Crepe de Chine blouse - completed

Just wanted to share a photo of the completed blouse I posted about recently.

I'm pleased with it although I need to make a camisole to wear under it. Alternatively I can wear it with my new waistcoat:

Vintage fabric blouse

This fabric had everyone at my sewing class cooing over it, I don't know exactly how old this fabric is but my grandmother has had it at least since the war! My sewing tutor said it could easily be 30s/40s so I tried to take extra care when using it. Here's a photo of the blouse I made with it, during construction:

It's now almost complete, just the buttonholes on the sleeves to add so will post an updated photo when I get one. The fabric is a delicate, quite sheer crepe de Chine (I'd never heard of this until now!) so I had to work the entire thing using French seams which was a first for me, but which gave really pleasing results as the inside is just as neat as the outside. However I had a terrible time with the Peter Pan collar, the instructions on the pattern (New Look 6078) really weren't right, I wish I'd read up on patternreview.com before starting but you live and learn!

The final result is really lovely but it fits very snugly so I may need to let out the darts a touch and it's quite sheer so I will need some sort of camisole to wear underneath.

I got some buttons at 5p each at a local knitting store so again this make was virtually free! I'm on a roll!

Dress #4 - vintage tweed librarian dress?

Ok, so as always I currently have a new project on the go. This time I'm using a Butterick Retro '58 pattern, B5707:



...and here's the dress view. I'll be using view B, but with the three quarter length sleeves from view A. I liked the cowl neck and I want this to be a normal pencil skirt length dress, not the longer length suggested by the pattern. I also had the perfect fabric - and the perfect amount of it - in my stash, it was a bit of a squeeze fitting all the pieces on but it worked out very nicely, I love using fabric to the max without there being any waste! The fabric is a kind of tweed pattern, a polyster-wool blend British made fabric that my lovely grandmother sent me amongst other bits and pieces. It's a lovely fabric and I've wanted to make a smart dress for work out of it for some time.

I cut out all the pieces and this took some time, as I was really worried about lining up the checks correctly on the seams, as I've never worked with check or a large pattern before, so it was a bit of guesswork. To be honest it hasn't worked out to be a perfect match, but I think it'll look ok. So far, I've already put together the top and from trying it on I'm not particularly happy with the way the cowl neck sits, it just isn't right, I really should have done a muslin - but too late now! I'm just hoping the weight of the skirt will adjust the way it sits. Here is the dress so far, i.e. dress top:


However, after getting this far I realised (a little too late, I think) that I really should have made a lining up at the same time and sewn it in at the neck instead of using the facing, as the fabric is fraying like crazy. Should have seen that coming! So I need to get the pattern out again and cut the dress again, I've been putting it off a bit but I wanted to go and buy some nice light 100% cotton for the lining in this dress, as the usual shiny stuff (NO idea what it's called) made dress #3 a bit 'swishy' like a party dress and I don't want that, plus it's pretty important I don't get too hot and sweaty in this one as it's definitely going to be dry clean only!!

Anyway more progress on this dress really soon, I'm back in the swing and thoroughly enjoying getting on with the project so watch this space...

Vintage fair find - sewing stool / box & contents

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I went to a vintage fair some time ago and finally got round to sorting out its contents. There was just SO much there that I thought I should lay it all out and take a photo, to share my astonishment!

Here's the sewing box / stool itself, not the most attractive thing I've ever seen, admittedly:



...but I was just overcome with fascination at its contents, there were some vintage items in there and a number of Singer machine feet I just didn't know what on earth were for! So I couldn't resist, and brought it home. Here's the contents of the box, laid out on my table:



Can you believe all this stuff came out of that little stool?! Only one amendment to that, actually - the round wicker basket of cotton reels is mine, and more than half of those were already in there, but I'd already thrown the new ones in there before deciding I should lay all this out, so I just put that out instead of trying to figure out which ones belonged to the collection.

Here are some close-ups of the items, I've asked my mum and grandma for advice about the 'Darning Machine' and the collection of machine feet, as I'm completely clueless! An interesting collection though, I'm very pleased with it!