Make Do...in more ways than one!

Last year I followed along oogling over the projects various sewers were creating for The Historical Sew Fortnightly Challenge hosted by The Dreamstress.  This year, I decided to join in on the fun.  The reason is multifaceted a) it will encourage me to make some of the wonderful historical garments I incessantly pin on Pinterest, b) it will get me back into the swing of posting on this little blog of mine and sharing projects with my family, and c) it sounds like a fun creative challenge.  

I've decided to aim for doing the "half marathon."  In other words, instead of trying to do all 24 challenges, I'll aim to participate in 12 challenges.  That way I will have a month to work on each challenge, rather than two weeks, which I just don't see fitting in well to my current busy schedule!  

The first challenge this year is entitled Make Do & Mend.  I ended up starting this challenge a little early, as I was looking to make myself a new dress to wear for Christmas and the parties that come with it.  I went digging in my stash of vintage patterns and found one from Jessica's grandmother...one of those fabulous mail-order patterns!  When I started working on the dress I thought it would be perfect for this challenge as it would fit the theme in a couple of different ways.  First of all, the dress looked to be from the 1940s and therefore might have been made by someone in the midst of the Make Do & Mend movement during WWII.  And secondly, it was made entirely of fabric I found in my stash.  Originally I wanted the main body of the dress to be the print, with the accents in solid red...but lo and behold I didn't have enough print to do that so I had to change it up to make do with the fabric I already had.

Now...here is where I failed on this challenge.  Most of my interest in historical fashion is in the extended 19th century...ask me when a garment was made during that period and I can narrow it down to 5 years or less.  Post-1925, however, I'm still working on really getting to know all the little nuances as fashions began changing more rapidly and the ready-to-wear industry boomed with fashion trends, in general, starting to move more quickly.  So, I went online to look up this pattern to see if I could find an exact date...I was guessing it was somewhere around the mid-1940s, so right about the cutoff date of 1945.  Good news...I found an advertisement for this dress in a newspaper online!  Check it out here.  Now, if you went to the link you have probably already guessed the bad news.  That's right, according to the newspaper advertisement the dress is from 1950.  Whomp whomp.  :-(  

I've decided to go a head and post it, as I fully believed when I was making it that it would be perfect for this challenge.  I guess I'll just have to date before I make when tackling something 1940s for any future challenges!!

The Challenge: Make Do & Mend
Fabric: 100% cotton, both print and solid
Pattern: Sue Burnett 8419
Year: 1950
Notions: snaps and hooks for the side placket closing
How historically accurate is it? Pretty accurate
Hours to complete:  Hmm...forgot to track this...probably around 6-8?
First worn:  Work holiday party
Total cost:  Nothing right then...everything was from my stash

Crazyness!

Things have been a bit crazy around here lately...but good crazy.  The end of summer has brought a lot of things to do like run our first 5k (under 37 minutes baby!!!), host a few dinner parties and a wedding shower on our back porch with our new door-turned-table that you can find here, go hunting at tag sales and estate sales, attend a vintage clothing auction, and go to the last Brimfield Antiques Market of the season.  So, needless to say, there are a lot of projects and fun times to catch you all up on, but first I have to process all the pictures and write up the posts.  Maybe I'll take advantage of the cooler evenings and sit with my laptop on the back porch with a warm drink...hmmmm....  There are also a lot of things coming up, like out-of-town guests to christen our guest bedroom, another race (this time 5 miles during a team marathon...), and an art show!  I'll post again later (after the house is all clean for this weekend) and fill you in even more with what I've missed telling you and what's going on now.

A Great Week

Well, I think I have finally recovered from last week's Brimfield excursion.  We've managed to get our Brimfield trips down pretty well...we know which vendors have stuff we like, where the prices are good, and who is willing to haggle.  We've also figured out how to see everything we want to see and get in and out in under 6 hours!  Granted, when we decide to make the trek without a trusty list in hand and predetermine to just wander around and look for what inspires us, well....those trips are a bit longer...

This, was not one of those trips.  We managed to get very lucky and found the most desired and largest item on our list (a club-style chair for the living room) towards the beginning of the day, which meant we knew exactly how much room was left in the car for bringing home other treasures.  It is always fun to see people stop and watch us as we carefully maneuver our treasures into our Pontiac Vibe...it isn't a large vehicle, but as we are fond of saying "it may be small, but we know exactly how big it is."  Here is what we brought home...

