Wardrobe Zerg: 6 Sleeps, eek!

Whew! So today I did get most of the things on my To Do List done, although I don't have photos for all of them and will need to catch you up tomorrow or Thursday with them. I did get the whole bodice for Blue Floral made up though, and I have photos! I'm actually really happy with how it's turned out so far and I hope it ends up being as good as it promises to be.

So I evened up the facing to match the front and back panels that I'd fitted on my model I assembled the thing in about 2-3 hours, taking my time and watching The Forsyte Saga on iView, which is a well-written and very pretty period drama (if you're into that sort of thing... I doubt anyone would be surprised that I am!). Obviously the zip can't be inserted until the skirt is attached and I need to put buttons on the shoulders - for the minute I just pinned it so I could show you.

Front:

Side:

The neckline isn't sitting quite properly but I think that'll be sorted by attaching the buttons tomorrow and letting the shoulders sit more naturally - one pin in each just makes them stick out all funny. I've turned up the seam allowance to my natural waist so you can see that it sits pretty smoothly. There's about 10mm SA there currently, but I reckon that will increase to 15mm once the buttons are on the shoulders and the bodice sits properly - I'll have to remember to check it.

All in all it's sitting smoothly and comfortably without being at all tight and strained, so I'm really pleased. I'm definitely going to pleat the skirt, rather than gather it as per the pattern. I'm going to try for box pleats I think but knife pleats are an easy fall-back if there's too much skirt for box pleats to handle (which I suspect will be the case).

To finish Blue Floral:

• Understitch facing and slipstitch to secure,
• Attach buttons to shoulders, 
• Check fit for waistline,
• Run up, press and attach skirt (box/knife pleats),
• Put in the zip,
• Hem,
• Ribbon belt.

I hope it shouldn't take me more than about 2-3 hours all up to finish it, so Thursday for sure. Then on to Yellow Batiste!

Vintage Wardrobe: 7 Day Failpost

Well, basically I haven't done much today because staying up so late for the last few nights has taken it's toll and I'm azzhausted. I'm really much more of a morning person, so instead of killing myself tonight I'm heading to bed so I can get up at my normal time and kick today's goals tomorrow.

I have a 6:30pm netball game on Wednesday but hopefully I'll be able to do some stuff in the morning before work and be home from netball in time to set up for Thursday. Wednesday is also my last day of work for the year so Thursday is going to be Sew All The Things Day! And Friday, too. And Saturday. And Sunday morning. So basically I'd like to have most of the things cut out and ready to go before Thursday so I can smash them out.

Ooookay, so I typed the previous 2 paragraphs at 9pm and fell asleep on my keyboard. Wups. The general gist of the other things were that I found some good patterns on the Burda website for side-button pants and a collared blouse. I decided I'll cut down the jacket pattern and turn it into a bolero. Somehow. The silk skirt will be A-line and the linen one will be a 10-gore circle skirt. I really, REALLY want at least one hat. Preferably a sunhat. I found a pattern for gloves. O_O Yes.

Urrr, that's it. Bedbedbed. More updates tomorrow!

xxx E

Vintage Wardrobe: T-minus 8 days and counting...

So most of the sewing I did today is secret-squirrel Christmas present stuff, so I can't really share it here just yet. Sorry :( I also ran up a few of the new Christmas stockings that my mum decided to make for this year, and I promise to post a photo on Christmas Eve when they're all hung up on the mantelpiece and looking beautiful.

So, that being said I figured I needed to at least kick one goal on this project today, because there's not really enough time left for me to fall into bad habits already. I pinned together the bodice for Blue Floral and fitted it on my tailor's model. The pattern I had for it was actually a size 14 because I could only get the larger size 14-22 pattern at the time and I figured "oh bugger it, if I can fit an Elizabethan corset I can surely fit a dress bodice"... Which may or may not have been the right decision. :D

Anyway, here is what the bodice looked like after my fudged cutting down of the  bodice from a 14 to what I hoped would be about a 10 (to give me a little extra fabric in case my judgement sucked, basically):

 So, you can see it's not exactly sitting very well. Compared to the design image (here) it basically hangs like a bit of a sack. But it's oooookaaaay, since I pretty much expected it and I own a tailor's model HOORAY! They are the best and most handiest tools ever.

The main issues I can identify are: too loose across the decolletage, shoulders too wide, generally too loose, waist sitting too low (you can see the waistline mark transferred on to the fabric sitting almost an inch below my waistline where I've creased it on the model). So this is a list of the adjustments I made:

1. Lifted the whole of the bodice to bring it in at the shoulders. The back actually needed to come up a fair bit more than the front to adjust for what was probably some dodgy guesswork when cutting out the pieces. I trimmed the shoulders back down to give the 15mm seam allowance (SA). 
2. Side seams taken in by 8-10mm on each side. I left the darts as they were because I think they work pretty well and the side seams were basically vertical (i.e. the pattern pieces are even). Trimmed SA.
3. Reshaped the armscye to round it out again after taking the shoulder seams up. This an the shoulder seam adjustment fixed the problem of the front panel being too loose)
4. Trimmed the neckline on both panels to reflect the shoulder seam adjustment. Kept 15mm SA.

