a three-fold effect of curving the midriff seam rather than it being a triangle point as in the illustration of the pattern, gathering in some of the excess fabric causing wrinkles, and lifting the waist to my natural waist because the dress waist was sitting about a centimetre below my real waist which didn’t look the best.

10:00pm that night, and I was finally finished.  (✖ ｡ ✖)° ° °

If you are wondering why top half of the bodice is still insanely wrinkled after all that extra work on it ~ well, I was too until I look more closely at the illustration. There are actually wrinkles in the top half of the bodices pictured there too. I think it’s suppose to mimic a sarong look. 

I just hate it. I think it looks unsightly, ill-fitting and like a big hot mess. However I can’t fix a design styling, unless I redraft the bodice part entirely. And you know what?  I’m soooo over it….

I don’t think I want to touch this dress again, even to wear it, until some of the trauma of this make has faded from my memory!

Surprisingly enough, even though I did say to The Mister that I didn’t want to touch my sewing machines again for months, I’ve change my mind and I’m already planning to sew parts of my Christmas outfit.   ┬──┬ …ノ( ゜-゜ノ)

I have decided it’s just that particular pattern I can’t stand. Not the sewing. 

Though I tell you what, I’ve also decided that sewing is not a relaxing hobby for me. Too stressful for that!  

~ Project Details ~

• Year: A retro re-release of a 1950’s sarong dress pattern 
• Pattern: Butterick B5708
• Fabric: 4 meters of mint green fabric and 1.5 meters of white fabric with pink roses, 1.5 meters of white linen. From the stash: $13.00 for the fabric 
• Notions: An invisible zip ~ repurposed. 
• Time to complete: One week.
• Make again? Nope. No, no, no, nope, no, nope. That’s all there is to that.
• Wear again? Yes. I suppose so. I suppose the dress escapes it’s fiery end….
• Total Cost:  $13.00 and a block of chocolate. Oh yes, and my sanity. Mustn’t forget that!

If you got through all of that saga ~ well done to you! I hope you never have had to struggle like this with any of your dresses, but if you have ~ not just if you are making them, but have bought them or ordered them online ~ you can always share your stories! Any creative “Make Do and Mends” out there? The Mister quoted that to me, and needless to say, I wasn’t particularly impressed at the time… Lol! 

xox,

bonita

༺ ♡ ༻

Cotton Candy Roses Hat | Gift from Tanith
Pearl Drop Earrings | Thrifted
Pansy Pearl Necklace | Valentine's Day Gift, 2010
Rose and Mint 50’s Repro Dress | Me Made, Nov 2015
Crinolines | eBay
Watermelon Glitter Jelly Wedges | eBay

༺ ♡ ༻

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༺ Stitching Stories: Adventures in Baby Cord ༻

Welp, as you might be able to tell ~ simply by the fact that a whole month has gone by without any progress posts on the Sewing All The Things challenge ~ that things have gone a bit squiffy for me recently!

After all the trouble I had with my wrap dress, I was kind of feeling a bit ‘meh’ about sewing and wanted to do something simple. So I picked Advance 3886, and some mauve jersey knit I had in my stash, and went ~ “This should be fairly simple right?” …..

 
Ah, about that?

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t!!  (￣。￣;)

Firstly, I was wrestling with a super stretchy knit fabric with tons of give, and all the pieces I cut ended up being around two inches shorter than the pattern pieces! Which would be okay ~ except for the bodice where it really wasn’t.  I thought I’d have to bin the whole thing, but then I had the dubiously “genius” idea to add an extra piece in at the shoulders to make up for the missing length.

Okay, project saved right? 

Nope.

Number one tip for cutting knits? NOTCH OUTWARD NOT IN! All the little “v” cuts I made to mark the seam joins went into the seam allowance, and apparently that makes it super, super hard to make sure the cut is all caught up in the overlocking seam so that there aren’t any holes in your dress. 

Really hard.

As in going over the same seam five time in a row hard. 

Yikes.

I’ve got to say, that was bad enough, but the lovely gathered detail at the shoulders ~ that really was the last straw.

I tried to follow the instructions, but I don’t know ~ something went wrong somewhere and the ruching just looked… wrong.  So I ripped out the stitches and went “I give up!”.  Hence the overly long story of how July’s dress ended up in a UFO* bag on my shelf. Humph.

Then I dusted off my unhappy sewing self and went with a really simple pattern ~ the blouse from Simplicity 3688.

 

This pattern, thankfully, was actually easy! Score! (ง •̀_•́)ง ☆

I used some pinwale corduroy from my stash in white and aubergine {or eggplant for us Aussies!} and while I don’t know what I was thinking when I bought it {one meter of each color? Really?}, it turned out to be a happy accident because I love how the color blocking turned out with this pattern.

Because the blouse construction is so simple, it really lends itself to playing around with your fabrics. Also, it’s a fun pattern to sew. I really enjoyed the process of putting it together. The sleeve heads are super cute with darts to add structure, rather than typical gathers, and the yoke section with bias binding around the neck line looks nice.

This time I cut the blouse to fit my nursing bust size rather than attempting an FBA, and while that helps with the chest squashing problem, I can see that the fit across the shoulders is too big. And I had to run two one inch darts down the back of the blouse to take in four inches of excess fabric from the back. I know the blouse is supposed to be “blousy” in fit, but there’s cute puffy and then there’s way-too-much-fabric-to-tuck-in puffy!

I paired the blouse with my grey scratchy wool skirt ~ yes, that’s it’s name ~ and thankfully in winter, stocking seem to negate the scratch.   (¬ ᴗ ¬)  I really like the combination of the simple colours, although *gasp* I just realised I don’t have any patterns in this outfit at all!  This must be a first!

Now at last I can mark another pattern off the Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge ~ I have three down, {one, two and this one obviously!} and two to go. While my sewing schedule may be all out of wack {annoying my OCD list ticking self}, I am definitely learning things along the way. We are getting there!

~ Project Details ~

• Year: A retro re-release of a 1940’s suit pattern 
• Pattern: Simplicity 3688
• Fabric: 2 metres of pinwale corduroy; 1 meter of white, 1 meter of aubergine. From the stash: $7.00 a meter
• Notions: A button and a hook and eye for closing the back slit 
• Time to complete: Two weeks
• Make again? Yes. I think this blouse is pretty, and I’m keen to play around with some different fabrics using this pattern. It’s easy to make, comfortable to wear and has a nice authentic 1940’s look.
• Wear again? For sure! I need some more 1940’s separates, and this is a good start.
• Total Cost:  $14.00, but that was ages ago. Stash busting ftw!

So color blocking? What do you think ~ yes or no?  Personally, it’s not something I feel compelled to do all the time ~ {unlike floral prints. Yay! Florals!} but it’s certainly a fun change. ヾ(＾-＾)ノ

xox,

bonita

*UnFinished Object kind of UFO for all the non-crafters. Not the abduction, Area 66, X-file kind.  ; P

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Ice Blue Crochet Snood | Me Made, 2012
Baby Cord Adventures 1940’s Blouse | Me Made, June 2015
Lilac Duet Flower Brooch | Thrifted
Scratchy Wool 1940’s Skirt | Me Made, 2014
Jade Stone Bangles | Thrifted
Vintage Beaded Tapestry Purse | Nikki B’s, Milton
Dusty Blue Swinging Heels  | eBay

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