• Chocolate Bonbon 1950s Dress •

So sorry for the unannounced absence!!  Life can get pretty busy at times, and, well, a lack of photographs can be rather preventative to blogging as well.  ;)

This dress is one I made early this year for our southern vacation, but the only picture we took of it was this one:

:P

We always have these grand plans when we go on vacation; we make new, fun outfits, and we figure on taking the most wonderful pictures in the most wonderful locations while we're there.  Instead, we get a minimal amount of coat-covered, messy-haired, typical vacation photos.  Which is fine, but not quite what one needs for blogging.  But that's just the way it goes.  ;)

I purchased this fabric at Hancock Fabrics (boohoo!!!) a couple of years ago on the clearance rack for only a dollar or two per yard.  There was only 3.125 yards, so I was very limited in what I could do with it.  I always wanted to make a 1950s s'more-themed dress, with graham-cracker-shaped buttons, but no such buttons were found to exist, sadly.  :(  In the pursuit for The Perfect Buttons, my mom offered me these *gorgeous* pink ones, which proved to be just the right accent!

Somehow the combination of the brown polka dots with the pink accents reminded us very much of chocolate bonbons, hence the name.  ;) 

I'm amazed the dress squeezed into that small of an amount of fabric, but it did, albeit without enough leftover to make a bound buttonhole (only a very slight exaggeration).  I even managed to eke out a 2" hem!!  The skirt is made of two widths of fabric, so it is approximately 90" around.  Just enough to accommodate a petticoat and give that '50s silhouette!  :)

As for the design, I took a page from Lily's book and made a front-closing bodice with an underlap, like her fruit and lemon dresses.  I used the collar area from Butterick 6055 and my basic bodice sloper for the rest of the bodice pattern, varying things here and there to suit.  For the front opening, I simply left the center front seam open and faced it, sewing an underlap piece into the left seam.  The buttons were then sewn onto that underlap piece.  Since the neckline was a bit low, I pinned in a small modesty panel. 

 I ended up miscalculating the front shoulder width, due to having forgotten about the front shoulder dart, but somehow it came out perfectly nonetheless!  I should make mistakes like this more often; they make my sleeves fit even better!  ;) 

I managed to match the dots up on the front bodice, and placed the buttons smack-dab on top of them.  ;D  

These poor sleeves met with a near-death experience; I wanted that ricrac slit detail on my sleeves, but since they were not kimono sleeves, it was not so easy to do.  First I tried sewing the ricrac into the seam with the facing, clipped and trimmed the seam to within an inch of its life, only to turn it and find out that the ricrac had gotten sewn into every place except where it was supposed to be.  What happened next was this:

.....along with a lot of thoughts as to how to make this dress look decent as a sleeveless one.  But after a day or so of brooding, I finally decided to tackle it and see if it could be redeemed.  Thankfully, it could and did.  I ended up sewing the ricrac on after the facing seam was sewn and turned.

So all in all, it was a fun dress to make, despite a few hiccups along the way.  And it is such a fun (and comfortable, yay!!) dress to wear, I might just have to try another rendition someday!  :)  

Have a lovely week, and enjoy the gorgeous fall season!

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If you haven't done so, do check out my Etsy shop for a new listing or two!  I recently added an adorable ruffled tote bag, featuring the cutest novelty print.  See the listing here.

• 1950s Lemon Print Birthday Dress •

Since I missed posting for two(!) weeks in a row, I thought an early post was in order for this week. Between cleaning, having a grand old time and sewing like crazy with my dear friend Sarah, and taking a 1200 mile road trip, it has been a busy couple of weeks!! :) 

Starting next week, I'll be posting about our Civil War dresses in several installments, but since yesterday was my birthday, I thought I'd share my birthday dress with you first. I originally planned on making a polka-dot birthday dress, but for various reasons decided not to, and picked this lemony fabric for this purpose instead. I wanted it to be a different style than any of my other dresses, so I chose to replicate this 1950s pattern: 

I fell in love with the collar design, so decided to give it a whirl. I used Vogue V9000 as a base for the bodice, Butterick 6055 for the skirt, and self-drafted the collar and cuff patterns.

The collar is made of nothing more than angled-edged bias pieces, so it wasn't hard to make at all, once I got the right measurements. It was a definite miracle and answer to prayer that it came out right, however, since I didn't make a mockup. :) Yay!!!

The neckline is cut slightly narrower at the shoulders, flaring out to be a little bit wider at the bottom of the front neckline. The collar lays very well in the front and sides, and curves around the shoulder to the back just as it was supposed to. Phew! I love the style so much, I'm planning a more formal dress in this same design as my next sewing project! Maybe it's because I've been watching the Burns and Allen show recently that I love this dress so much, but in any case, it reminds me very much of something Gracie would have worn!

