Draperies and something special from the pattern stash.

My back is finally starting to feel better. Hurray! So I celebrated last night by making some boob darts and some shoulder darts in my never ending magenta dress. I must say that I am now a big fan of double sided tracing paper which lets me mark both sides of fabric at once! I've always penciled in my darts, never knowing what I was missing. I've been so deprived!

But that was about as much as I managed. So... after that I went off to soak my back and sleep. Tonight it's back to painting the dining room. I'm just doing super obsessive clean up work with an artist's brush around the trim now. After that we should be able to get the room cleaned out and the furniture moved in. I can also begin to plan draperies, that definitely warms my heart. These are the decor fabrics I've been toying around with in my head. They are not vintage, the are not $25. You must also picture our dining room. Crown molding, antique Brazilian mahogany table and chairs (Beau's inheritance) with burgundy seats, and a massive china cabinet. 

I like these vintage looking fabrics and my Beau seems to like anything that looks antique. I'm not completely sold on any of these though. I guess they're just a little too murky colored for me. I'm a big fan of vibrant color after all. I'll be ordering lots of swatches when it's time to make these, of that I am sure. For now though I'm going to concentrate on getting the furniture into the house... which I'm still unsure about. Not quite sure it's going to fit through the door BUT as Beau always says "if it don't fit, make it fit."

And as I've gotten in the habit of sharing patterns from my ridiculous way too large Vintage Pattern archive, I thought I'd share something special. These are some of the oldest patterns I own and I think very neat to look at. Someday I'd like to trace their fragile tissue pieces and make these garments, but for now I just like having them and hoarding them. 

This is Simplicity 184. This pattern dates from the 1920s and is in great condition considering it's 90 years old. It's a size 14 years, but I don't really know what that means as far as 1920s sizing. I'm sure it would need some grading if I were to make it eventually, but I still think it's just darling. 

This is Designer Pattern 3257. Other than the creepy headless ladies on the front I love this pattern. I've twice consider making one of these capes for myself, but then I remember that I live in Georgia now and this might be a wee bit impractical. She also dates from the 1920s.

And finally this lady, who is a new addition to my collection. She is a blouse from the 1890s and now qualifies as my oldest vintage pattern. Love her, and she is in amazingly good condition for being 110 years old. Her tissue paper is still very flexible. This blouse is definitely made to be worn over a Edwardian corset, which I do not own. I have dreams of finding myself a Edwardian style corset in the future though and making this blouse up. It think it could be quite steamy. 

Some $25 Dollar Vintage Shoes for you

Well. My back is still out of whack. Darn roller coasters...mutter mutter mutter....


And the magenta dress still remains unfinished. This is about to become my longest sewing project ever. I did manage to finish cutting out all the pieces last night except the detachable collar. I'm holding off on that until I see how the actual collar of the dress itself looks and whether it's really necessary. 

So far I've managed to do the whole dress in under two yards of fabric and the collar would put me over. Why is this important to me you say? Well this jersey came in at $3.99 a yard and I can use a more expensive zipper if I stay under $10 for fabric! Yay!


Alrighty. So in apology for no dress updates here are some real Vintage things for under $25  to add to your own wardrobes!  All in lovely shades of pink for spring!

Shoes! Glorious shoes! These are some very nice vintage 1930s SILK mauve Peau De Soie pumps. I think these are the Cat's Pajamas! I wanted to snatch them up and hoard them all to myself... but then I decided it's always best to share vintage love. These glorious glorious shoes are only $25.00! 

1950s Pink Paradise kitten heel sling backs. Very very cute and only $15.00! 

Vintage cotton apron in Lavender, Lime and Pink. This lady found this lovely piece of history in an abandoned house. She's parting with it for $16.00. As I've said before, one cannot have too many aprons. It's literally impossible.

Hat! Glorious hat!  Cute little vintage cloche for $18.00. This would be cute with a spring day dress. Simplicity 1426 maybe?

And this cute little 1970's cocktail dress for $24.50. 

And then finally something that is not vintage, but very important for that vintage look. 

Some reproduction 1950s fully fashioned nylon stockings. The proper foundation is important to any vintage look. That includes hosiery and unmentionables. What Katie Did has a great selection of vintage unmentionables, shapers and hosiery. Check them out. These stockings sell for 17.50 GBP or 25.85 USD. Yes yes, they are over 25 dollars but they're so close to cost and I just had to sneak these in. I bought a pair of these about a year ago now and they really hold up. You could run a marathon in these things, trip, fall down, get back up and finish. Their longevity is amazing, especially for someone like me who gets runs the first time she wears a pair of stockings. So far I've worn mine probably 12-15 times and they're still going strong. That's under $2.50 a wear, not a bad deal for stockings. Not to mention their amazingly authentic look. 

The Magenta dress lives! Now with mystery!

I don't want to jinx it, but we may be *almost* finished with the dining room. We pulled the painter's tape off last night and it looks pretty good. Need to cut in again in a few places, but overall I'm very happy with the result. All our painting (and painting... and painting... and painting...) finally paid off. Still need to paint the upper tier of the tray ceiling, but that's for Beau to do. I'm in charge of cleanup, which shouldn't take me too much longer. I've also spoken with my Beau's mother (who is currently keeping the furniture for us) and we should be getting the furniture in sometime soon. Very excited to have a place to put the china.

