'Pass the Peas' Dress - A Vintage Pledge Mash-Up

Hello! I've just come back from adventures in Los Angeles and Hollywood, where besides visiting Disneyland, eating a lot of Japanese food, and drinking a lot of cocktails, I also managed to do some fabric shopping. For some reason, it didn't occur to me to visit Mood's Los Angeles outpost; instead, I was excited about seeing Islands Fabrics, which is a whole store devoted to Hawaiian and Tropical fabric!

Just a smidgen of what they have on offer!

I was very restrained and only bought one piece, which is the barkcloth-weight leaves in the picture below, bottom right: 

The rest was picked up in the surrounding shops, and there were so many more than expected:

Most of them are earmarked for shirts for Mr Needles, would you believe, but I managed to sneak in one more for myself, the little garden peas print cotton. It was sitting unloved on a pavement at the bargain price of only $2 per yard (had to go back to Imperial for this visit; metric never really did take off in the US), so I felt sorry for it and bought a couple of yards.

At first I saw it as a blouse - it seemed like too much pattern for a dress - but this beauty had been playing on my mind:

This was part of my prize from Vintage Pattern Pledge for 2015, run by Kerry at Kestrel Makes and Marie at a Stitching Odyssey. It seems apt to use the pattern won from 2015's pledge as part of 2016's pledge, so I went for it!

Just one hitch - buying without a specific project in mind had backfired, and 2 yards wasn't going to be enough to accommodate the flared skirt. Solution - use a straight skirt from another favourite pattern, Butterick 8571:

I've used this pattern twice before, once as illustrated here, and once just as the skirt here and it worked out fine both times.

I had planned to take some pretty photos in my garden, doing some gentle weeding or something, but the recent gales we experienced here in the UK have turned my neglected garden into a bit of a mess. But I carried on regardless - here's the new dress in action:

I don't think the change in skirt makes too much difference - it still looks 40'ish. besides the skirt, I also had to adapt the sleeves to a shorter length in order to fit them in. But I gave them a little scalloped detail just as a reference to the original ruched shape:

Inside of sleeve with facing

Speaking of sleeves, I decided to insert the sleeve before the side seams were attached, on the flat, as it were. This was much easier and less fiddly than the usual technique of closing the side and underarm seam first, and the sleeve head came out pretty smooth:

The neckline is the main feature on this dress, being made up of 2 draped and pleated panels which then attach at the centre front and are covered with a little tab:

Before attachment to the bodice...

...and after

I wasn't quite sure how to finish this seam so that it was neat and attractive, and the instructions give you no guidance. I finally decided to bind it with bias cut from the same fabric as the lining:

The hem was also finished with matching bias strips:

I rarely line a dress fully - I get too hot! - and this was no exception. I used a gold poly to line the skirt, which you can see at the kick pleat at the back:

And finally it all gets closed up with a zip at the centre back, which is again a necessary departure from the pattern which saved fabric. But I did stay old-school and put the zip in by hand, with a little hook and eye at the top:

And that's pretty much it. I'm off to learn how to drive this thing!

See you soon!

Christmas Dresses, Two at a Time

Hello! Hope everyone's had a lovely holiday. I know I've eaten my own weight in chocolate and cheese, so that counts as a resounding success. I don't know about you, but I always like some new stuff to wear for Christmas, whether I need it or not. I had made my mind up to make one final dress for the #vintagepledge, and at the last minute decided to knock out one more, because as you'll see, the first dress, although a joy to wear, is not the most practical when roasting a turkey.

Christmas dress number one is from this 1967 Simplicity pattern:

Simplicity 7088, 1967

I can't remember where I saw this pattern, but when I did I knew I had to have it. I raced around loads of sites looking for it, and eventually bought it from ogy0531 on eBay. It was nearly £20 with p+p, which is more than I would normally spend on a pattern, but I had to have it! And it isn't even the right size - this is a bust 31, I'm more of a 36, so I used this pattern which I know fits me straight out of the packet, to grade it up to my size:

I used reams and reams of tracing paper, and even made a toile, which looked like this:

At this stage, I was concerned that I was going to look like this:

Agnes Moorehead as Endora in 'Bewitched'

- but I carried on despite this. But a part of me always loved Endora's sense of drama, so in tribute to her I decided to go for a gold and black look, courtesy of some cheap lame knit from Walthamstow market.

Enough of my waffling, here's the finished dress:

Of course, the most spectacular part of the dress is the back:

This is certainly the most comfortable 'glamour' dress I've ever worn; it sort of feels like a hospital gown because it's all loose and swingy at the back, and feels like it could fly up at any moment.

And the secret to the shape of the whole thing lies in this sneaky little bra extender, which is hidden inside and keeps the front portion close to the body and lets the rest hang free:

I lined the whole dress in a light weight poly to give it some stability, and the bra extender was hidden under the cape - here's a flash of the inside (excuse my big red bra):

Here's one more swish:

As much as I love that dress, it's more of a night time look, not really suitable for turkey and gravy on Christmas Day. At the very last minute - December 22nd - I decided to make a more wearable dress out of some stash fabric using a pattern I've used before:

Simplicity 9330 from 1971

I used some bargain-tastic viscose and light weight poly lining I picked up, once again, at Walthamstow market. I got it cut out and sewn up in 2 days, which is super quick for me, and it was my first invisible zip in a garment - milestone! Here it is:

It was all pretty straight forward, I knew it would fit so I didn't have to try it on along the way, and the invisible zip saved so much time:

Not bad for a first attempt - why did I wait so long to do this?!!?