Here's the result:

It looks much better, don't you think? The waistline is where it should be, the pattern is fitted without being tight and all of the unnecessary wrinkles are gone. I actually took this picture halfway though trimming the front neck so you could see how I cut it away. It's not sitting perfectly but that's because it still has the SA turned up.

So now I'm happy with the way it looks, I just need to make sure the changes are reflected in the facing pieces, and I'll probably pin it on myself tomorrow to check the fit.

My To Do list for tomorrow:

• Trim facings and do a quick fitting on myself,
• Choose a colour of linen from my stash for the circle skirt. I think I've decided to do a 10-gore skirt based on McCalls 4064 (link).
• Cut out the skirts, jacket and white blouse.
• Set up my desk as a sewing table ready for sewing.
• Go to bed by 10pm.

On that note, and as it's 2246, I really should sleep. Nightnight!

Vintage Clothing Zerg: 9 SLEEPS!

Okay, 1 day down and I haven't done a whole lot... meep.

I have a confession - I already have the Aqua Print dress made. I have to finish the cummerbund that goes with it but it's really pretty much done.

So today I had Christmas things with my dad but I did manage to cut out and mark up the Yellow Batiste and Blue Floral dresses. Here are some scraps to show you what the fabric looks like:

I really wanted to get a border pattern fabric for what is now Blue Floral, but I just couldn't find any anywhere. I don't think it'll matter in the end. I think I'm going to change the pattern a little: knife-pleat the skirt (instead of gathering) and making a ribbon belt that I'll pin with a brooch if I can find something suitable (rather than another cummerbund).

These are the buttons for the shoulders of Blue Floral. I got them for a hefty 30c each at Spotlight a few months ago and stashed them. I only have eight of them, but I'll just use four on each shoulder and make it work.

Okay, so that's enough for tonight! Here's my current list:

Aqua print dress *finishing touches*

Blue floral dress *cut out/marked*

Yellow batiste dress *cut out/marked*

White lawn blouse 

Sleeveless blouse

Green collared blouse

Printed silk skirt

Linen bias-cut skirt

Cotton/linen jacket

Slacks 

Scarves

Hat

The 10-day vintage sewing zerg!

Okay, so my garb aspirations are on hold until I get myself patterned again. I'll be going to Tasmania at Christmas and until the end of January so I'm hoping I can get that sorted by someone lovely and generous while I'm there. :)

In the meantime, I've decided that I've had enough of waiting around to sew things and I'm going to use up a bunch of my fabric stash. I won't be able to take it with me when I move to Tassie (at the very least I need to shrink it), so as well as C15th stuffs I'm going to make an epic 10-day dash to make as many items of vintage clothing as I can, to clothe myself for my holiday.

I will be using A SEWING MACHINE, which I never do for historical clothing, and will hopefully make the goal achievable. I've been inspired by Vogue re-releasing some vintage sewing patters, so basically what I'm going  to make will be taken from a few different ones that I've managed to scrape together. Mostly the styles are 50s, but I'm adapting some others to flesh it out - I'm doing this for fun, after all, not authenticity.

The idea is to make a vintage wardrobe, or as much of it as I can in the time I have before Christmas. Here's my list!

• V-necked pullover dress with bias bodice (V8789) - aqua/turquoise print.
• Boat-necked pullover dress with button shoulders (V8789) - blue floral print.
• Button-down dress with yoke and front tucks (V1044) - yellow batiste.
• Blouse adapted from dress pattern (V1044) - white lawn.
• Sleeveless blouse (2694) - white cotton/linen
• Some other (probably collared blouse) - dunno what it will be or what it will be made from! Green?
• Tea-length pleated circle skirt (just making it up as I go) - olive/cream printed silk
• Solid-colour bias-cut circle skirt (also making it up) - some solid-coloured linen from my stash
• Belted jacket (2694) - white heavy cotton/linen
• Slacks (if I can find/makeshift a pattern) - black linen (which I already have) or wool (which I don't)
• 2 scarves from scraps
• A hat, maybe 2 if I have time and can find a pattern to make the process quicker.

Jesus, that looks like a lot... I wonder how much I can get done? 

Eeeee time to unwrap my new iron and gogogogogo!

P.S. If you have any patterns or links or anything that might help... please let me know! I love this kind of crazy fun zoomy sewing, and I really hope it'll make the interminible 10 days until Christmas/my first holiday in 3 years/ OMG TASMANIA go that much more quickly. *zooms*