never judge a pattern by the cover....

Don't we all just love vintage patterns with their glorious illustrations? Problem is, I bet many of us have been fooled by them too - the garments never quite turn out like the illustration, and in some cases look completely different.  This has happened to me several times before, so really I shouldn't have been surprised, nor annoyed.....

Anna had been invited to a rainbow themed birthday party, and of course she demanded a new dress because unfortunately I think I've created a little fashion monster who thinks getting a new dress every week is the norm.  But I happened to have purchased some Lisette fabric bought from Spotlight during the January sale earlier this year that she liked, so I was able to oblige.  It is described as sateen, but it's quite thin like a poly-cotton voile, which would be perfect for a twirly dress style that she likes best.

I also let her pick out the pattern which she just loved doing since I've transferred all my scanned pattern covers to my Ipad so she just had to flick through them.  The hardest part was settling on one pattern, but in the end she chose vintage Style 1485 from the 1970s that I hadn't used before:

I always like using an unused pattern from the stash, and I've had good results from Style patterns before so I went for it.  I did the necessary measurements, sewed it up and finished it last Tuesday while both she and Toby were at daycare and had it ready and waiting for her to try it on when she got home Tuesday afternoon.    I congratulated myself on another productive day.  I then spent part of Wednesday unpicking it all.  Sigh.....

The completed dress looks ok on the hanger, but on Anna it may as well have been a wine barrel - it was really wide and really short.  In fact I think it may have been as wide as it is long.  I know the fashion for little kids in the 1970s was for short dresses, and I also know that Anna is exceptionally tall for her age (above the 100th percentile in the growth charts), but this dress barely covered her butt when standing and if she lifted her arms up the dress rose enough to show off her Dora underwear which is not so classy.

I didn't have enough fabric left to add another layer, so instead I decided to add contrasting layers in a solid colour in between.  However life intervened and it's still all in pieces in my sewing room.  But it didn't really matter in the end because it just wasn't to be a party dress.

Last Thursday, after his first 3 days at daycare, Toby got terribly sick with some virus and spent hours vomiting continuously for most of the day and evening.  We ended up in the emergency department at the wonderful Concord hospital (the staff in there are so lovely) for him to be re hydrated, which luckily they were able to do with medicine and he didn't need a drip.  In fact he perked up quickly and has been fine since.  We got home from the hospital at about 1.30am on Friday morning, and by 5.30am I was doing my best impersonation of Toby the previous day.  By Friday afternoon Anna joined in the fun too.  My husband who is proud of his iron guts constitution managed to hold out until Saturday night before he too succumbed.

So that is pretty much the whole weekend wasted, and I can't even say that all that bed rest and couch time has left me well rested.  Worst of all I missed meeting up with everyone who went along to the second Sydney sewists meet up as I had planned to on Saturday afternoon.  But there is always next time!

And now a mound of washing awaits me tomorrow, but on the bright side the kids are well enough to go back to daycare - whatever doesn't kill makes you stronger, right?!

1970s - love or hate?

The 70s is often described as the decade that style forgot, but after a bit of googling and reviewing my sewing patterns I realise that I actually quite like a fair bit of the 70s look.  Not the flares or wide collars or puffy shoulders, but the suiting, shirt style dresses and wrap dresses are right up my alley.  In fact I think the 90s is the decade that style forgot since the fashion was so bland, and the 80s is the decade we all should forget (and not revive) because it was just so awful and embarrassing for everyone involved.

We were invited out to the races and picnic day in Orange, a beautiful regional town about 4 hours west of Sydney, for a 40th birthday party.  Perfect opportunity for me to wear one of my under utilised  beautiful frocks and hats and generally dress up as one does (or should do) for the races.   Sadly though this group of my husband's friends just love the themed dress up party - the last big party we went to was an Elvis and Priscilla theme.  Ever seen a Chinese Elvis? 

The funniest thing about that photo is not my husband wearing an Elvis costume (made out of some white overalls bought from an op shop with triangle godets sewn in to make flares) but the fact that we were staying in a very fancy hotel and got quite a lot of amused/horrified looks from the other guests in the lobby whilst we tried to hail a taxi!