Next painting project is the sewing room! Yay! We used to have a roommate in that room, but she moved out and I've decided to claim the room for sewing and crafting. I'll also be moving my computer in there so Beau can have the office all to himself. Still trying to decide on colors though. I really only like to use the low or no VOC paints because paint smell makes me gag and I'm not super keen on inhaling toxic fumes. This sort of limits us on the color. This room also has a tray ceiling so I'm still debating on what colors I want to go with. I want the room to be fun and creative, a place for me to get my artsy on.

I'm debating between yellow walls with shades of red for the tray (very fung shui) or lavender walls with a warm green for the ceiling. Probably going to go with lavender. I love the color yellow, but as wall paint it tends to make things look like an office building. NOT the idea I'm going for here.

In any case it was back to the failed magenta dress this evening... Chalk this one up to my own stupidity again. I am so not a 38 bust, I still have no idea what I was thinking when I started it.

Soooooo.... First step. Unpin old pattern. Check. Next step, choose new pattern. I went and scrounged through a bunch of patterns and narrowed it down to these two patterns.

I went with 5616 because it's a much better fit for jersey. 4426 says you can use jerseys, but I am not making button holes in a stretchy fabric. Seriously? Buttons and cuffed sleeves with jersey... Not happening. So I picked the top left view of 5616. The collar is detachable, but I'm debating just sewing it on. It looks much cuter with the collar anyways. 

I'd never opened the pattern before and when I first peeked inside I was pretty sure it was still factory folded.

I was really excited to find that not only had this pattern had been used, but it was in GREAT condition. This pattern came from a lot at an estate sale. Whoever the previous owner was she was an excellent seamstress and very protective of her patterns. Every pattern of hers that I have opened (from a lot of 41) has had all the pieces and everything has been very carefully folded. This one was no exception and was neatly folded and returned to the envelope.

Bless you previous owner, whoever you were! This pattern is practically brand new and it's getting close to 50 years old! Even the instructions are barely yellowed.  So after quickly checking to make sure there was enough magenta jersey left I went to work. This jersey came in a 52 inch width so lining up the pattern was pretty easy. Did I ever mention how much I love jersey? The lady seamstress had also made the dress. The other parts of the pattern (jacket and skirt) were divided from the large sheet, but otherwise untouched. 

As I started to pin I began to notice some of this lady's alterations. She had shrunken and extended several parts of the pattern. Here you can see her alterations to the facing.

And the shoulder of the front of the dress.

And the back of the dress

But She only altered and cut out around the shoulder areas. As you can see here she stopped cutting around the pieces about halfway through the sleeve shaping. She obviously did something with these pattern pieces as her original pin holes are still visible.

Well, this pattern was a 32 bust. And all her other patterns were a 34 bust, obviously her size or the size of whoever she regularly sewed for. I also happened to know that there was a duplicate of this in with her patterns. So I fished it out.

As I suspected, the second pattern was a 34 bust. So my first inclination was that the pattern was not sized properly and she had to go back and pick it up in a smaller size. So I started rummaging through the 34 envelope, the pieces also very carefully folded.

My first inclination was wrong. In this pattern she had cut out all the pieces for the jacket and skirt, but nothing for the blouse/dress.

So I'm slightly baffled. The best I can figure is that she used the shoulders with a different bodice and traced them or she stopped halfway through the construction of the dress. I searched the instruction sheets for notes, but found nothing.

I've decided to go ahead and give it a go with her alterations though. I figure it couldn't hurt and the slope of the shoulder looks nicer than the original cut. So I'm trusting you Unknown Seamstress, hopefully you won't lead me astray. And the way I figure is that if it doesn't come out right, I'll just fudge it.

The woes of vintage patterns.

I love vintage patterns for many reasons.

A. They're cheap.

B. My style tends to lean towards 1940s/1950s glamour with a modern twist.

Here's a picture of me in a typical clubbing outfit in Atlanta sometime during February 2010. Not the best picture, but you get the idea. Cute rockabilly dress from Pinup Girl Clothing with a fabulous matching corset. (Confession time, I am so into this new corset trend! Seriously, who doesn't want to wear something that gives you a tiny waist and great hips?)

C. Most of the time the previous owner has so nicely cut them out for you. If you're really lucky they've cut it out on your size and not chopped them up too much.

D. Making dresses from vintage patterns gives you serious Bad Mamma Jamma points. And of course you get double Mamma Jamma points if you make them on this!

So earlier this week I picked up a few patterns for 50 cents a pop at the antique store just down the way from the office.

Here's a picture of just some of the haul. Then as I said in the last post I found some fabulous Jersey knit at half price. So, what to make? I started with a shirt dress from Simplicity 7450, but as I began unpacking the pattern I realized that the sleeve piece was missing. Lame, but one of the risks of vintage pattern buying. It had all the rest of its pieces however so I'm still planning on making one of those fabulous suit sets to wear to work in the winter time. I'll just have to make the sleeveless version of the dress to go under. No problem there, love that little yellow number there.

I was a bit disappointed by my lack of sleeve, but luckily I'd also purchased 6934 as you can see and view 2 was quite similar. So I checked for pieces, had them all and got cracking. The smallest size on the pattern was a 12. Just a bit big for me, but I decided not to worried as this is a shirt dress after all and isn't designed to be close fitting. The magenta jersey is soooo nice. I'm too much of a jersey fan I think, but it's so darn comfortable. I think this is going to be a great summer dress and it looks like it'll sew up fast. It has a few more seams than 7450, which is a little disappointing (I was more in the mood for a two night project) but it also gives me more places to take in if the dress needs some fitting.

I'll keep you posted on the progress! Tonight I hope to start sewing everything together.

And in more exciting news I have my very first follower! I've never had one before. This is so exciting! I feel so honored!