Old and new

I'm combining a new-to-me method with some tried and trusted favourites.

My big worktable on which I do my cutting out is temporarily out of commission, so I'm having to use my dining table instead. Obviously, this gets used for lots of things, and if I want to do any cutting out, I have to clear it first. So to minimise the time spent clearing things off and putting things back, I have decided to try batch cutting. The intention is to cut out the pieces for three separate dresses at once, and then sew them.

My starting point

I know that lots of people do this, possibly for the reason for which I'm giving it a go, but I have never tried it before. Given my fondness for squirrel projects, I have always been worried that I will end up with multiple cut-out but unsewn projects lying around. So I will have to be disciplined for once, and actually do the projects I have planned!

To improve the (limited) chances of this actually happening, I am sticking with patterns which I have used before and which I therefore know I can make reasonably easily and quickly. Like the Grace dress, the existing versions are all in heavy rotation in my wardrobe.

First up, Simplicity 4463. I have found that I greatly prefer this, with its simpler skirt, to its reissue version 1777.

The original illustration

It's very much a winter dress however, made in a thick, slightly fluffy, cotton. I decided that I want a summer version as well, and I am going to use a cotton lawn which has been in my stash for a while. I originally had other plans for it, but decided that it would be perfect for this project. As a slight change, I am going to make view 1, albeit all in the same fabric.

The original plan

Butterick 2535 is another easy-to-wear 1940s dress which gets a lot of use. (My taste seems to be moving away from full-skirted dresses, and I don't think that it's just because of all the ironing involved!)

I haven't decided on sleeves, yet

For this I'm using a cotton print which is, gasp, not blue! I rarely wear brown, so I'm not entirely sure how this will turn out, but I do need to try other colours occasionally.

Another fabric bought because I liked the print

Finally, Style 1271. I don't feel that view C of this has really worked. I don't know exactly what the problem is, but it just feels frumpy. It has been put aside while I consider how to tweak it. View B, however, always gets compliments when I wear it.

My versions of B and C turned out very differently

I wasn't really planning to make another one of these, but then I spotted this remnant, which I thought would be perfect. The stripes are across the fabric, but I will cut it out with the stripes running lengthwise.

Jaunty!

It's going to be a challenge to cut out, as there isn’t a lot of fabric. At least that has limited the damage to the Stashometer.

It was going quite well!

I must admit that even I am dubious about how well batch cutting will work for me, but here goes!

Another Style 1571 - view C

January is never a particularly fun month, but this last one has felt particularly hard - I have really struggled to do anything. But it's February now (yay!), and I have finished my first make of the year (more yay!).

When I made 1571 for the first time, it was very much as a wearable toile in order to get the fit right. This time I made view C, which has plain, longer, sleeves and a more scooped out neckline.

Making the middle view this time

It's made from the probably early 1960s fabric which I bought at the Festival of Vintage last year. I had to cut it out with more than usual care - partly because I had limited yardage, but also to to make sure that I didn't end up with 'boob jewels'!

There were only scraps of the fabric left

Once that danger had been avoided, it was a very straightforward make. This time I cut the back pleat from the same fabric as the rest of the dress. The belt is unusually narrow, because I found a buckle which was an ideal match, colour-wise, but was only small. I added belt loops to both sides of the bodice (behind the zip on the right side), to keep it in place. One of the joys of using a vintage fabric was that it had a proper woven selvedge, not the fluffy mess that you get now, so there was no need to turn in the edge when covering the belt.

Neat and easy finish on the back of the belt

And here is the completed dress. (I'm getting worryingly fond of a beehive hairstyle!)

It was actually warm and bright enough to tale pictures outside!

A retro look for #sewnshownseated

The dress goes perfectly with these 1960s shoes which I bought from Carnivale Vintage in Edinburgh last year. I rarely find vintage shoes in my size, so when I discovered that this black satin Rayne pair was a really comfortable fit, I snapped them up. Even better, the label states that they were "Made expressly for Jenners".

Fabulous shoes

Finally, when I was cutting out the fabric I knew that the colour scheme of pink, yellow and turquoise/blue on a dark background reminded me of something, but I couldn't quite think what. Then it dawned on me - liquorice allsorts! So of course, I had to do an homage to Bertie Bassett.

The blue lace for the 'veil' was the only thing I had to buy for this ensemble!

Style 1271 - part 2, view B completed

Big hair, who dis?

What can I say? It's a bit of a different look for me!

I've finished Style 1271 - my first version, but definitely not my last. There are a few things I still want to tweak, but this was meant to be a wearable toile, and I'm pretty happy with it.

