Pattern haul

I am actually doing some sewing (yay!) as well as some knitting, but nothing is advanced enough to merit a post. So instead, here's something I bought at auction a while ago, and forgot to blog about.

A suitcase full of old patterns!

The auction also included a lot of beautifully constructed clothes made by the lady who owned these patterns; she was clearly a talented seamstress. She also made clothes for other people, which may explain the variety of pattern sizes.

The collection includes five 'high end' Vogue patterns.

Vogue Paris Originals by Nina Ricci and Patou

Vougue Couturier from 1958/59

1970s designer patterns from Ireland and America

As well as these, there are a number of 'ordinary' Vogue patterns, including ones for day dresses, nightclothes, and eveningwear. (I'm not showing all the patterns, just a few from each brand.)

Day, night, and evening by Vogue

Like me, the owner of these patterns was clearly a dress fan. There are very few patterns for separates.

Simplicity - red dresses from the 1950s and 1960s

The Butterick patterns include a fitting shell, and some half sizes.

Butterick from 1957 to 1971

There are no McCalls patterns, but several from British brands Maudella and Weldons.

The Maudella patterns are also 1960s-1970s

The Weldons patterns are mostly for underwear

Happily for me there is also a good selection of my favourite brand, Style.

Style Print patterns

1970s-does-1940s, and 1970s-does-1970s

The 1980 pattern is the most recent in the collection

The previous owned may have sewed beautifully, but the way she stored her patterns was rather haphazard - several have the tissue pieces bunched up into a ball and shoved into the pattern envelope! It's going to take me a while to sort them all out properly.

This year's dressmaking efforts - doubled!

I've actually finished something - yay! My cotton lawn Simplicity 4463 is complete. Unfortunately, after several days of sunshine today was very cloudy, so it was hard to get decent photos. The fabric isn't nearly as washed-out as it looks here.

Done!

I have made so many versions of this pattern and its reissue, Simplicity 1777, that there isn't much more to say. This one has a zip fasten rather than a placket, and the V-neck front. In the end, my version of the V-neck turned out so small that I would struggle to get the dress on over any sort of up-do, but at the same time I wouldn’t want to make the V any lower! Any future iteration might require a small back opening.

Because the fabric is so fine, I faced the front section with plain white lawn so that the pattern wouldn't show through. I interfaced the facing, and now wish that I hadn't - it makes the centre front section rather stiff, and prone to bulging out a bit.

The problem with the neckline

There is, as ever, a pocket. As with the previous version, I placed it slightly lower to avoid the hip curve. The front of the pocket bag was also made from plain lawn.

Pocketses (well, one pocket)

As well as being more accurate to the 1940s, the plainer skirt of 4463 feels easier to sit in than the heavily pleated version of 1777. It's also far easier to iron!

#sewnshownseated

And that’s it, apart from the update to the Stashometer. I can't believe that it's August and I've only just completed a second dress for the year.

Stash-neutral status is within reach!

A new Style Patterns find

My love of Style patterns is well-documented on this blog, so when I found this counter catalogue for sale I couldn't resist. It only arrived recently, so haven't yet had time to look at it in detail. It seems to have been issued in December (but contains an oddly high number of sleeveless dresses, possibly to be used as party frocks?), but despite combing the front and back sections for small print, I've been unable to find a year. My guess is late 1950s.

With 6" ruler for scale

Style pattern envelopes were still only black and white at the time, but the catalogue is almost all in colour. The only monochrome images are of the pattern envelopes of the new releases.

Six of the new pattern issues

The other three

I have the pattern featured on the cover. The bodice darts, an important part of the design from a dressmaking point of view, are barely visible on the envelope art but far more clear in the catalogue illustration.

Comparison

I wonder how many people made the version of this dress with the massive collar?

Dramatic, but potentially very annoying!

Some, but not all, of the patterns include a schematic of the pattern pieces.

With schematics

There is a fairly even split between designs with very straight and very full skirts.

Straight

Full

While most illustrations are on plain white, some have a brief sketch of background.

Simple outlines of a chair and fireplace

As someone whose local fabric shop sells a lot of remnants, I really liked the idea of these patterns.

Patterns for remnants - ooh!

There are lots of things I want to look at in more detail, but that’s it for now.

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!

Riviera dress progress

I start my course next week, so have been busy preparing for that. I have found time to inch a little further forward on my Riviera dress, though, adding the zip and neck facing. I did the zip first because the neckline felt a tiny bit baggy at the back (a common problem for me), so I took the back seam in slightly at the top. Once I was happy with the fit, I attached the facing and trimmed off the excess.

The dress on Nancy

In theory, that should be the dress almost finished, with only the hem and understitching the facing left to do. But when I tried it on, I wasn't convinced.

Please excuse the atrocious mirror shot

A quick glance at the Vintage and Contemporary gallery pages of this blog will show that I don't shy away from bold prints, but overall this one just feels too busy. Possibly it's the lack of a belt - there's no plain contrast area to give the eye a moment to rest. Then I remembered this pattern in my collection, from three years earlier.

