Pineapple completed

Having, finally, decided on a design for my pineapple dress I went to cut it out - and made a discovery about the fabric.

It naturally curled when folded over

The selvedge was very tightly woven, to the extent that it actually puckered. Fortunately, just snipping the selvedge at fairly close intervals fixed the problem and caused it to lay flat.

I wanted to match the pattern on the skirt centre back seam, as I felt that such a bold design would look terrible if it didn't align. I cut one piece, and traced round various fruits and flowers in the seam allowance.

The tracing is just visible here

Then I flipped the pattern over, and used these tracings to place it correctly on the fabric for the other piece. I'm pretty pleased with the way it worked out.

Good match!

The bodice back slopes down the centre seam, so pattern matching isn't possible. Instead, I cut the pieces out so that pattern flows across it. Similarly I made sure that obvious elements such as the pineapples and oranges are at the same height round the skirt. I took particular care placing the bodice front pattern piece - I didn't want a pair of pineapples in 'interesting' positions!

It dawned on me that in all the examples I had seen, the contrast element of the bodice has a top edge which is pretty much straight across, whereas mine curves up at the outer edges. I experimented with a mock-up, and decided that I preferred my version. Such are the advantages of making your own clothes! I completely forgot to take any progress shots, but it was built up on an interfaced inner layer. The two pieces for the outer layer were sewn in place along the top edge, then the excess fabric was pleated and stitched down. Finally the inner and outer layers were overlocked together along the lower outside edge. The insert is just hand sewn in place, and I am considering making at least one more in a different fabric.

The completed bodice

The skirt is quite full, and there's a lot to hem. Fortunately I remembered that on a day trip to a meeting in London last autumn I had found time to pop into MacCulloch and Wallis (because of course I did!) and bought, among other things, these.

I had wanted these for ages

The bottom item is a kakehari or 'third hand'. The clamp is screwed onto something solid, such as a table, the kakehari is attached to this, and then it holds the fabric in place so you can tension it with one hand and sew with the other.

In action, albeit the wrong way round for most people

Because I am left-handed, I sewed with my left hand and held the fabric taut with my right. It made the job much easier, and quicker.

And here is the finished dress, complete with matching belt.

The 'fruits' of my labour (sorry not sorry)

#sewnshownseated

Naturally, a dress with large pineapples on it need to be accessorised with a pair of pineapple earrings! These are from a shop called Digger, in Edinburgh. It first opened when I used to live up there, forty-plus years ago, and I always pop in when I'm back. I was delighted to spot the earrings on one trip, as I knew that they would be perfect with this dress - if I ever made it!

Digger has always looked like this

The stashometer meanwhile remains in the red, but slightly less than before.

Better, but still not good

I need to get sewing with some of those fabrics on the left column if I'm going to get anywhere close to stash-neutral.

Pierre Balmain

My desire to take my time and create a well-made garment which will last is clearly greater than my desire to participate in a sewing challenge! The pineapple dress is coming on nicely, but definitely won't be finished for tomorrow's deadline for SewFruity2025. And I'm fine with that. It does, however, leave me in need of a blog post subject. So as this project is the second time that I've taken inspiration from a Pierre Balmain dress, I thought I'd explore some more of his designs.

Balmain to the rescue for bodice ideas

Unusually for the founder of a couture house, the only publication solely about him seems to be his autobiography. Nor could I find any references to exhibitions of his work. In fact, it turned out that viewings at Kerry Taylor Auctions were probably where I had seen his pieces most often.

This circa 1947-48 black wool crepe day/dinner dress was my favourite item in the very first viewing that I went to, back in December 2014.

I still love this

Then of course, a year later I saw the Holly Dress.

The inspiration for my most ambitious project ever

Other pieces I have seen at Kerry Taylor, in date order, are these.

Beaded dress, 1954

Medallions dress, 1955

Tricolour dress, 1955

Wrapped silk dress, 1957

Tricolour dress, late 1950s

I would love to have a go at making most of these. In fact, I have kept all the close-up images of the medallions dress - just in case! However, if I do want a Balmain dress then an easier way of doing it would almost certainly be via one of the Vogue Paris Original patterns which I own.

Vogue Paris Original 2654, 1971

Vogue Paris Original 1857, 1987

Not that I'm short of other projects to do, but that's never stopped me!

Pineapple progress

64 months is nowhere close to the longest time that a dress length has sat in my stash (that dubious honour goes to the anemone dress), but this project has frequently felt like The Dress That Didn’t Want To Be Made. My first plan for this fabric never felt quite right. Then I found some plain cotton which was perfect for adding some kind of contrast section, but I got distracted by another project and it was sidelined again. Not even the fact that I already had a zip of the exact length and colour required - a dressmaking miracle - could coax me into action.

Lack of materials was not the problem

But then @blossomsandwich announced that she is running her SewFruity challenge again this year, and this prompted me to finally get on with things.

The challenge

Since I last abandoned this project in 2023, I had found this image online, and decided that I wanted to make something similar, with the plain fabric on the bust.

