Hi there vintage pledge people! My name's Kat, and I blog over at
Modern Vintage Cupcakes. I love the vintage pattern pledge - I've taken
part ever since it started. I really enjoy using vintage patterns, and
tend to sew a mix of vintage 1940's through to 1970's, and modern indie
patterns.
Today, I've got my latest creation to show you - my Oh Deer dress!
For
this, I used Simplicity 4298 - a "7 day wardrobe" pattern from the
early 1960's. It's been in my stash for a couple of years now (I may
have a rather extensive vintage pattern stash. Whoops!) and I've been
planning on making it up for about that long! I love the idea of
wardrobe patterns - I actually have plans to make all the variations in
this pattern to have a "7 day wardrobe" as the pattern suggests. ;-)
Fabric & Notions
I
recently got this Michael Miller cotton poplin (from Minerva Crafts)
and decided to match it with the full-skirted version of the dress, with
gathers over the skirt sides. It's a lovely lightweight poplin, so
worked really well with the bulk of the gathers.
The
pattern itself is a nice simple one, fairly classic for that era. A
dart-fitted bodice with a wide neck, facings, and a rectangular skirt
gathered into the waist. It fastens down the back with a zipper (I used
an invisible one, rather than the dress zip that would have been used in
that era).
Sewing it Up
The skirt is actually meant to be
about 15-20cm longer than in my dress but, well, this was all the fabric
I had! So after cutting out the bodice, I simply folded the rest in
half, made sure the deer mostly lined up, and then cut the skirt out of
what was left.
Other changes I made were to
fit. I've got an AA cup, so naturally I always have to do an SBA on
vintage patterns! So I did some dart manipulation and removed the waist
dart on the bodice, keeping only the side dart. That then got lowered,
and the bodice lengthened by about 1.5cm.
The
other change I made was to use a bias facing on the armholes, rather
than a classic fabric facing. Again, this was purely due to not having
quite enough fabric. (Whoops!)
And there we have it - one new vintage pattern dress, covered with deer and flowers! :-)
My
inlaws were looking after our kids this morning, so my partner and I
went for a walk to a World War II radio bunker out on the South Coast of
Wellington. So cold! Such gorgeous views!
Happy
sewing everyone, and a huge thank-you to Kerry and Marie for inviting
me to take part in the July fun, and for continuing to run such a great
sewing theme challenge! :-)
Thanks Kat! I love the fabric and that pattern looks like one you can make over and over again!
K x
Wonderful Kat ;o) Love the colours as well as the print. I've been meaning to make something with the skirt gathers to the side like this. Well done on braving the cold!
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan of the fabric too, looks like such a wearable fun dress
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