#vintage sewing

Stripes Gone Wild: BurdaStyle Twill Dress 121 07/2021

This is a modern dress with some vintage details. The length and flare of the skirt is reminiscent of the 1950s when a tiny waist and a large skirt were popular. The shirt-waist front bodice on a dress then coupled with a side opening was popular for much of the 20th century. It allowed for the kind of complex details you see here reminiscent of a shirt-waist or blouse–double-breasted button front, shaped neckline, and collar–without having to bring the buttons all the way down to the hemline. Instead, a snap placket in the side seam lets you pull the dress over your head. Here, a zipper is used instead.

Playing with stripes has always been popular as they are among the simplest patterns. By placing them on the bias and matching them for forming chevrons, you can create a playful and dynamic look as you see here. Imagine leaving the stripes all straight on a less-flared skirt and you can see that the entire dress would become much more sober in flavor.

Choosing stripes does mean more work matching the stripes. Careful cutting is key, and then basting and checking before final sewing is necessary. Still, I always enjoy bias chevron skirts in the summer as they seem to capture the spirit of the season.  

You can find it here as a pdf, so you either find a place the prints large images, or you use a lot of tape: https://www.burdastyle.com/twill-dress-121-burda-style-07-21.html

The Big Reveal in the 1950s, Or Simplicity 9536

The reveal comes when you take off the bolero jacket and reveal the strapless dress beneath. Notice how the white, strapless version is clearly an important summer event. She has a flower corsage pinned to her belt and strappy, high heels. This fits with the fabric suggestion of taffeta, faille, or shantung which would have been made of silk. The blue and white version has straps and because it is gingham, it is not so daring in its appearance. Notice that the pink version has flat shoes too, an indication this might be a picnic or other low-key weekend event. This fits with the fabric suggestions of chambray, pique, seersucker or lightweight denim which would all be made of cotton.

This combination – bolero over revealing dress–was very common during the 1950s. It solved the problem of going out without revealing much until you got to your destination, or warming up when the evening turned cool. The bolero here is very simple. It has cut-on sleeves, little jaunty cuffs, a single buttons, and darts front and back to fit to the body. The dress is more complicated despite the “easy-to-sew” designation, as sign of a high level of home dressmaking skill at the time. Both the strapped and strapless version are supposed to be boned through the bodice, and both are trimmed with self-trim bias-cut fabric which is able to follow the curves of the neckline. The large pockets have fold-back flaps.

Of course, it was a look that was first popularized by Christian Dior in 1947, the New Look with soft shoulders, small waist, and long, luxurious flared skirts. The width of these skirts also indicates they were worn with a petticoat which fluffed out at the hemline. While lower calf lengths were the preference of Dior that year, the long skirts had crept up a inch by inch by the end of the 1950s. These fall a bit below the knee.

This is a re-issued pattern, so it comes in modern sizes. Find it at your local fabric store or online here: https://simplicity.com/simplicity/s9536

A Little of the Southwest: Simplicity 9538

Perhaps because there was such a big shift of population out west during World War II, perhaps because of movies set in the old west from Hollywood, and perhaps because of new attention to leisure wear, this kind of simple, gathered blouse associated with the Southwest became a fashion trend during the 1940s. The fabric suggestions include gingham and calico which are simple fabrics often worn by very young women, as well as challis which would drape more easily, and just plain cotton. This re-issued vintage pattern comes in modern sizes.

Often paired with a full gathered skirt, or a tiered gathered skirt, which are another very simple kind of garment, this kind of blouse was very ease to make. The sleeves are raglan and the only tricky thing is threading the ribbon or elastic through the neckline and sleeve edges. At the same time this simple pattern allowed a girl or young women a lot of design possibilities: mixing or matching colors for the ribbon and lace trim, adding ribbons or braid along the the bodice and sleeves.

The blouse also allows for two very different looks. See how they offered the black and white sketch to make makes clear that the ribboned version offers both an everyday look and a flirtatious off-the-shoulder look for evening.

Find it at your local fabric store or online here: https://simplicity.com/simplicity/s9538

This comes in modern sizes

Square Sleeves and Round Yolk: The Music Class Blouse

This blouse at BurdaStyle is also dubbed Short Sleeve Blouse 01/2011 and comes as part of a collection called Music Class which has multiple vintage details on its blouses, jackets, and coats. This one in particular intrigued me. The original used loops for the buttons, but I decided to extend the front facings to center the buttons and use buttonholes. Other than that, I did no modifications.