Inspiration 2.0

However, it was impossible to find any suitable patterns. There are a few modern and repro designs for shelf dresses, but none of them have sleeves. I have Simplicity 1155 (now out of print), but not only is it sleeveless, to me it seems greatly changed from the original design. To add insult to injury, Laura Mae of Lilacs & Lace had tracked down the original pattern, and discovered that it did have a short-sleeved option!

So many questions

The whole thing was in danger of being shelved (pun intended) yet again, when I found this image.

Pierre Balmain, 1955

Here the shaped, plain, section is far more part of the overall dress shape than on the shelf dresses. It is also something which could be achieved from my original plan of using a bodice made from my Butterick 5748/Simplicity 3662 mash-up. I made a toile from some of the leftovers from my 2020 scrubs making (I've still got lots left!), without the neckline shaping on the bodice front, and set to work.

The shoulders needed flattening a little.

With the original neckline marked in yellow

Once I was happy with the fit, I put it on, and drew on the neckline I wanted. Unfortunately, black pen lines on blue fabric didn't show up well enough to trace them onto the tissue pieces. So I machine sewed over the lines with white thread. This provided a better contrast, and also a slight ridge which was easy to follow when tracing.

The new neckline

The pattern piece for the contrast section is a striking shape.

From Balmain to Batman?

I now have all my pattern pieces drawn and have started cutting out a dress. I don’t know whether I'll get it completed in time to submit it for the challenge on 30 June but at least it's, finally, on the way to being made.

Second time lucky

I'm pretty sure that this is a first, not just for the blog, but for my dressmaking in general. Since I started vintage dressmaking, I've made up several patterns from the late 1970s, and re-acquired a number of patterns from that era which I had disposed of in various clear-outs. But until now, I had never made up a pattern which I had made previously, when it was 'new'.

Step forward, Style 2703, from 1979.

I think I previously made this in the very early 80s

I made view 2 and it wasn't a success, which was entirely due to poor fabric choice. Unusually for me, I can't remember the exact fabric I used, but I do recall that it was a cotton, and too thick and stiff for the gathers and ties at the shoulder.

Despite this, when I saw the pattern on eBay, I snapped it up to add to my 'Style 1979' collection. I didn't have any immediate plans to make it up, but when I found the crinkle viscose just visible above in the remnant bin of my local fabric shop, I knew that it would be a perfect match.

Resizing the pattern was easy; there is no shaping, so I just had to make it wider and move the pockets up a little. The front and the back are identical apart from the necklines, which meant that I could draft the front only, and add an overlay for the back neckline.

The main pieces, and the all-important pocket

The pattern pieces are for view 1, and the 7cm/2¾" 'sleeves' are removed for view 1. However, I've found that I greatly prefer the longer shoulder seam of Vogue 2787 to sleeveless dresses which end on the shoulder, which view 2 of 2703 appears to do.

Vogue 2787's extended shoulders

My solution was to keep to view 1 at the top, but taper to view 2 at the side seam. This gives me extra length at the shoulder, without the gathers ending up looking meagre.

My pattern alteration

I also cut the dress out as long as I could make it, partly for preference and partly to get maximum use from the remnant. The shoulder ties were cut from the plain mustard section of the print.

After posting last week that I never found errors in the instructions of my vintage patterns, it was probably inevitable that I would find - well, not an error exactly, but something odd. The dress pieces have extensions at the bottom, which form the facings of the side vents. But these are just folded back and then hemmed; there is nothing to keep the top of the facing in place, in the way that you would secure the top of a skirt vent. So I hand sewed the top of the facing to the dress with small stitches, to ensure that it hangs properly.

Really?

I made a tie belt out of leftover fabric, and I have an off-white leather purchased belt which will work with the dress as well. But I had a vague memory of owning a belt with a scallop shell clasp in the late 70s/early 80s, and thought that something similar would look ideal on this dress. So I went online, and struck gold (well, gold plated). I found a belt clasp in exactly the style I wanted, by Mimi Di N jewellery. Even better, Mimi di Niscemi dated her pieces, and this one was from 1979! The belt is made from cotton twill tape, and perfectly matches my original idea.

One half of the dated clasp

The completed belt

I'm very pleased with the end result, and can see it becoming my go-to hot weather dress.

Much better than my first attempt

There's not a lot to show in the seated shot, except how windy it was when I was taking the photos!

#sewnshownseated

As I bought fabric specifically for this project, there's no reduction on the stashometer, either.

2.9m in, 2.9m out

However, a successful make from a pattern which didn't work out previously has got me thinking about other past failures, and how they might be fixed. Hmmm.

The end of an era?

I must admit that I feel a bit of a hypocrite posting about this, as I can't remember when I last bought a 'Big 4' (Butterick, McCall's, Simplicity and Vogue) pattern which was actually in print at the time. Nonetheless, the news in this article that the brands have been sold to a liquidator came as a shock.

