1940's yellow plaid dress

well a full weekend and two audio books later I'm finished!

my 1940’s dress. represented in a yellow plaid made of cotton, and made from a vintage simplicity pattern # 3429 from 1941.


I have always read that vintage patterns are more true to size then our modern ones, so I took that to heart when I cut this out only to find out this one ran large. I don’t know if its from the bias which gives it a bit of stretch, or my fabric choice which is a cotton suiting. But the pattern ended up needing to be cut exactly as is and still I had to slightly deeper then the 1/2” seam allowance they called for.



after my first attempt at sewing this dress with the added few inches,(since I am not as small as this pattern says) I discovered the dress was just too big for me. the seams are such that simply sewing deeper didn’t work, so I ended up tearing the entire thing apart, and re- cutting all the pieces. I put all the lower part together before cutting the yolk so I could lay it with the fabric to match the plaids the way I wanted. I was able to use the front yolk pieces I had cut, by only cuting them down. I had cut two for the back yolk before and was able to make one of those work as well. which meant no wasted fabric. yea!

one of the big things I changed in this pattern was the button holes on the front yolk. I really wanted to do the bound button holes the pattern called for, but after realizing how badly this fabric frays I was a bit scared to try them. I didn’t want to have to re-cut and remake another part of the dress. so I did the logical thing of putting decorative buttons on the dress with snaps hidden behind to close the top.
I did a zipper on the side, which was one of two ways the pattern suggested, the other being hooks and snaps. I find zippers not only a lot easier to put in then the snaps, but a lot easier to use.



shoulder pads where another thing the pattern called for, and I opted out of. actually I put them in, and it looked real nice hanging on the hanger.
then I put the dress on and I thought I was going to suffocate. I never wear shoulder pads, and I did not realize how hot they are! with in minutes I was sweating like crazy and it was only 64 degrees. I couldn’t handle it and took them out. I know most people wore shoulder pads in the 1940’s but I also know that there had to be people like me who just couldn’t stand them and cut them out.

for the most part I am happy with my dress, though there are a few tiny things I would like to tweak on it. I may just live with the way it is. it did turn out cute.
would I make this pattern again?
not in that fabric! plaids are hard enough to match without there being no obvious right and wrong side to the fabric. but maybe in another fabric I might.



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yellow plaid dress and its issues. AKA I am never going to finish this thing.

I love plaid, I love the way it looks I love the weave of it, I love the stripes that overlay each other to make squares. I love the different colors it takes to get a nice plaid. but I hate matching plaids. I did a decent job matching for the cutting out. that was not the problem the problem with fabric lies in the fact it has no obvious right side and wrong side. I thought I was being careful but NOOO I was not being careful enough. some how I got the side pieces facing the opposite side of the of the center panel, which can not be reversed because of the front slit, which I had already put in, so it was set that had to be the right side of the fabric. which I might also add I had trouble with the slit because this fabric frays so badly when I put it in it simply frayed right out. I ended up serging the facing in which made it slightly wider and probably a bit longer then it called for but it works.
back to the plaid and matching it, I was trying to line up the plaids on the yolk when I realized I had reversed the side plaids. it would no matter how hard I tried not line up. so after careful inspection I realized I had the pieces backwards.

do you see how subtle the difference is? I obviously wasn't paying that close of attention, but then I tend to sew when I'm really tired. so yeah...
I tore it apart and sewed it back, everything was looking so good until...
I evoked the fact I am horrible at math. somewhere along the way of resizing I added way to much and the dress was like eight inches to big! I think I know what I did though I think I only counted eight of the ten pieces, or maybe I am just that bad at math I don’t know. but this was figured out when I had the dress over half way done, all I had left was the sleeves collar and hems. I tried to just sew deeper but because of the curves and biases it wasn’t really turning out. I am now tearing the entire thing apart and re-cutting. lets just hope I don’t mess it up this time.
by the time I finish this dress I will have made it three times I swear!


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yellow plaid dress

I found this pattern on Etsy for a decent price and since I loved it I bought it.
this is going to be my dress from the 1940’s. the pattern is from 1941. I opted to go with the early forties simply because I am in love with this pattern. I had bought this fabric on a whim because its so pretty and oh it has a such a nice weight and feel to it.


this pattern is so small though that I have had to resize up. I find it interesting the way pattern sizing has changed so drastically a size 12 in 1941 has a 30” bust while a pattern I have from the 1970 has a 32” bust. and a size 12 from a 2015 pattern 34” all of these patterns are simplicity. a size 12 has gone from being too small for me to being too big. sizing is so weird. especially how they add so much ease into patterns these days.

