The Liberty Blouse

Although it's been a while since I posted, I have done a fair amount of sewing in the past few months, and even photographed a few things, but haven't gotten around to editing the photos and writing about them. This blouse is one I started making in August, although it took over a month to finish.

The fabric is a Liberty of London Tana Lawn from The Fabric Store. The print on the fabric has an art deco feel, so my initial plan was to use a 1930s blouse pattern. Unfortunately the only 1930s blouse pattern I own needed much more fabric, so I took a look back through my patterns to find something more classic that would let the fabric do the talking.

The pattern is a re-released 1940s pattern from Simplicty, number 8243. Despite the stylised art on the pattern envelope, the sleeves are nowhere near as full. I was almost unsure about using this pattern because I didn't want big sleeves, but in the end the fit of the pattern was much slimmer than the drawing suggested.

While the blouse mostly sewed up very easily, one of the buttonholes on the sleeve cuff was very petulant. Part of the difficulty was that the cuffs are close fitting, so the buttonhole needs to be close to the edge. This meant that if I wasn't careful I'd sew over the seam allowances inside the cuff which pushed my stitching out of line. Fortunately, after two failed and unpicked attempts, the third try worked and I was able to finish the blouse off

It took me longer to finish this blouse than I'd planned because of the problems with the cuff. I had worried that I wouldn't finish it in time to wear before the weather warmed up, but since finishing I have been wearing it to work regularly. The Liberty fabric is soft and comfortable, so it's still comfortable to wear the long sleeved blouse in Spring.

Muriel's Chicken Frill Sundress

I'd originally planned this dress as part of Mena of Make This Look's Summer of the Pinafore (northern hemisphere summer) challenge on Instagram. I posted a picture of it almost finished (the facings hadn't been stitched down) and had planned to put it on the blog within a week of that. I finished this dress at the beginning of the month, but it's taken me four weeks to put it up on the blog. I took some photos a couple of weeks ago but when I downloaded them onto my computer the were blurry and the light was terrible. So I had to find a bit of time to do a take 2 and start again. And apparently I like looking to my right in photos.

The fabric is one I picked up at a Sydney Spoolettes fabric swap about 18 months ago, which was the first spoolettes event I went to and I think the first fabric swap. I loved the quirky retro oval-shaped chickens on it, so I had to pick it up. The sewing pattern has the name Muriel written on the envelope, hence the name for the dress. I found the pattern at a vintage fair about 10 years ago, and this is the second time I've used it.

The pattern is a 1948 McCall pattern, number 7904. The original pattern actually has two lines of gathered ruffles, at the princess seam which I kept but shortened slightly, and around the armscye. I decided to leave that ruffle off because it would have looked a bit too costumey. I also did in seam pockets instead of the giant patch pockets of the pattern. The skirt is shortened from a couple of inches below the knee to just above to make it a bit more modern and wearable.

Because I have used the pattern before it was fairly easy to sew up. I even managed to pattern match the chickens down the front of the dress. However when I made it before I'd made the second version, which has short puffy sleeves rather than ruffles. I did a bit of playing around with exactly how I wanted the shoulder ruffle to be. The instructions were to simply gather the ruffle, but I wasn't sure it would look right, especially given the envelope illustration shows them sticking up to chin height which would probably look ridiculous. In the end I decided to freehand pleat them, so they don't stick up high but they aren't sharply pressed either. They're fun, rather than obnoxious.

This make is also vintage, so is part of my vintage pledge for the year, which had been to create a capsule wardrobe. Whether it ends up being an actual capsule wardrobe or I just make a number of different types of vintage clothing pieces remains to be seen. And the fabric ended up being such a large piece that I was able to take the 1 metre remnant to the latest Spoolettes fabric swap on Sunday for it to be used by another Sydney sewist!

Vintage Vogue for Frocktails

So the Sydney Spoolettes finally got around to holding a frocktails event last Saturday. Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra sewists have been much better organised than us Sydney sewists and have each held a few big events before, but it had only been talked about in Sydney. But thanks to the excellent organisational skills of Caz from Useful Box, Sydney has joined the party.

Frocktails is where you wear something you've made, book out a nice venue and get together with a bunch of other sewists to have some drinks, chat, and feel each others' fabric. It's a lot of fun, as you get to see all the different styles people wear, see patterns you've heard about made up into a finished product and talk about fabrics and sewing techniques without boring people out of their minds.

It's also a good excuse to make a pattern that isn't an every day style. Or, in my case, finally finish one off. This dress is by far the longest make from when I bought the pattern and fabric to when I tied off the last thread. In fact, I'd be surprised if there were many people who had a finished make that had taken as long as this one did!

This pattern is the out-of-print Vintage Vogue V2787, originally from 1948. It's an absolutely stunning pattern, with curved and gathered bodice seams, gathered shoulders and a curved and half gathered front skirt piece. I bought the pattern and fabric from Tessuti back in 2005 when they still had a store on York St in Sydney. The fabric is a silk twill called falling leaves or falling ivy (it's been over a decade, I'm not certain of its name) and is wonderfully soft with a great hand. I got the pattern home, pinned it and cut it out, and then realised I'd had a bit of a delusion of talent and definitely didn't have the sewing experience to make something as complex as this. So I put it back in its Tessuti bag and put it away for a decade.