Patterns from the Big 4

All four brands have been part of the same company since 2017, and it's a sign of the decline in home sewing that the deal to bring together the McCall Pattern Company (Butterick, McCall's and Vogue) and Simplicity Creative Group was too small to be investigated as a potential monopoly. The company also owns other brands which are not sewing-related but manufacture a lot of their products in China, and the impact of tariffs seems to have been part of the parent group's decision to sell the whole company. The failure of Joann stores, which accounted for a large part of pattern sales in the US, was another factor.

Of course, the fact that the pattern companies have been sold to a liquidator doesn't mean that they will definitely close down; a buyer may be found. But whether all four brands will continue is another matter. Looking on the UK website, it's hard (for me, at least) to discern any different aesthetic or targeted market between them, and the mishmash of different typefaces and layouts on the same brand doesn't help. If a buyer does come forward, then some sort of consolidation seems inevitable.

It's all a bit of a mess

Online at least, there is no shortage of people decrying the Big 4's patterns. Common complaints are that the instructions assume a certain amount of sewing knowledge, and that both pattern and instructions frequently contain errors. I can't comment on the first of these as obviously I do have that knowledge. When I did use modern patterns though, I'd become resigned to finding at least one mistake in them - something which never occurs with my older patterns. There is also the view, which I do share, that many of the designs are just not that appealing. And for long-time sewists who have acquired a reasonable pattern stash (like me!), most of what appears in the pattern catalogues could be made from a pattern we've already got, with a little adaptation.

I’m aware that tastes and fashions change, and many people nowadays prefer indie patterns and PDFs. Certainly, amid the concern in the online forums, there are a fair number of comments to the effect that it's no loss and people need to move on. But not everyone is able, or wants, to print out their patterns at home. I certainly don't, and where I live the print shop option is too expensive to be something I'd use regularly. Realistically, the loss of the Big 4 would have very little effect on me as I almost always use older patterns and have the skills to draft my own if necessary. But I do worry about possible reduced footfall to my local fabric shop if people can no longer buy patterns there.

There is undoubtedly an element of nostalgia in my view of the Big 4 (plus, of course, my beloved Style patterns). Memories of all those times I bought fabric and a pattern together for a new project, read through the instructions on the bus or train home, started it as soon as I got in - and several hours later had a part-completed garment and a very rumbling stomach! Having to assemble a PDF pattern first just wouldn't be the same. But it's not just that. To me, tissue patterns are part of the range of options available to the sewing community, and their end would be a definite loss. I very much hope that they (and, of course, their wonderful archives) can be saved in some form.

Sea of Glamour

Sea of Glamour, which I went to see this week, is a photographic exhibition marking 185 years since Cunard's first transatlantic crossing in 1840. It combines images from the Cunard archives, some of which have never been on display before, with photographs contributed by Cunard passengers.

On board Queen Elizabeth, 1960s

Slightly confusingly for anyone who knows Liverpool, it's not being held in the Cunard Building, but in the Royal Liver Building next door.

At the start of the exhibition

Close-up of the photo mosaic

Smaller photos around the walls

And larger ones on banners in the centre

Unfortunately, I have to say that this is not the most rigorously curated exhibition I've ever been to, certainly in terms of captioning. Some details are listed as 'unknown' when the information is clearly visible in the photograph, and some are just wrong. This photograph taken on the Queen Mary is listed as 1940s but, nerd that I am, I spotted that the bedcovers are made from Lucienne Day's 'Calyx' fabric, which first went into production in 1951.

A stateroom on Queen Mary, not in the 1940s

Admittedly that's a very niche detail to notice, but how anyone could think that this photograph was taken in 1914 is beyond me.

Pure thirties glamour on Aquitania

Leaving that aside, here are some of the photos which caught my eye, in (according to the captions) chronological order.

Tug-of-war competition on Carmania, 1924

Actor Tom Mix rides his horse off Aquitania, 1925

Passengers on the promenade deck of Queen Mary, 1930s

On board Aurania 1938-39

Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary were converted into troopships during World War II. After the war, the latter was used to transport war brides and their children to the US and Canada, before being refitted for commercial use.

War brides en route to a new life, 1946

Taking a stroll on deck, also 1946

Queen Mary in the 1950s (when smoking while eating was perfectly normal!)

Colour! Queen Mary, 1950s

The same people, now dancing

More dining on Queen Mary, 1964

Playing chess on Caronia, 1960s

The exhibition also includes some photographs of crew members.

Senior telephonist on board Caronia, 1950s

Stewardesses on Queen Elizabeth

The large banners display photographs submitted by passengers, along with their stories.

A family dinner on Queen Elizabeth, 1955

Naturally, I was attracted to the older images, but one contemporary photo did interest me. Queen Mary 2 has an annual (I think) crossing which recreates the golden age of liner travel. There's a band on board, and guests dress in period clothing. As someone who can get seasick on the Mersey Ferry, the idea of several days at sea crossing an ocean fills me with horror, but I must admit that this looks like fun.

By the pool on Queen Mary 2, 1923

Despite my quibbles, I did very much enjoy Sea of Glamour. It is free to visit in the Royal Liver Building until 17 June, and then sets sail around the world on board the Cunard fleet.