The only slightly tricky bit is the collar/bow thing at the neck, which involved a bit of basting and a bit of unpicking to finally get right:

The fabric has a bit of stretch in it, so was ideal for sweating away in the kitchen, then eating all of the roasted goodness, as well as pudding and other sweets.

So all round a sartorially successful Christmas. Hope everyone had a good one and here's to a fabulous New Year!

See you soon!

The Lonsdale/Simplicity Tiki Mash-Up

About a year ago I bought this lovely cotton from Abakhans in Manchester. As usual I bought it on impulse without any idea as to what I would do with it, so it sat in the stash for about a year while I did other stuff..

I knew it was destined to be something vaguely Tiki, but my mind was made up when I saw the Hawaiian Sewaholic Lonsdale made by Fiona from Diary of a Chanstitcher. 

I ordered the pattern straight away! But I wanted to make the skirt a bit more sexy. Then I saw Cassie's Butterick 5880 with the side flounce and got some further inspiration. 

(By the way, go and check out both of these ladies' blogs - they're fab!)

I went off and traced and slashed and taped and measured, until I had what I thought was a pretty reasonable version of the flounce in Cassie's beautiful dress. But what I didn't realise was that this flouncey business takes up a helluva lot of fabric! Everything was laid out meticulously, but there was no way it was all going to fit. Back to the drawing board...

But then the lovely people at Simplicity came to the rescue. They sent me a few patterns to try out, one of which was this:

And view C has a flouncey Tiki-esque look, which takes up much less fabric - Jackpot! 

Enough of this waffling - let's get a look at the finished product! Here it is:

It's hard to see the flouncey bit unless the wind blows:

Here's a close up of the bodice knot detail:

I rarely make a muslin of anything, but I was worried about coverage in the bust area - I'm a bit top heavy - so I muslined it to death, finally settling on cutting a size 12(UK) in the waist, and then expanding to a 16(UK) at the neckline, and it worked out just fine.

I also took Fiona's advice regarding the straps - I just pinned them in place each side of the zip and topstitched through the bodice. Mr Needles helped pin them in place, and ever since he's been referring to himslef as 'Tom Ford':

I also did a lapped split at the back of the skirt. I didn't bother matching any patterns, because quite frankly I didn't really care!

And that's that. It's warm enough here in London at the moment that I can hopefully wear this a lot more; at the very least I can use it as an excuse to drink some tropical cocktails!

See you soon!

 

A-lines and Concrete - Simplicity 5096

I've mentioned before that I have to wear black for work.  To say it's boring is an understatement; most days you'll see me in my own personal uniform of black skirt, scoop neck top and cardigan. I have a few dresses that liven things up, but I admit that sometimes I feel a bit stuck in a rut when it comes to my work wear.

That's why I decided to make this little number, just to give my professional wardrobe a bit of a shot in the arm. It's a shape I don't usually wear, and from an era (the 1960's) that I don't usually sew from, but it felt good to have a bit of a departure from the norm.

This dress was really easy to make up - it went together so easily! I cut the seam allowances at the front 1" rather than the standard 5/8"/1.5cm, in case I needed to make any adjustments over the bust, but there was no need in the end - fitted beautifully! I also added a self drafted Peter Pan collar (see previous post) in black satin, just to make it a little more interesting.

I matched this to the bow at the front:

The main body of the dress was made out of a pretty standard poly-cotton twill. I added a contrast lining to the skirt of the dress in shocking pink - take that, work uniform rules!:

Pink polyester lining, and pink binding on the sleeve hems.

And in tribute to the patterns 1960's origins, Mr Needles and I spent an afternoon in the cold spring-time sunshine at the Barbican in East London, pretending we were David Bailey and Jean Shrimpton (or maybe more Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques)

 

So there we were, wandering around what's apparently Europe's biggest performing arts venue, admiring what we thought was a fine example Brutalist architecture from about 1968:

The double 'M' was even mentioned - Mad Men. I love that show, but cringe involuntarily whenever I hear it used a shorthand for describing anything from the 1960's. It seems to be thrown about randomly, applied to anything from hip young fashions of the time, to little tweed suits worn by wealthy older women. What I love about the series is the distinctions the costume designers make between old and young, rich and poor, hip and un-hip. After all, not everyone was 'swinging' in the 60's; if anything, the majority were like Don Draper, leading pretty conservative lives, puzzled by the Beatles and all the rest. The series has manages to steer clear of all the cliches that you think the 60's were all about - white go-go boots, velvet suits, plastic moulded furniture and all the rest.

So imagine my embarrassment when I bothered to do some research into the Barbican's history, and realised ground wasn't even broken on the site until 1971! It was officially opened in 1982! I fell into the trap of thinking this was a typically 60's complex, all Corbusier-esque cities in the sky, and I was completely wrong!

To hell with architecture and all its confusing eras and ism's, I'm going to the bar:

 See you soon!