The green buckle is borrowed from my peppermint dot dress. The yellow dotty ribbon from my navy polka dot dress makes a nice belt as well, if I want a different look. 

One of the gifts my parents got me is this gorgeous vintage yellow beret. I absolutely love it, and it matches so many of my garments! Since I didn't have a hat to wear with this dress, I got to open this particular present early. ;) Berets seemed to be a popular style all the way from the 1930s-50s, so it is very much the ideal hat, and fills a very large color gap in my hat wardrobe.

My mom has a lighter blue version of this fabric that she is planning on sewing up soon! It is going to be so gorgeous, I just can't wait to see it sewn together! The style, though also from the 1950s, is totally different than this dress, and perfectly suited for the fabric.

Perhaps we need to do another photo shoot with this dress, with a glass of lemonade as a prop. ;)

I officially *almost* have my vegetable gardens all in! All that remains to be done is planting green beans, a few pinto beans, and a few green onions. Potatoes, tomatoes, peppers (bell and hot), black beans, onions, carrots and peas are all officially planted. :) 

Lord willing, we'll have a bountiful harvest this year!

Since my Etsy shop just turned a year old on May 16th, and I just celebrated my birthday, there is a sale going on in the shop! Save 20% off with the coupon code BIRTHDAYSALE, through May 31st. 

Thanks for stopping by! :)

• Striped 1950s Dresses •

Today's mom-daugher post is rather appropriate since Mother's Day is just around the corner, don't you think? :)

Both of these dresses were made by my mom, other than a few finishing touches on my dress. I really got the good end of this deal on every side; not only did I not have to make my dress, but I didn't have to do any stripe-matching!! ;) We each bought yardage of these coordinating diagonal striped fabrics almost a year ago, with no particular design in mind for them. My mom picked out the blue, and I picked out the brown. She got the itch to make her fabric into a dress when we found this picture of a 1950s dress from Croatia Vintage on Etsy:

A diagonal stripe, in very similar colors, and just about as cute as possible. :) She decided to make it, and painstakingly cut it out, matching up stripes all over the place, only to find that she just didn't like it on her at all. Somehow or other (heehee!) I ended up trying it on and really loved it, so we arranged a bit of a trade. :) It worked out quite well, I must say! 

She used Vogue 8811 for the bodice, and the skirt is just a simple dirndl-type. It's about 90" around, which is just the right size to be big enough for the petticoat, while also keeping it contained, so to speak.  

Strangely enough, although the fabrics appear to be exactly the same, the blue doesn't wrinkle a bit, while the brown does. The pattern hides it quite well though.

Incidentally, I have recently become a convert to deep hems. I used to do nothing but narrow (1/2-5/8") hems, but ever since doing a deep one (3", I think?) for the first time on this dress, I'm addicted! They are nice for so many reasons, the best ones being added weight to keep the skirt in place as well as less chances to snag the slip-stitching on various things. I'm definitely hooked! :)

I didn't really want a tie belt (although I'm starting to think I might just like one!), so I made a standard belt with a buckle. Ironically enough, since the fabric is a diagonal stripe, the belt is cut on the bias in order to get a straight stripe! :)

Someday I hope to be as good at pattern-matching as my mom. Although that's not likely to happen since I typically tend to avoid sewing fabrics that require matching like the plague! :|

Now for the good stuff! :) This dress is just adorable; I love it so much!! Mom wanted a completely different design for her dress this time, so she decided to replicate this 1950s pattern:

(Pure eye candy, don't you agree? I've got my eye on some pink and black ric-rac fabric that I'm dying to make into the same dress!)

She used Butterick 6055 for the bodice, and the front panels of  Butterick 5813 for both the skirt front and back.

In order to get the chevron effect, she had to cut one half of each front and back bodice (and skirt) straight-grain and the other half crosswise. 

Need I mention it again? She's a pattern-matching magician. :)

These buttons were part of the contents of a jar that she purchased a while back, and they were THE perfect touch for the front of her dress, along with the ricrac accents on the collar and sleeves.

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I discovered, ironically enough, on April 30th, that there was such a thing as "Me-Made-May," and so was able to sneak in at the last minute! The challenge is to wear something handmade each day of the month, but since I already do that, I decided to put my own personal twist on it, which is to wear a different (handmade) outfit each day of the month! So far it has been fun, and I've got it all scheduled out, so we'll see how it goes! :) I'll post a roundup of the outfits each week. 

Also, if you haven't done so already, hop over to Emily's Vintage Visions blog and check out my guest post about vintage footwear!

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Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful rest of your week, and Happy Mother's Day!