Monthly Archives: October 2013

October 31, 2013 · 9:35 pm

Looking at Blouses

In my quest to make a couple of “simple” pieces before I start another “Chanel-inspired” jacket, I decided to make a blouse. I am very partial to the color of deep pink – and the remains of a length of silk, which I have already used in two projects (here and here), kept surfacing whenever I went through my fabric collection. The weight is perfect for a blouse – so my plans starting taking shape, based on this fabric.

First I went through my pattern collection to see what I could find. Two blouse patterns from 1957 and one from 1959 are lovely but did not seem quite right for my fabric.

View B is my favorite – and how current is this look?

I have already used this pattern once, but I think I took some of the fullness out of the sleeves.

This blouse pattern is part of a suit.

Just for fun, I thought I would look at some of my early Vogue Pattern Book Magazines to see what else was being featured for blouses. In February/March of 1955, this tucked shirtwaist is the very picture of elegance:

The tucks make this blouse very ladylike.

In the same issue, this “bloused jacket” gives the appearance of a classic shirtwaist blouse:

And look at this “wrap” blouse, also from 1955:

Three years later, in October/November of 1958, “A Change of Tops” was suggested. “For variety’s sake, make a wardrobe of extra blouses and jackets to change the look of your skirts…” That sounds like a good idea to me, especially with the pretty styles that are featured:

Another beautiful wrap blouse among the suggestions!

By 1972, collars were beginning to be a bit on the large side for my taste, but these three blouses are still “smashing” even 40 years later!

Made up in a plaid taffeta.

This is the same pattern as the blouse above, but with a ruffled collar.

The diagonal print is very effective in this style.

I was particularly drawn to the diagram for the blouse shown above, as it is just a classic shirtwaist style:

Seeing this blouse reminded me of how much I like an old (very old) RTW David Brooks blouse that I have been wearing for years.

It still looks stylish, and I really enjoy wearing it. So – why not make a “copy” in my pink silk? Could I possibly find another pattern in my collection that could be suitably altered to achieve this look and style?

Well, I did. My blouse is currently “under construction” – but the pattern (to be revealed in my next post) is so funny looking that one may truly ask “Why did you ever save that one?” Hopefully I’ll have a really good, bright pink answer to that soon!

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Filed under Blouse patterns from the 1950's, Uncategorized, vintage Vogue patterns from the 1950s, vintage Vogue patterns from the 1970s, Wrap blouses

Tagged as Blouses, fashion sewing, silk, vintage Vogue patterns

October 22, 2013 · 1:51 pm

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod

“. . . and the wooden ship that sailed the skies is a wee one’s trundle bed.”

Do you ever see a fabric and feel captivated by its charm, its design, its ambience? That is what happened to me when I saw this fabric on the website of Britex Fabrics:

It is a moderately heavy-weight wool blend, made in Italy (the source of so many beautiful and exquisite fabrics), and its friendly jacquard-woven deer, set amongst the bold pink checks, with that subtle gold woolen thread traversing its expanse, seemed to be a blend of Tyrolean style, buffalo checks, and frontier whimsy! I loved it, but I could not quite imagine it made up into anything wearable – at least for me.

So I decided not to buy it.

But then I did.

What can I say? I had to have it. Of course, by the time I reversed my decision, I had determined it was the perfect fabric from which to make a small blanket – just the right size for a “wee one’s trundle bed.” The small trundle bed, which we purchased years ago, has been patiently waiting to be used by a wee one – and although our little granddaughter is still in a crib, it won’t be long until this little bed will be the perfect place for her to snuggle and sleep and dream when she is with us. So of course – a warm, whimsical blanket was in order. Since it is almost impossible to find linens to fit such specific little beds, making one was very much on my agenda.

The first thing I did was go to JoAnn’s Fabrics to see if I could get blanket binding. I could not believe my eyes when I found this bright pink color.

Then it was just a matter of measuring, deciding where in the plaid of the fabric to place the binding, and sew! One thing that made the application of the satin blanket binding much easier was using a walking foot. Nice and easy and fun.

Cut and ready to be bound.

The binding sewn on, blanket finished!

I mitered the corners and used a fell stitch to hand-finish them.

One of the corners.

It fits well . . .

. . . and is nice and warm.

I had ordered a bit more fabric than I thought I might need – enough to make a doll blanket – and maybe a jacket for a teddy bear one day. Who knows – we’ll wait and see what our wee one asks me to sew.

