analog me

In Process

Late last night, I wrote a long post about summer vacation, children and sewing. This morning, it is gone, vanished into the ethernet, so you will get a short update. 

1) Summer vacation means an 11-year old boy has a lot of suggestions about how my time should be spent. This means I have been watching this on YouTube and laughing hysterically. (If you have associations with Bohemian Rhapsody and the word "Mama" you will see why.) And collecting stuff to make terrariums, making terrariums and delivering terrariums, so his business can thrive. And about 50 other things he finds important and thinks I should do right now. (Just this minute it's getting off the computer so he can use it and doing something about the fruit flies.)

2) I did start work on this:

3) This project has a lot of firsts for me: my first perforated pattern, first 1940's pattern, first vintage pattern made with vintage fabric, first underarm gusset, first cut-out neckline. I am worried the neck line will choke me and need alteration. I am anxious about the buttonholes. I am dreading the neckband. So I am following my mother's advice from my early sewing days and only working on it a bit at a time so as to avoid errors made in frustration. Here's where I am right now:

4) Usually vintage patterns are too big for me so I used a smaller size this time. Now I see that the side seams have a 3/4" seam allowance to give room for adjustment. Maybe that's why previous blouses were too big?

5) As a small, square-shouldered lass, I developed shoulder-pad-avoidance-syndrome (SPAS) in the 1980's. This design calls for shoulder pads. I am supposed to make them. Should I ? Will I look like I just walked off the set of Dynasty, or can I make something a bit more subtle ? Are they necessary ?

6) I'm sure a certain son will have his opinions on all this, but I would prefer yours. 

80's Dress Refashion

In the 1980's, I didn't buy a single non-vintage dress. (Okay, my mom might have bought me a couple.) I have a small head, average sized shoulders, a tiny bust and torso, small waist and average hips. With skinny arms and a small head emerging from the giant padded shoulders and baggy bodices, I looked like a tick. 

So this is my first 80's dress purchase. Unlovely (and thus it lasted to 99 cent Monday) but made from gorgeous linen fabric. And the lines had potential. The sleeves and top yoke were cut as one, and it had eight gores that released into reversed pleats. 

It had a vaguely retro feel (30s yoke?, 50's skirt ?) filtered through an 80's style sense, so I felt compelled to rehabilitate it. My fixes: shortening the sleeves, narrowing the sides, taking out the shoulder pads and then taking up the shoulders and top of arm seams, re-cutting the neckline and re-doing it with bias tape, resewing all the front panels to have some shape, and shortening the length. Three ugly white plastic buttons were replaced with two unmatched vintage ones, and I hand-sewed a pick stitch line to highlight the yoke. It might have been easier to start from scratch, but then I don't think I would have ended up with this:

My husband questioned my shoe choice wondering what era I was trying to evoke. I'm not really sure. Maybe a bluestocking? 

It does wrinkle easily. I wore a skirt I made last winter underneath as a slip for some skirt poof and let it hang out, but I might need a crinoline. (I can't believe I just said that.)

My favorite part is some simple pick-stitching I did with cordonet along the yoke and the new/old buttons. It's always good to know that I can find a use for the random sewing supplies I have amassed.

 
I considered taking in the back gores a bit too, which might have helped with the swayback wrinkles, but in the end I am glad I didn't overfit the dress. Right after the photo shoot, I decided to fly to Montana and help my mom move out of the way of a surging river. My sister, son and I found a flight, packed and ran out the door within 45 minutes. Beyond removing the skirt/slip I didn't even have time to change my clothes.  It was a very comfortable (if crushed looking) travel dress. I felt so great, I didn't even mind the pat down I got at the airport.

Some Details:

• Fabric: Navy Linen dress 0.99
• Buttons: Cast-Offs Junk Store
• Embroidery thread: Polyester Cordonet
• Airplane ticket: don't ask