Tuesday, April 20, 2010

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!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I like the corsets as well but am too timid to wear them! My husband likes them as well... :) Maybe one day I will be bold enough!