onto this pattern though. I’ve never worked on a unprinted pattern before so I was nervous about this one, but the second I read the directions I realized how easy it was too work on. the code for straight of grain , cut on fold and the matching points are so obvious. I have worked on enough patterns to know what pieces you need two of and which one’s you need one of. the darts are marked with dots and all the pieces are lettered. I do have to look at the directions on this one, but really I should be doing that anyway. I don’t know how many times I have tried wing it without directions and come to place where I was like What??? then read the directions and been like well duh! so yeah directions are a handy thing to have.

the resizing of the pattern was done with my all time favorite tissue paper that is cheap and I just tape together when the pattern piece is to big.
most of the pieces were easy enough to trace around just slightly bigger. except I am not really sure if I traced the yolk of the dress correctly . its one thing to add a bit around all the lower pieces there were several piece all about the same size, but I had to try to figure out where and how to add the additional size to the yolk which is only three pieces and the front has an overlap. one good thing though I have plenty of fabric left in case I messed that part up!

once I traced the pattern I had to cut it out. Laying out the pattern was interesting. I wanted my plaids to match as closely as possible even though with the bias being next to the straight it could be somewhat off and not be too noticeable I still wanted it to match. so each piece had to be cut out individually. with the piece that would be closest to it laid next to the first and matching up the bottom. once that was matched up I lay each piece on top of its matching piece to be cut matching the plaids all the way round. this was done on double pieces. I am hoping this will work out for me. I really want the plaids to match. it has worked for plaids in the past. so it should for this one as well.

do you see the piece laid on top so as to match the plaids?


oh! let me life a corner so you can see!
here's to hoping this dress is perfect!

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polka dot dresses!

all the polka dots!


we went out for ice cream at a fifties themed ice cream shop. they make their own ice cream and its amazing and creamy. my sister and I really did eat the ice cream too but it was too hard to take pictures and eat an ice cream cone at the same time.



we then went to a park and did some photos, its a new park so the chimney was amazingly clean.in fact I don't think it had ever been used, otherwise we would not have been playing in it with our new dresses.



and of course while at the park we had to do some spinning in the fields!

the only thing I was really disappointed about was I forgot the tripod so we didn't get any pictures of all three of us together. but maybe we can all get dressed up again some day and get some more pictures. it was a lot of fun. and I think that for winning a contest to make one dress its pretty cool I was able to make three.

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1950's red polka dot dress

so about two months ago I won a contest from sew retro rose in which I received fabric , a pattern and notions to make a dress. two weeks ago I finally got started in it. I should have been blogging about it as I went, but I haven’t been. the day I received the fabric in the mail I took everything out and checked it over. I was very excited but was in the middle of working on my black bow dress. I was going to try to finish that before starting on this dress, but I got to the point I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do on the black bow dress and set it aside.

the pattern was a little big for me so I had to do some math and figuring to resize it. I did make a mock up of the bodice since I can’t exactly got more fabric. I mean I am sure I could find something similar, but it wouldn’t be exact. so I was being very careful with the measuring. in the end though there was plenty of fabric for the dress. I have about a yard and half left. which I am making plans for as I write this.


I had to lengthen the bodice a bit, which is normal for me. but then I lengthened it too much. which I didn’t realize till I had the dress all put together and I tried it on. here I was thinking I nearly done with the dress but I was no where near finished not only did I make the bodice to long I didn’t have the darts, and seams lined up with the pleats. it just looked so off. so I tore the bodice back off shortened it by three quarters of an inch which still made it an inch longer then the original pattern. and I made sure that this time when I put it all back together everything lined up the way I wanted it too. and I was ready to hem it. it took me a little while to decide exactly what length I wanted finally choosing, and sewing it up. then I added the white bias strips to the bottom of the skirt. I think it gives it a nice finished look.


then came the jacket. I had some trouble with this, but not with the putting it together it went together really nicely. no the problem was the collar pieces of the pattern were not there! I looked and looked but the pieces were not there. so I set the pattern aside and thought what should I? I have mentioned before I am not very good at drafting my own patterns, but finally I thought I can at least try. so I cut out everything except the collar and started putting the jacket together. I figured it would be eaiser to figure out the shape for the collar if I had something to put it on. I made a collar mock up out of some pink fabric I have, and once I was satisfied I went ahead and put it on. I was hoping to finish last night, but as it got later and later I thought I should put this aside till morning. so this morning I woke up and got right too it. I love the way it turned out. at first I wasn’t sure I would like the jacket, but in the end I really do. and my most favorite part of both the dress and the jacket are the bows!