While we don’t often see sleeve attached to blouses with square armholes, they can be found in patterns from the 1930s. We we find one here on a sleeve that flares over the top of the arm and narrows to nothing when it reaches the under arm. I attached the sleeve to the blouse on the vertical seam and then laid the sleeve over the blouse front along the horizontal seam, with seam allowance tucked under, and edge stitched it. Earlier pattern designers preferred laying a pattern piece (with seam allowances pressed under) on top of a another piece and edge stitched when they had a right of acute angle in a design.

Today, we are often told to reinforce the angle seam line with stitching, then clip to the inner corner and then sew the pieces together even as the seam allowance near the clip become TEENY TINY. This creates a far less stable seam and leads to errors during and unravelings after. Laying over was and is often wiser.

Another feature of this blouse is the fabric gathered to the yoke. We do sometimes see gatherings on blouses, especially to replace a dart with the fullness over the front bustline. But we don’t often see them on a rounded yoke to which both front and back and top sleeve edge is gathered. As you can see, you attach those pieces to one another, gather them along their edges and then attache them to the edges of the yoke.

This creates a very soft look around the shoulders, as you can see from their photo, so long as the fabric has a lot of drape. I am using a rayon challis, so it is working. Anything crisper and the sleeves would appear to be taking off in flight, rather than draping, and the whole might seem massive.

I will show you the finished product soon. Meanwhile, you can find this pattern for yourself here. This is PDF pattern that you need to print out, tape together, and add seam allowances and hems. 

https://www.burdastyle.com/short-sleeve-blouse-01-2011.html

Aprons as Workwear and Fashion: Simplicity 9496

The aprons of earlier eras came out in an amazing assortment, various shapes, trims and edges. Lots of creativity was poured into designing and making them. Why? Because for most married women with children, aprons were their work wear because they were home women. Which meant they had to wear aprons everyday and who doesn’t enjoy some fashion variety? Here the variety is the color combinations and trims.

These aprons are from 1948. They all have some special feature, and the least detailed one is the one with stripes yet even then the stripes on the two pockets are cut exactly the same. No sloppy layout of the pattern pieces here. The red plaid has the most features, a pocket which matches the plaid lines of the apron, ruffles at the hem, and then baby rick rack as trimming at top, at hem, and on the pocket. They threw in the matching oven mitt padded with cotton batting and finished at the edges with double-fold bias tape. The other half apron takes a print and a solid  to mix and puts the print for pockets and a band near the hemline. You can imagine a woman sorting through her box of cotton remnants looking for a nice color harmony to make this one.

Also notice how one model wears a navy dress and the other a blouse and skirt. There was no such thing as a t-shirt worn as outer clothing back then, and most women only wore pants for dirty work like gardening or painting, or for active sports.  So the home woman would have been dressed in dress or skirt and blouse, and the apron would have served to keep her clean as well as cheerfully stylish.

You can find this pattern as a reissue at your local fabric store or here: https://www.simplicity.com/simplicity-storefront-catalog/patterns/brands/simplicity-sewing-pattern-s9496-misses-vintage-apron/

In Praise of Small Prints: Or the Bungalow Apron

I have blogged this dress before, but as I ironed it, I was thinking how much I admire the small prints on fabric of the past. The Dress Doctors always recommended them because they were easier to work with while dressmaking and they were not overwhelming to the average woman’s figure. This fabric was sold as a 1930s era reproduction.

See here how easy it was for me to match the print where the patch pocket was placed. There was almost no waste in cutting out the pocket either. Matching was otherwise a moot point where the ruffles at the neck and the tiers or flounce below and as a wrap, it made little sense to try to match along the opening edge.

Now if the flowers had been large, I would have had to think about where to place them so as to avoid the grotesque effect of two flowers over the breast or one landing at the crotch. And placing the pocket would have meant wasting fabric. I often am charmed with a print sold online, only to look at the photo with a ruler, realize the flowers are 3, 5 or even 7 inches across, and reject it.

I cannot decide if the textile designers like to work with larger prints, if large prints sell well because they look better on a small screen for web buyers, of if making smaller prints is more difficult in the manufacturing process. I do know that I will hold out for them. 

You can find this pattern as a reproduction. It is a Hoover apron or bungalow dress, made famous during WWI when Herbert Hoover ran the government program on food conservation and the home economists designed an apron that wrapped and could be rewrapped when one surface became filthy. I know, kind of disgusting, but that was how it was made famous. Regardless of rewrapping, this makes for a nice summer robe, or even a casual daytime dress. Although wrapped dresses are not the most practical for wearing out of the house–fear the windy day–the length and amount of overlap makes it relatively secure.

Find it here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/220673334/1930s-ladies-hooverette-day-dress?ga_search_query=1889&ref=shop_items_search_2&sca=1

For many charming reproduction fabrics from the 19th and the 20th centuries, go here:  http://www.reproductionfabrics.com/