New Vintage/Retro Patterns

I just uploaded my latest Vintage/Retro patterns purchases. I acquired them from an eBay seller from whom I have purchased before. The Butterick pattern is similar to the Simplicity pattern I have been searching for. I like the jacket that comes with this dress as well.

The other two patterns are 1960's ones. I recently saw a dress in Dillard's that was very similar to the red one on this McCall's pattern. The one at Dillard's was in two shades of brown. The other McCall's pattern is a similar style but with some noticeable differences.

TGIF

Wow, what a week. It has truly been hectic. Too many deadlines for reports that are not getting completed on time. Staff from other agencies visiting and meeting during the week, dinner following meetings thus getting home late several nights this week. Finding no time to sew, exercise or just look at sewing or fashion magazines.

So I am most thankful that it is Friday and one of two reports will get completed. My boss is out of town for several days :-). I can dress a little more casual today! And give some thought to what I am going to sew next. My plans continue to change on the sewing front.

Waiting for me when I got home last night was my latest vintage patterns I got from eBay. One is a dress pattern very similar to the Simplicity 2959 that I have been searching and searching for.

I will take photos of my latest buys and post later. Time to finish getting dressed for work.

Fall Feeling

Our temperature fell last night. Low was in mid '50's. That certainly will get one thinking about fall sewing. I am about to switch gears and starting to think about jackets, skirts and 3/4 and long sleeve blouses and tops.

I picked up the latest issue of Sew Stylish and fell in love with the orange jacket on the front. Mainly because of the color, I love orange shades and they work well for me. I have warm undertones so the warm colors always appeal to me.

This week at work is going to be stressful so the only sewing I will probably get done is in my head.

UFO's

First I want to thank both of the Linda's who left a response regarding second bad karma dress! I know what the issues are now for this dress. One Linda, suggested using FFRP's FBA for princess dresses. That might be the right thing to do. I know one of the issues in reviewing the altered front pieces is that I did not clearly matching up the adjustments on each piece thus part of the wonky bust fitting. The other thing is that I need more FBA than what I did originally. I should have make 2.5 inch FBA instead of 2. That 1/2 inch probably would have help along with the proper alignment of both pieces.

Instead of starting a new project at this time, I decided to complete some UFO's. One was a dress I made last year that was just to full from the back waistline down. I basted deeper seams earlier in the week for this dress and today I stitched them down and removed the previous stitches to press the new seams.

I made a jacket and a dress late spring and had not sewn the hem in the dress or the lining. I needed to attach the lining to the zipper and back split. So I did that today also. I also put up some fabrics that were in my sewing room that I know I will not be sewing them any time soon.

I also went through some of my dress patterns as I want to sew up another polka dot fabric. This dots are large and of varying colors. It is a stretch woven, perhaps stretch cotton that I purchased from Textile Studios, perhaps two years ago. I think it will make a nice transitional piece; I just need to find the right pattern. When I purchased it I thought sheath style dress, and I have to admit I keep leaning toward that. I think it will showcase the dots well.

The rest of the day I fought with a headache. I keep getting them and seem to be coming more frequently. Feeling better now.

Bad Kharma

My dress is not going well. Remember this post about the ruching/bust/etc., I added the facings and the sleeves to the dress this afternoon. I again tried on the dress and the bust area is just not going to work. This is due to the bust adjustments I made to both the front and side front pieces are just not lining up correctly. Where the seam is on the front, the bust area is "pooching" out in the upper chest area and beneath the bust it is pulling. This then causes pulling on the other side where there is no front seam. It just feels wrong moving my arms and the bust area is simply too small. Letting out the front seam along with narrower side seam allowance is just not going to work.

I continued to play around with the front seaming to no avail. I am walking away from this one. It's time like this that I think that I will go back to making wearable art purses and just embroidering t-shirts. I am truly frustrated with myself at this time. Yes, I can hear some of you saying that is why you need to make a muslin. Well this one will count as that and I know what adjustments to make if I really want to salvage this pattern for future use.

I pulled out a knit dress pattern that I have made before and perhaps I will make up a knit dress using one of my new knit fabric purchases. I need a success project to make next.

Fall Fashions and Fall Colors

I am sure many of you are starting to receive or purchase various magazines with the latest fall fashions. I have to say I am excited about sewing for fall yet I have not completed all that I wanted to do with summer sewing!

I am about finished with my dress that I started on last weekend and did not finish as I hoped. Not much to do really and once complete I am wondering what will I make next. I am thinking about making another dress using a vintage pattern I acquired sometime back. I think that the fabric and the dress will be a nice transition into fall.

With some of the recent knit fabrics I acquired I am wanting to sew up a dress or top and skirt again with transitioning into fall in mind.

I am off to sewing room now to work on dress. DH and I are having dinner with some friends this evening and I still have to pick up a few more items at the grocery store that I could not acquire at another store last night.

Later.