Anyway the theme for this weekend was the 70s.  As I said in the last post I was planning to try to embarrass my husband as much as possible, and so I had planned to make him some brown polyester pants and a brown + orange paisley print body shirt from this vintage Simplicity pattern (all of which I actually do have in my stash):

But last week we had such heatwave conditions that it was just too much to do anything other than loll about in front of the fan, let alone sew with polyester.  Plus the forecast for Saturday was for very hot weather too, so a back up plan was required.  Which is where a bit of research with Dr Google came in handy.  I came across this photo of Asher Keddie looking gorgeous as Ita Buttrose in Paper Giants (a fantastic ABC mini series) on a post from BusinessChic on 70s workwear inspiration:

photo via Businesschic.com

Whilst I love that green patterned skirt with the minty green fitted shirt, it's the guy in the background with the newspaper that really caught my eye.  He may look like someone out of Abba but the short sleeved shirt, dress shorts and knee high socks is the quintessential smart casual look for men in the 70s. Although I remember some school teachers of mine during the 80s still rocking this look, and even worse some old school building inspectors from my first council job still wearing this style in the late 90s! 

So I dug out a cotton knit/mesh style top that was my grandad's, cut the legs off some chinos to make shorts and finally tracked down some knee high walking socks.  Boy are they hard to find these days - if anyone else is looking for some try Lowes (if you're under the age of 65 they'll know straight away it's for a dress up costume ha ha ha).

And no, he still wasn't embarrassed by his outfit, just a little hot and sweaty.  Finding something for myself wasn't going to be too difficult since I've sewn quite a few things from 70s sewing patterns but I decided to go 100% authentic and wear a shirt dress that was my grandma's in stripes of purple in varying shades that is proudly labelled as 'crimpelene':

I accessorised with a pair of oversized sunglasses and a timber/chain necklace which was also my grandma's that Toby spend the entire day chewing and pulling on.  The hat is my everyday hat for sun protection, but it has a bit of 70s vibe with the floppiness.   Even though I felt a bit frumpy in the dress because it's a little too large for me, I didn't actually feel in costume at all because a shirt dress is totally something I would wear now (although not in polyester).  Not like the others in our group who were in mini dresses with white knee high boots, maxi dresses in crazy prints with wedge heels, safari suits and one guy getting around like Hugh Hefner in a satin smoking jacket.

And now on my with my normal sewing - I have January's Burda of the month about 80% done and I want to get it done before the month is out.

One last photo from the Paper Giants show - I love that the character of Ita who is a high flying fashion magazine executive is not only sewing at home, but is sewing on a bright orange Husqvarna sewing machine because my mum still has and uses that exact same sewing machine!

photo via abc.net.au

the sad occasion dress

At the risk of turning this blog into a soap opera, we've had another week of dramas around my house.  Last Wednesday my grandfather passed away, which given he was 93 was not unexpected but still rather surprising since the last time I saw him a few weeks ago he actually looked healthier than he had in a while.  But it is also a relief that he has finally let go - 93 is a long life and he had been rather sad, anxious and in despair at his failing body.

But that is not the soap opera part.  My rather obnoxious uncle had organised the funeral in the hours between my grandfather's passing and him informing the rest of the family of my grandfather's death.  So not only did my uncle exclude the rest of us in organising the details, he organised it for 5 days after my grandfather's death despite knowing full well that my parents (my grandfathers only other son) are in the desert of Western Australia somewhere on a holiday.  For those of you not familiar with Australia, Western Australia is far far away from Sydney.  He would not change the day either even though we could not reach my parents.  Luckily two days before the funeral my parents finally came into a small town, got some mobile reception and finally heard the news.  Several flights later on very expensive air tickets they managed to get back just in the nick of time much to the feigned relief of my uncle.

But that is not the end of the soap opera part.  The exact same thing happened when my grandmother died about 4 years ago.  Yes, the exact same situation.  My parents were on another holiday this time in the Cape York bush (again far far away from Sydney) when my grandmother passed, and my uncle once again organised the funeral a few days after her death without consulting anyone else.  And again my parents had to rush home to make it in time for the funeral.

The annoying thing is that my uncle was not even that close with my grandparents, and yet he felt he had the right to try to exclude my parents from being able to farewell them. My grandparents were actually living with my parents before they went on their Cape York holiday, and my grandparents had gone into respite care for two months only while my parents were on holiday and afterwards my grandfather continued living with my parents until recently when he was moved into a nursing home.

But this is a sewing blog, and despite a glimpse into other people's family politics being fascinating in much the same way as driving past a car accident, let's have a look at the cute dress I made for Anna to wear to the funeral.  I ummed and ahhed about whether to take her, but I did in the end because the service was held an hour and half away from her childcare and I didn't want to be in a rush to get home to get her in case things went too long.  She behaved herself well though, sitting quietly through the service and then being cute and bringing some much needed distraction and levity during the wake.

Since all of her clothes are brightly coloured in typical toddler fashion I thought about making her an old fashioned style black dress with a white lace collar but was worried that would look too Wednesday Addams! So I made view 1 (the black dress) from this vintage Style 2168 pattern, which is from 1979:

from this fabric which is actually a maxi skirt my mother made and wore in the 70s.  It's a lovely brushed cotton with a pretty floral and graphic print and suits the dress perfectly:

The fit is spot on too, which surprised me since I've found that commercial sewing patterns, especially the vintage ones seem to run large but this one was perfect.  It has an ultra cute peter pan collar, bell sleeves which are cinched in at the wrist with elastic and puffy shoulders. 