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1970's dress

1970’s dress at first I wasn’t sure I was going to use this dress, but I decided after some research to just use it. what I was having issue with is I used an invisible zipper and I was not sure if that was accurate. even if not everything is authentic I want my zipper to be. but then I was going through my patterns and found one from 1971 that called for an invisible zipper. so yea! I have another dress to add! this dress is probably as authentic as you can get. the fabric is vintage from the 1970’s. I used McCall’s pattern #4535 from 1975. I think it turned out cute. I love dresses from this time.

even the buttons are vintage I was going to use some different ones but then as I was going through my stash I found these and thought they were perfect, so I used them and they are much better then what I had originally chosen.

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not the happiest with my 1860's bodice.

I was talking to my coworker today about my 1860’s dress. she has been into civil war reenacting for years now and I could tell she wanted to give me pointers on the dress but didn’t want to hurt my feelings since I took so long on it.. but really I wasn’t that thrilled with the way the bodice turned out anyway. she told me I probably need to shorten my hoop a bit. which I agree. its a bit too long. she said I should do it from the top so the hoop is higher and fills in the bodice better. that is the part that was bothering me so much is the fact the bodice points flip out. but then I started thinking about another dilemma and that is even if I shorten the hoop I think the bodice itself is too short. I forget sometimes I have a rather long torso. for now I’m not going to do anything but if I get real ambitious I might remake the bodice. I love the sleeves so I don’ t need to redo those. I had some fabric left over and I’m pretty sure without the sleeves is should be plenty. I’m also leaning more to a square back as opposed to the pointed one. I think it would fall nicer. this is something I need to think on for a while before deciding.

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parade

the parade yesterday went swimmingly well. I was the last one to get there in the group but I was still there before the stated time so I figure it was alright. I didn’t really know any of the other people there other then my coworker. I had met most of them, last year. but meeting someone for a few minutes doesn’t mean you know them. and even know after being introduced to everyone I have no idea what most of their names are. everyone liked my dress and one of the ladies kept asking me about putting the design on it. she said she wanted to learn how to do it so I explained to her how I had just used a cotten yarn and zigzaged it on by machine. she was suprised how easy it was. it does look daunting. but really the hardest thing about it is the time it takes becasue it does take a long time to go all the way around the dresss.

1860's dress

I finished my 1860’s dress today. a coworker invited me to be in a parade on saturday. she does civil war reenactments. and since I was nearly done with this dress I went ahead and finished it. what better incentive then a place to wear it. I have seen the details on this dress on several differnt dressses and fell in love with it. as time consuming as it was to aplique the details it was actually easier then I thought. I knew I could do it I just had to figure it out. which meant studying pictures of the design till I figured it out. I used cotten yarn and zigzaged it on. I like the way it turned out. which is good considering the hours it took. I do have to admit to getting frustrated on the sleeves I was going to try something slightly differnt on them, but what I wanted proved to be impossible, litteraly . it could not be done without rewriting physics or somthing. so I settled on what I did, and am happy with it.

what decade shall I tackle next? I’m leaning towrds 1960’s as I have the fabric. but at the same time I’m thinking 1940’s. I have some really neat buttons that came from my grandmothers house and I do believe they are from then.

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1860's skirt

finished my 1860's skirt yesterday, the double pleats worked, yea! double pleats equal putting one pleat directly on top of the other so there is more fabric in the front. I also went ahead and did the flat part an inch smaller. it took three tries to get it right. I don’t know how women did it back then. the skirt by itself is rather heavy, then adding all the petticoats and other undergarments. how did they not faint from the heat? now I need to figure out the top.

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pleats and such

currently I am frustrated with my 1860’s dress. I have not even started on the bodice , I had to put it off as the pattern was missing a few pieces. but the company sent me a new one so I don't have that excuse anymore. I need to get working on it. while the design on the bottom of the skirt turned out pretty good, I probably could have made it more even but I think it will be alright. I highly doubt anyone is going to be measuring them. the thing though that is frustrating me is the pleats in the front were pulling weird when I put the hoop on, so I pulled them all out and am currently trying to figure out how to make it work the way I want it. the pattern isn’t going to help with this, as I am going for a slightly different look then on the pattern. I was looking at pictures of the dress I am using for inspiration, AKA nearly copying, and realized that that the front pleats appeared to be double pleated. so I am going to try that. because it seems there is not enough fabric in the front of the skirt. I am trying to make it flat in the front. I may need to make the flat part not so wide, but I am going to try the double pleats. if it doesn’t work I will try making the flat part smaller. if that doesn’t work.... well I will try something else.

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1920’s dress

I realize the fabric is not historically accurate . in fact I have no idea what it is, as the bolt said made of imported unknown fabric but I thought it looked pretty good anyway. I made this dress about a year ago. I copied my great grandmothers wedding dress for the style, so the pattern is authentic at least. I had to make the arms larger since people then had the tiniest arms ever. they had to have, or else how did they wear the clothes? I had fun figuring this out, and very carefully handling my great grandmothers dress. now all I need is some cute shoes to go with it....

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