Vintage Simplicity

This is one of my recently acquired Vintage patterns. I acquired this from "ohsewcharmingpatterns" on Etsy. It arrived yesterday. I like the part at the bottom of the envelope that says "Look Slimmer Pattern". You need to click on the photo to actually read/see this. I like the floral version of this.

Monday evening sewing

Our office facility is undergoing some renovations and expansion. Today my office was one that is located close to some electrical/fiber optic conduit something, requiring the construction folks to drill a hole under my window, run wiring, etc. So I got to leave about an hour earlier than usual. This allowed me to return an overdue library book, go to CURVES, come home, shower and actually spend time in my sewing room.

I was able to sew up the side seams on the Vogue dress and serge finish the sleeves and sew the sleeve seams. I have a dress hanging in the sewing room that I have yet to wear since making it as it needs the back seams taken in. I decided to do that. I then tried it on and found the fit much better. I plan to wear this dress later this week.

My DH is working late thus I had time to pay some bills, complete some treasurer duties for our local ASG and cruise eBay where I purchased three more vintage patterns. One pattern I purchased was a Butterick that is a dress similar to the Simplicity pattern that I have been coveting. I have two other vintage patterns winging their way to me that I acquired from Etsy.

I feel like I have accomplished a lot just because I got an extra hour.

Vogue 8027 progresses slowly but surely

As I noted earlier, I decided to use another fabric for the dress. I am glad I did. This is sewing up well and is sturdy enough to allow removing stitches and resewing. I had hoped that I would not have to do this but adjustments were necessary.

Here is a view of the front of the dress. Note that the side seams are not sewn, casually pinned on Alma Marie.

The front of the dress has ruching/gathers that start right below the bust line and continue to below waist line. When I made a FBA, it required adjusting both front pieces. I used Sandra Betzina's method for increasing bust for princess seams. An issue here was that on the right front piece, I cut and spread between dots that are for marking where to start and stop the gathering stitches. On the left front piece, the adjustment was made above the dots and at the curve of the bust area. Because I did not relocate the dots on the right front, I gathered way to much material between dots causing fitting issues above bust and down. I had to remove the stitching and adjust the gathered area. This improved the fit through this area. I had to shorten the back darts, which normally I never do but because of other back adjustments I made, the darts made the dress a little too snug in the upper back area. Here is a close up view of the front ruching:

The gathers look better when I have the dress on that they are looking in this photo.


I ended up having to reduce the side seam allowance from 5/8 to 3/8 as the dress is really snug. I am surprised by this somewhat though I have been using size 18 from underarm to hip line in several garments. Depending on style I have had to take deeper seams when using size 18. This pattern's largest size was 16, adding two inches at bust line was okay but probably could have used a 2.5 inches adjustment.

I have to sew the side seams after basting and determining the narrower seam allowance needed. Left to complete: attaching facings, inserting sleeves and hemming.

Same Plan, Different Fabric

After visiting family in Danville, I have been in my sewing room since returning home. The Vogue dress is still in the works but decided against using the fabric originally planned. It is just too unstable without an underlining. I did not like any of the lining fabrics I had to use as there were none similar to the background color. I had some lining fabrics in colors similar to some of the flowers on the dress fabric but not enough yardage of either one.

Plus the more I handled the fabric the more I knew I did not want to use it for this dress. So I pulled out some other fabric from stash, a black with white dots on it. A purchase from last summer from JoAnn's. I had planned to make another dress from it last summer; but in trying out a new to me pattern fitting adjustment technique, I messed up the pattern and put the fabric and pattern aside.

This fabric is perhaps similair to a faille. It will not require an underlining. I don't want to add a lining either. The thickness of the fabric will work well without a lining.

With the dress pattern now cut out, I will begin sewing it tomorrow. Perhaps even finish it.

Vintage patterns

Like many others, I started buying some Vintage Patterns a few years ago. What got me into this was reading a post from Gigi about bidding on a pattern that was somehow related to "I Love Lucy". So I ventured on to eBay and found a few patterns that I bid on and won. I then found the blog-Sew Retro-and have read and seen many garments that others have made using vintage/retro patterns.

This of course has led to my finding numerous sources for these patterns besides eBay. Of course there is "Etsy" as well. I have purchased some patterns from sellers there as well. Last night, not wanting to actually sew or watch the stuff DH was watching on TV, I ventured to Etsy and ended up purchasing two more patterns. These are from the '60's.

I actually have a pattern in the sewing room now that I acquired several months or even possibly a year ago that I have picked out the fabric to make up this retro dress. Hopefully I can resume some sewing later this weekend as we have a family visit trip to Danville planned for tomorrow. This will finally get me started on the Vogue dress. Because it requires no lining and I am not going to draft one, it should be a fairly quick project.

When the patterns arrive I will try to remember to post them.

I am obsessed on finding a particular pattern, so any of you who read this and are vintage pattern collectors, if you find this pattern, Simplicity 2959, pictured below, please email me at lwl1951 dot gmail dot com.

Sewing in the City blogger has made several dresses using the pattern. I, like she, like the look of the neckline on this. Thanks for looking for me.