I pulled it back out two years ago during the sewphotohop daily photo challenge on Instagram. One of the prompts was 'secret corner of shame', and an unfinished ten year old pattern was an obvious choice. I got a few comments telling me to have a go at sewing it up, so I took it out of its bag. I hand gathered along the seams, hand basting before stitching it together. The fabric has about 4% elastane giving it a slight stretch, but it sews together completely smoothly.

The dress has a side zip and button back. The button I used is from a box of vintage buttons I inherited from my grandma. I did all the seams by machine, but decided that the zipper, hem and sleeve caps needed to be sewn by hand. However I didn't finish the dress off then, I pinned the zipper in and moved on to other projects that were quicker and that I had a reason to sew.

Fast forward another year and a half to the start of this year, and I was starting to think about what I should wear to frocktails. I looked through what other fabrics and patterns I had but nothing grabbed me, so I thought I might pull this one out again and finally finish it off. But there were a few other things I wanted to do first (see my last few posts) so I didn't actually sit down to start finishing it off until about a week before the event. And not only did I have a long week at work, I was close to out of the bone coloured thread I was using. Nothing like a deadline.

The hand sewing was straightforward, just tedious. I decided to hand sew the last elements so that the hem, side and sleeve caps would look smooth with no stitch lines. That meant it took time and close attention to make the stitches as invisible as possible. I finally tied off the ends of the hem threat at 6:05pm on Saturday, barely half an hour before leaving to head into the city for frocktails. I gave the dress a quick press - missing a crease on the front of the skirt - got ready, and headed off to see all the Sydney Spoolettes.

Sadly I didn't get many photos at frocktails as I only had my phone and the venue was relatively dim, but it was a fantastic night. There were 70 women all in amazing outfits they'd made, great drinks and lots of food. It's taken a long time, but it was great to finally get so much of Sydney's sewing community together into the one room. Here's hoping we'll have more frocktails events in the future!

Tula and Henry Retro Blouse

These very girly fabrics were just made for this 1940s blouse. Such old fashioned girly fabrics, such an old fashioned girly blouse. Both in a good way. The main fabric is Tula Pink, from her Parisville collection, and is called Topiary. The pink peplum and collar fabric is a Henry Glass, and is called Miss Modd.

I've actually had both fabrics for almost five years but couldn't find what I wanted to make with them. I'd thought of using them together, but was a bit in two minds about it, and didn't have any patterns that really felt like they were right for either fabric. But when Spotlight had a pattern sale a few months ago I managed to snap up a few reproduction vintage patterns, including this one. Although the original pattern doesn't call for two contrasting fabrics, when I was going through my stash to find something to make the blouse with, it was clear that yes, the fabrics do work together, and this was the pattern that would make that happen.

This blouse is another addition to my work-appropriate clothing needs. The pattern is Simplicity 1590, which is labelled as a "Misses' 1940s Retro Blouse". There are two variations, this high necked option or a scoop neckline. Because I wanted to use the contrasting fabric I decided to make the high necked version so I could make a contrast collar. But I did leave off the waist ties and neck bow, deciding they were probably a bit much on an already very girly blouse.

I'd forgotten how high the necklines tend to be on 1940s patterns! I've made a few in the past and generally lowered the neck a bit at the front so it didn't feel tight, but I forgot to do that with this pattern. So because it is slightly uncomfortable done up, I decided to leave the top button undone. Also the way the collar is made it won't sit properly if I have the top button done up even though I'm sure I followed the pattern correctly, so I'll just leave it undone when I wear it. It kind of makes it a bit more modern and less costumey, too, to wear it not done up to the top.

When it came time to choose buttons for this blouse, I wasn't really sure where to start. There's a lot of colour in the two fabrics, so trying to find something that matched was a clear possibility. But then I had to work out what colour to match. I decided not to try and match one of the secondary colours in the main fabric's flower circles because I thought adding anything extra to the two already dominant colours might be a bit much. Pink buttons was my next thought, so that they'd join the collar and peplum as a contrast. But when I went through my tin of vintage buttons I inherited from my grandma I found these green ones. The colour isn't a perfect match but works tonally, and there were the exact number of them that I needed. I did do the buttonholes in pink thread to keep the contrasting going.

 I'm mostly happy with this blouse. I've alreay mentioned the very high neckline which I can't button all the way up and have it comfortable and have the collar sit right. I also should have slimmed in the front bodice from the waist to the underarms. I don't do it for every pattern, but the way 1940s patterns emphasise the shoulders means they can be a little baggy on me around the bust. I could always go the whole way down the 1940s path and add shoulder pads to give the blouse a lift, but I think it's fine without it. Pattern placement for the main fabric was another issue I was conscious of, and I don't know that I got the best result, but I did manage to avoid anything inappropriate. But weirdly the thing I'm least happy with is the back seam for the peplum. It tickles me whenever it moves, which is going to take some getting used to.

But still, it's a lovely pattern, and gloriously girly fabrics. And it's nice to have used some fabrics that have been in my stash long enough they could be starting school this year! This is also my first vintage pledge make for 2016. I'm aiming for at least eight, so we'll see how I go.