Butterick 8131, 1957

It has a similar bodice with grown-on sleeves, and I really like the neckline treatments of views B and C. Time to experiment with something similar.

New (to me) patterns

All sorts of problems and distractions have prevented me from doing any sewing this week, so instead here's a short post about my latest vintage pattern acquisitions.

First up is this Style pattern.

Style 1451

I'm getting increasingly fond of late 1950s/early 1960s 'Style print' patterns, and am building up a bit of a collection - you can see some of them here. What attracted me to this one was the view A illustration. I have a remnant of blue and grey plaid in my stash which is quite similar, and it struck me that this might be a good use for it.

I have no current plans for this DuBarry pattern, I just liked it.

DuBarry 1658, 1937

According to A History of the Paper Pattern Industry, DuBarry patterns were sold exclusively in Woolworths stores and produced for Woolworths by Simplicity. The DuBarry patterns I own were all printed in Canada, and most have the UK price shown on a stick-on label. This is the first one I've come across with the price given in both U.S. cents and British old pence.

What can I say about my final pattern? I've posted many times in this blog about my love of the 1940s revival styles from the late 70s/early 80s, and nothing can shift my fondness for a (subtly) defined shoulder. But this, well this is something else.

Hollywood 1516

Despite what has been written on the envelope, both Blueprints of Fashion and the Commercial Pattern Archive date this pattern to 1945. The, ahem, remarkable shoulder feature is described in the pattern pieces as a "flange", and is set into the side-front seam at the front and the sleeve seam at the back.

Pattern pieces and back view

I don't think that Hollywood patterns (a budget offshoot of Vogue) were ever sold in the UK. Certainly this pattern, with its ornamental buttons, multiple seams, deep pleats, and associated hefty fabric usage, would have contravened the CC41 clothing regulations.

Yardages for bust sizes of 28" to 36"

Resizing it to fit me would be quite an undertaking, but I am tempted to try. Probably view three, though. It may be the red and black, but I'm getting distinct Flash Gordon vibes from those flanges - and that's not a look I need in my wardrobe!

The right tool for the job

I have picked up my long-neglected Riviera dress again. Even with a very unseasonal September heatwave, it isn't going to get any wear this summer, but I do want to finish it rather than leave it languishing as a UFO over the winter.

Not really a mid-September dress

Having completed the bodice, the next stage was another new technique, the corded piping detail at the waist seam. The pattern calls for ⅛" wide cording, but none of the piping cords in my local fabric shop were anywhere close to that thick. Instead I got some soft white cotton cord - and gave it a good soak in boiling water to pre-shrink it.

⅛" is surprisingly chunky

I don't think that I've ever put piping on a garment before. The closest was the blind piping, i.e. without cord, on my 1930s wrapover pinny (which, incidentally, has proved to be a very useful garment and gets a lot of wear), which I made and applied with guesswork.

The instructions are to wrap the cord in a bias strip of fabric, sew this down with a cording foot, then baste the cord to the bodice and finally sew bodice and skirt together.

It looks so simple!

I didn't have a cording foot, so I used a narrow, hinged, adjustable zipper/cording foot, which seemed like a good substitute.

First attempt

Reader, it did not go well. Despite my careful adjusting of the foot position, the stitches came out some distance from the cord. When I tried pushing the whole thing closer to the needle, I frequently sewed through the cord itself.

Happily for me, I then found an actual cording foot on ebay. Singer clearly made cording feet to go to the left of the right of the cord, and this was a left toe model.

Second attempt

I unpicked my mangled stitching, and tried again with my new toy. Perfection! Sadly, I didn't think to take a photograph.

I basted the covered cord onto the bodice, then made up the skirt. I had followed Tasha's excellent pattern-matching tutorial when cutting out the skirt backs, and was really pleased with the end result.

Pattern matched joy!

When it came to sewing the waist seam, I had a problem. Because my cording foot is left-toed, all the fabric has to go to the right of the needle, and with a bodice and a full skirt, that's a lot of material. So I convinced myself that it was either the narrowness or the hinged nature of the zipper foot which had caused the problem, and sewed the seam with a wide, rigid, adjustable zipper/cording foot.

Third attempt

This did not go well, either. Again, the stitching was some way out from the cord, which meant that the stitching which held the fabric round the cord was visible, and the whole thing looked a mess. There was nothing for it but to try again with the cording foot. Fortunately, because I was sewing on Tilda, my 66K treadle, there was ample space for all the fabric.

Sure enough, the cording foot did the job.

Ta-dah!

I think that the secret lies in the shape of the foot. Whereas the adjustable feet have straight edges, this foot curves out towards the notch for the needle, which seems to push the cord closer to the line of sewing.

The right side has a definite curve

When I looked for the Simanco part number, I noticed that the foot was made in the USA. I wonder if they were only made in America?

Part 15429, the 'U' of 'USA' is just visible

Either way, the hunt is now on for a right toe version. This is clearly an extra foot worth having!