As I hinted in part one, the cuffs were a bit of a struggle. For one, the pattern piece didn't match the instructions - never a good start. The pattern only has an overlap section, which is not sewn to the sleeve, at one end. However, the instructions show overlap sections at both ends.

Cuff pattern, with overlap on the left . . .

. . . but the instructions show overlaps at both ends

My guess is that the pattern was changed at some point in the development process, but either the instruction sheet or the pattern piece wasn't updated.

The next issue was that whereas a modern pattern would probably have a notch to match the cuff to the sleeve and a dot to indicate where the cuff should match the sleeve seam, this pattern has the notch only. So it's entirely possible to attach the cuff the wrong way round. Which, of course, I did!

Once I had fixed that, I machined the cuff to the sleeve right sides together and slip-stitched the underside, as normal. Except that I hadn't taken into account that the cuffs are folded back, so now the stitching shows! Only a tiny amount, but enough to annoy me.

Grrrr!

All in all, the cuffs had me entirely bamboozled. Fortunately everything else was fairly plain sailing. The skirt has a back pleat with separate under panel, so just to add a bit of interest I made that from the same fabric as the cuffs. I also managed to pattern-match the centre back seam.

Contrast at the back of the pleat

The buckle for the belt has fairly narrow slots, and I was worried that once I had attached one end of the belt to the centre section, there wouldn't be enough space for the other end to pull through. So, I only used a single layer of buckram for the section which wraps around the buckle. This made it far more pliable, and left enough room for the buckle to be usable - phew.

Narrow buckle, but it worked

I couldn't find any buttons I liked for the cuffs (what else is new?), so instead I went through my button box for two plain, flat buttons, mismatched but the same size. I covered them in scraps of the patterned fabric wrong (domed) side out, and sewed them on round the edges of the fabric.

Cuff 'button'

When it came to taking pictures of the finished dress, I wasn't sure what to do with my hair. Then I noticed that the lady in blue on the pattern envelope seemed to have some sort of bouffant up-do, and off I went! It came together far better than I had hoped, and was great fun. Admittedly the back didn't bear scrutiny, but for photos that didn't matter.

Posing like the pattern model

With handbag

And one more, because I was having so much fun!

I even remembered to wear one of my many brooches! Plus, a fabulous pair of earrings from Loved And Loved Again, which are a perfect match.

Jewellery

Due to the weather mostly being too hot-or-cold-or-wet to sit outside, I've never got round to putting the outdoor chairs in the yard. So for the seated shot I had to perch on the meter cupboard - oh, the glamour!

#sewnshownseated

This is the first entirely new item that I've completed for months. For once, the Stashometer can be updated in the right direction.

Still a long way to go

Now I just need to create a record all the pattern alterations I made, and I'm good to go with Style Print patterns.

Style 1271 - part one, laying foundations

There wasn't an opportunity to do a fitting session on my black dress with Mum this week, so instead I've started (yet) another unscheduled project!

New project

Back views

I want to use views A and C of this pattern with two lengths of vintage fabric which I've got. Obviously, with both of these I have limited yardage and no room for error. So my new project is to iron out any possible issues by making a wearable toile of the pattern, using some cotton print fabric which has been in my stash for ages.

The original plan was to make a very basic version of view C, with plain short sleeves and a tie belt, a quick and easy project - ha! (When will I ever learn that such a thing doesn't exist in my world?) Then I remembered that I still had some of the plain green cotton I'd used for the lining of my sewing bag and my 1950s Butterick top. It turned out to be a perfect match, so the plan was amended plan to view B, with contrast cuffs.

Such a good match

Amazingly, I found a buckle of suitable size and colour in my buckle box - well, it seemed rude not to use it. So now a proper belt has been added to the project.

And the perfect buckle, too

For someone who doesn't much like 1960s fashions, I seem to have quite a few late 50s/early 60s Style patterns in my collection.

Patterns I have definite plans for . . .

. . . and ones I just liked . . .

. . . and more

As I have so many 'Style Print' patterns, and as this dress is such a simple design with no complicated shapes, I decided to use it as a 'fitting shell'. Most of the big pattern brands issued fitting shell patterns; a very basic design based on the pattern sloper from which all their other patterns were derived. The idea was that a dressmaker could use this shell to identify what fitting alterations they required, and then apply these to all patterns from that brand rather than having to fit each new pattern from scratch.

Vogue fitting shell pattern

Progress has been slow, as I have to stop and check the fit after every step, but I think that the exercise will prove worthwhile. I have already established that both the shoulder width and the shoulder angle for these patterns need to be changed. In fact, the shoulder could be made slightly narrower still, but as this is just a wearable toile, I'm leaving this version as it is.

Progress so far

The cuff proved surprisingly complicated, but that's a story for another time.