And yes, our beautiful cat Annie thinks that we bought it just for her sleeping enjoyment!  Ah well, whatever keeps her happy...as long as she shares.

Here is a glimpse of some items that did not make it home with us, but were sufficiently drooled over...

 

Our circa 1912 bride just barely didn't come home with us.  We found her at the end of the day and by then had already spent our budget for the event..and I was trying to be good.  So instead, I just snapped this quick picture and will look for her again in July.  Doubtful she'll still be there, but you never know at Brimfield.

After our weekend trip, we had a nice week of good weather and managed to enjoy some of it with a friend of ours.  It was our first real dinner guest at our new place.  We made veggie kabobs with homemade bbq sauce, grilled pineapple, fresh tomatillo salsa, and potatoes with onions and sage...and awesome vegan apple cinnamon cupcakes for dessert!  We didn't have our table project finished yet (which you will all get to see eventually) so we ate out on the back deck and used the deck box as a table.  Of course it was dressed up with some vintage linens from my Aunt and our awesome serving dishes.

Yay for friends and a good week.  Here's hoping this coming week is just as great.

Have you found any treasures lately?  Had to pass something up because you were "being good?"  Or just had a friend over to enjoy a nice Spring evening?

1940s Dress...the end

Well folks...here it is!  The 1940s dress got done just in time for the Saturday Lobster Dinner.  And by just in time, I really do mean it.  I was doing hems, sewing buttons, and finishing zippers Friday night.  But, it all worked out and I think it turned out rather well.

The one part I ended up having a little trouble with was the one part I had not practiced on the muslin.  The buttons at the collar go through bounded button holes.  Now, bounded button holes are actually fairly simple to make, the difficulty came when I made them on the wrong side.  So, I had to do a bit of hand work to make it all work out because it was a little late when I realized what I had done and it was no longer a simple fix with a seam ripper.

To make sure that the dress looked a little more modern vintage and a little less costume, we decided to nix the self-fabric belt for the time being.  It got jazzed up with a skinny black belt and some black sandals.  It looked pretty good!

 

Did you finish any good projects over the weekend?

1940s dress...the beginning

Back in June I posted about some awesome vintage patterns I purchased, along with some wonderful red, white, and blue fabric from Moda.  Well, I finally started on the dress!  First thing was first, though...I had never sewn with a vintage pattern before, so I wanted to make sure I really knew what I was doing and everything would fit well before I cut into my fashion fabric. 

I was both pleasantly surprised, and super intimidated, when I opened the pattern envelope.  Surprised because, since you buy exactly the size you need, there is no pattern cutting...YAY!  That has always been one of my least favorite parts, because I inevitably tear the delicate paper of the pattern pieces.  The part that intimidated me was the single sheet of instructions...not only that, but it was only one side of the sheet!  They were relying on the fact that most women knew something about sewing clothing in the 1940s.

I decided that since I was just doing a dry run of the pattern, I would not waste fabric doing more than necessary.  I only cut out one sleeve and only cut the skirt pieces down about 12 inches from the waist, enough to do the waistline, while just checking the length with the paper pieces.

This is what I ended up with...and am I ever glad I decided to do it!  No part of the pattern was difficult, but some parts were a little confusing the way they were worded in the directions (or lack-there-of).  Now I feel much more confident to cut it out of the fashion fabric.

You will get to see the finished product soon.  Currently it is still in pieces on my ironing board, but since it must be finished for the Annual Lobster Dinner at the Litchfield Museum on Saturday, I better get to sewing!


Have you finally tackled a project you've put off all summer?

A Great Week, Followed by a Great Project

The past week has been super amazing.  I spent the majority of it at the Costume Society of America's National Symposium.  It was up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the last day of the conference you could go on a post-symposium tour of your choice.  I decided to head to the vintage market in Boston's South End.  It was cold and dreary, but well worth it.

While at the vintage market, I found these fabulous 1940s dress patterns. 

 

I plan to make the two on the ends at some point in the future.  But the one in the middle...that one you will see sooner rather than later. 

 

Make sure and check back to see what becomes of this amazing red fabric, and beautiful pattern.




Do you have any fun and exciting projects in the works right now?