Paired with some purple stockings (my choice) and a leopard print jacket (her choice) it was the perfect choice for a sad day.

And now I hope to get back to some regularly scheduled posting. Life without dramas is always best don't you think?

Seeing the good in the bad

Is it just me, or is it universal that annoying things will more likely happen when you're sewing something white? Such as spilling your drink, a naughty pet sleeping on the project or like what I did earlier this week, pricking your finger and not noticing until after there are big splotches of red blood all over my newly finished blouse! On the brighter side (I'm trying hard to see the good in the bad this year) I used the few days that I needed to soak and wash the blouse to make a skirt to go with it, and this is what I came up:


The blouse is Burda 2/09 pattern 125:















I originally planned to make this in a crisp white cotton, but all the reviews over at Pattern Review recommend using a soft, drapey fabric so I've used a soft, thin white cotton shirting material from the stash instead. I think it works, although I still get a bit of puffy sleeve syndrome if I lift my arms up:



I guess I'll just have to stop standing around with my hands on my hips when I'm wearing this shirt! Maybe this shirt will make me less bossy..... And maybe I should set up the camera tripod straight too so my photos don't look so crooked.

I did have troubles with the sleeve band due to the typical BWOF instructions, and after finally figuring it out from the helpful reviews on pattern review I still gave up on it because mine looked messy. Plus they were really really wide bands. So I took them off, cut them in half width ways and just sewed them on as a single band without a button opening. It's not like I'll ever need to unbutton them, so I figure this is just as good. Although I see from this photo there's a bit of excess fabric at the front and back of the shirt, so I may take in the darts even more to get a closer fit.



For the skirt, I used Style 1932, which is a 1970s era full circle skirt pattern. I think it's pretty funny since it's obviously a 1970s version of a 50s style skirt, right down to the poodle applique on the skirt.

I made the blue version in the centre, but I still had to lop about 20cm off though, and I left off the pockets because of the fabric I used. However, I'm not overly happy with how it has turned out, because the fabric doesn't fall in even ripples around my body, rather it tends to gather at the seams, ie at the sides and the centre front/back which looks rather unflattering:




I was just putting away the left over fabric and the pattern when I realised what I had done: the plaid pattern is printed on the bias and the pattern requires the panels to be cut on the bias. I was trying so hard to match up the lines (which I failed in anyway) that I forgot to cut the skirt panels on the bias, so they are cut on the straight grain and I guess that's why it doesn't sit quite right. But there is a lot of fabric there in this skirt, so I may be able to salvage it by turning it into a boring old A-line style or the like - seeing the good in the bad yeah!

Well Anna is off to day care for three days a week starting next Monday, but I'm not back at work for another two weeks so I have a mini holiday from being a mum for a few days. It's nice to be wanted, but I reckon it's going to be great to have a bit of space too! We had an orientation at the centre yesterday and Anna had a few tears even though we were only there for 45 minutes. But once she settles in it will be great for her, we spend too much time alone together her and I, and the opportunity to mix with other kids and do structured activities is for the best I think.

So tune in next week, I plan to do lots of sewing and get a haircut and maybe have a whole day sleeping (well that bit will be boring for you but it will be great for me).

no 1970s hippy style going on here

My mum was reminiscing about this pattern she made in her younger days (aka pre kids) in a floral cotton which she more than likely wore with cork wedge shoes that were in fashion the first time around.

So I thought I would make View 2 into a dress using a black and white pinstripe stretch cotton purchased from the closing down sale at the Home Yardage that used to be in York Street in the city several years ago. I modified the pattern by ditching the puffy sleeves because I feel silly in them, and I replaced the flared skirt with a pencil skirt to suit the pinstripes better and also because the fabric was too stiff to hang nicely in folds as per the pattern envelope. And, some 33 years later here is my take on this pattern.

Worn with a red belt and some red shoes (I have about 9 pairs of red shoes to choose from), and paired with a white jacket to wear in my chilly office, it’s the perfect simple outfit for a day in the city during summer. Amazing how a few simple modifications takes a pattern from the past into the present.

I finished this a few weeks ago and it has passed the all day wear to work test with flying colours (I find I can never be sure of the fit until an item is worn for a full day). And then I spied a new Vogue pattern 8184 made into these lovely creations on Colette’s blog which in my eyes is a very similar style to the dress I made – I almost feel in fashion for a change (as opposed to being deliberately quirky and different).