Monthly Archives: June 2009

Bonus dress edition!

When my friend Alison started this whole “Let’s plan a weekend to get together and sew from vintage patterns” idea, I already had a stash of patterns from which to choose, and some vintage curtains that I’d deconstructed into panels of fabric. I was ready to go!

I was ready to go, that is, until I discovered that the vintage pattern I’d chosen was missing pieces. Important pieces. As in, all of them. All I have for Simplicity 3282 is the sleeve, cummerbund, and skirt pattern for View 2. A lovely dress that I still hope to make one day, when I draft a replacement bodice, but I had NO pieces for View 1, which I’d intended to sew. I scrambled to put Plan B into action, and as yesterday’s post attests, it went off well. But here were are at Sunday, and my sewing buddies  who chose fully-lined patterns and troublesome fabrics are still at it. Sooooooo… enter Plan C. As I mentioned in Part Two, I had already found a modern pattern, McCall’s M5686, which was similarish to the vintage Simplicity 3282. So, what the heck? I have the time, and the fabric. Let’s do it!

I’ve never sewn McCall’s before, so I check my measurements against the pattern size chart, and am shocked (SHOCKED!) to come up as a 6. Really? I double check. Yep, those are the measurements. Well, alrighty then. I cut out the pattern, minus the sleeves which I am leaving off as I try to emulate the vintage pattern. I add two inches to the skirt length, for the same reason. I cut out the fabric. I mark the pieces, all of which have pleats all over the dang place and require lots of marking, to be followed by lots of folding-ironing-basting. I finally start sewing. When the bodice is together, I do a test fit… and it’s too small.

Too small!

Alison grabs the pattern envelope, and finds ANOTHER size chart, this one on the envelope FLAP, which puts me at a 12. Well, that’s just a little different, now isn’t it? ISN’T IT? Yikes! I have excess fabric, but not enough to cut out the whole dress again. And ugh, those pleats. It takes me about 12 seconds to decide that I’ll open up the side seams, and add fabric panels. Which means I have to do math. Oy! Okay, let’s see… 5/8-inch seam allowance, times eight by the time I’m done adding TWO panels, and the zipper still needs to go in, so let’s see. X times Z, carry the Y, drink a glass of wine, divide by N, and what do we have? Okay, I shall cut two 3-inch panels and slip them into the side seams of the bodice, which should add 3.5 inches to the finished circumference. And then the same for the skirt. Done and done, new fitting, crisis averted. Whew! Hmmm, that two inches that I added to the skirt length is no longer as much excess as I’d thought. The skirt will now become a rolled hem, to maximize length.

Okay, so now all I need to do is finish the arm holes where I left off the sleeves and… hey. Don’t these look a lot narrower than they do on the pattern envelope? They look a lot narrower. I don’t really want them to be narrower. And I don’t want sleeves, even cap sleeves. Hmmm. Alison suggests finishing them with bias tape. Hey, that’s a good idea! I’m not thrilled with the idea of my dress potentially looking like a ringer tee, but better that than sleeves. I make a quick run to JoAnn.

JoAnn closes 15 minutes before I get there. I really want to finish this up while I still have momentum, so I decide that I will make my own bias tape. Self fabric is the way to go! Yay!

Okay, now, um, how do I do that? I sit down with the 1949 edition of The Complete Book of Sewing (an early birthday gift from Alison; if you’re going to sew vintage, you may as well have vintage sewing reference) and look it up, to discover that it’s exactly how I pictured it as I drove back from JoAnn. Cut cut cut, iron iron iron iron iron iron IRON IRON IRON and finally, ready to sew. I sew the new bias tape, I add bows at the shoulders, and voila, I have a dress, with POCKETS:

When last we met, I had located fabrics from which to make a muslin (from the Hope Chest line of vintage repro fabrics by Spring) AND a finished dress (a set of Asian dragon-themed sheets) from my chosen vintage pattern (7245 from an unknown maker, if you haven’t been following along). All I needed to do was get to it!

Sunday found me re-ironing the vintage pattern, and ironing the fabric that had been folded in my linen closet for five years (no easy task). I traced, I marked, I cut, I researched what a common seam allowance was at the estimated time of the pattern’s production. I sewed the neckline facing on backwards, because I always do that. I ripped out the offending seam and properly restitched the facing. I used my rolled-hem foot for the first time. I put in my first side zipper, and it looks it. The stitching is neat along the sides, but leaves something to be desired at the short ends. And it’s the wrong color.

The dress, which my mother estimated would be a size too small, is actually two sizes too big.

Pinned/clipped on my mannequin:

Yesterday evening, I graded a pattern for the first time. I transferred the original pattern to posterboard, and made sizing adjustments. I also shortened the hemline by nearly three inches, and made the skirt fuller. Today, I shall cut up the sheet set and get together with some sewing friends, and hope hope hope that my first attempt at pattern grading is successful!

NOTE: The toile shown above is for sale at my etsy store, and knowing that the buyer will likely rip out the zipper and redo it, it is priced accordingly.