I fringed the edges of the doll blanket and added rick rack for fun!

Too pretty to go completely out of sight – and easier to pull out for” wee ones”.

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Filed under Blankets and doll blankets, Uncategorized, woolens

Tagged as blankets, Britex Fabrics, doll blankets, sewing, trundle beds, woolens

October 6, 2013 · 11:44 am

“P” is for Pearl — and — Perseverance

Among timeless fashion statements, pearls and wrap dresses both make my top-ten list. The opportunity to combine the two was just too good to pass by, especially after being inspired by a silk charmeuse perfectly suited for just such a pairing.

Pearls and ribbons and clusters, fabric purchased from Mendel Goldberg Fabrics in NYC.

As luck would have it, shortly after I purchased the silk for this dress, an entire article in the Style & Fashion section of The Weekend Wall Street Journal of August 24 – 25 (2013) was devoted to “the old-fashioned allure of pearls…” It seems that pearls are “showing up on everything from shoes to wallpaper to chairs” – and to fabric, as evidenced by my Italian silk charmeuse. I am just “old-fashioned” enough to think that pearls are never not in style, but I must admit that even I was smitten with the unusual and modern approach of this fabric design.

Pearls are showing up everywhere, it seems.

So – how would this modern fabric look, made up in a mid-1970s’ wrap dress pattern? I thought it would work quite well. But getting there turned out to be challenge. Although I was lacking the classic Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress pattern that I envisioned for this dress (blogged about here), I thought I could piece together a 1976 Simplicity version and a new Vogue wrap dress pattern to achieve my goal.

This is the dress I wanted to recreate…

The Simplicity “version” of the Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress.

Vogue 8784 diagrams

Here’s what I did:

1) I decided to use the princess-seamed bodice back from the new Vogue pattern.

2) I re-cut the collar and the cuffs from the Simplicity pattern so that the points on them would not so extreme.

3) Because the ties on the Simplicity pattern were not attached to the dress (the tie was just like a very long separate sash) I used the ties from this DvF pattern, and attached them to the side seams.

4) The missing sleeve pattern piece in the Simplicity pattern meant that I had to use the sleeve from the new Vogue pattern and basically redraft it, with an elbow dart, and with cuffs. I also used Simon Henry’s book The Little Black Dress: How to make the perfect one for you as a reference.

This is the wrap LBD dress featured in the book.

5) I ended up making two complete muslins and re-stitching one of those muslins, before I had a workable pattern. All of this seemed to take forever!

When I finally cut out the black silk organza underlining, I was ready for a celebration, but of course, that would have been premature. Although the design in the fashion fabric really could not be “matched”, I still had to respect the placement of the “clusters” as they would relate to the bodice. (I did not want “clusters” at the apex of the bust darts, for example.) And I felt like the “clusters” should be placed at equal distances from each other over the expanse of the dress, if possible. After determining all this and cutting out the fashion fabric, I finally got to sewing, which included lots of basting, catch-stitching all the seams to the underlining, understitching the collar by hand (which worked beautifully, for which I was very grateful!), setting in the sleeves, making the lining, etc., etc.

Here is the final placement of the fabric design on the front of the bodice . . .

. . . and here is the bodice back.

Understitching the collar created a slight under-curve which helps the collar lay flat.

This boring view just shows the lining that was so tedious to attach!

I made the mistake of making the cuffs before a final fitting of the sleeves. (I thought I was being smart and getting “prep” work done, but I just made more work for myself). I ended up shortening the sleeves and enlargening the openings so that I would be able to push them up on my arms if I wanted to. The cuffs I had made were not long enough to accommodate these adjustments, so back I went to cut and make new cuffs. Fortunately I had just enough fabric to squeeze these out!

For buttons for the cuffs, I went to my button box and came up with this card:

The original price of these buttons was 10 cents. I picked them up for 50 cents at some point. It almost seemed a shame to cut them off of the card!

Because I had reduced the points on the cuffs, I needed “not-too-big” buttons and these proved to be perfect, I thought, and in keeping with the “pearl” theme.

Here is one of the cuffs with buttons attached.

Working on the black fashion and lining fabrics was tedious. And it seemed the more I worked on this dress, the more there was to do on it! Kind of like eating a big bowl of pasta – the work seemed to multiply before my eyes. Fast, easy, and jiffy this was not! It’s times like this that being of a stubborn nature serves me well. I persevered and got it done! And even better, I am really happy with the results.