• Plaid 1940s Fall Frock •

Hello to all my dear blog-readers....if there are any of you left, that is!  ;)  I thought I'd take advantage of a evening home from church due to sickness and try to write up a little blog post.  Life has been hectic, as usual, and I do plenty of thinking about blogging, but that's usually as far as it gets.

This little dress is one that I whipped up last fall (nearly a year ago now!) and it fast became a favorite in my fall/winter wardrobe.  Made of a woven cotton, it isn't necessarily super thick and insulating, but renders itself just the perfect weight for comfortable cold weather wear.

Last October, a customer of mine where I work brought in a big bag of vintage patterns that had been her aunt's, which she "was sure weren't my size, and I probably wouldn't use them."  As it turned out, they were ALL but one in my (and my mom's) exact size range and were amazing, gorgeous, distinct 1930s-1950s patterns that I had not seen anywhere else.  It was SO sweet of her to bring them, and it really was the Lord's timing, as I was having a very hard day and she brightened it immensely with her sweet gift!

This dress was made from one of those patterns, a quintessential '40s frock with just enough nifty details to make it really fun to wear.

{{It has a POCKET....}}

The pattern called for strips of fabric cut on the straight grain and topstitched with 5-6 lines down them, but since I had a plaid to work with, I thought bias would be just the ticket.  It was a little tricky to work with since it became stretchy, being on the bias, but made for a pretty cute contrast!  It also allowed me to NOT have to match up some of the seams, which was very much to my liking!  I love plaid, you might even say I have an addiction to plaid fabrics, yet I really, deeply despise having to match the pattern.  ;P

The sleeves on this dress are some of my favorite '40s long sleeves, and I've used them in several projects since then.  The sleeve cap has three gentle darts, and the remainder of the sleeve is eased in with little or no visible gathering.  The cuffs are pointed just so, which adds another quiet detail. 

My mom bought me these awesome buttons at an antique shop a few years back, and they worked out perfectly for this dress!  Small buttons just didn't cut it, but the large, carved ones gave the dress just the "pop" of contrast needed.

One of the main reasons I love this dress so much is how comfortable it is!  The style of the collar is *perfectly* comfortable, and it fits very well around the neck area.

Oh yes....I hadn't done bound buttonholes in a little while, so I took the opportunity to throw in a little more fabric on the bias.  SO fun.

I paired the dress with my new-to-me Sam Edelman boots.  I hadn't heard of the brand before, but came across these western-inspired all-leather riding boots on Ebay, in my size, for a really great price, and couldn't resist.  I couldn't be happier with them; they are extremely comfortable, fun to wear, and feel great on my feet, even after standing/walking all day long at work.

Well, thus ends my humble little blog post!  I hope that you are all doing well!  I plan to do some more blogging as fall and winter approach, but only time will tell.  I do have great and wonderful plans for expanding my fall/winter wardrobe, so I'm very excited to work on that!  It is bound to be a busy fall with special meetings coming up at church, reenactments, a friend's wedding, concerts to attend, and practice for participating in a production of Handel's Messiah this winter.  Along with the busy work schedule, keeping up with household chores, and property maintenance.  Praise the Lord for a home to care for!

The Lord is so good, so bountiful in His blessings and care for us; we have SO much to be thankful for!  

"O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him."

"Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.  Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.  For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations."

• Plaid in the Snow •

Ever since getting my marvelous boots, I've kind of been wanting to retake pictures with any and all outfits that they could possibly match.  Fortunately for you, that hasn't happened with all of them, but it did with this vintage '40s dress.  ;)  Back when I first blogged about it, we (of course) had no snow, so it made for about the lousiest Christmas dress pictures possible.  But this year we have snow, I have new boots, and therefore a new photo session was absolutely imperative.  ;)

This dress is such a pretty one, both because of the fabric and the design.  You can tell at a glance that it is vintage fabric, and it also has that "aged cotton," if I may call it that- feel to it.  There's nothing softer!  :)

My mom let me borrow her pretty black coat for these pictures, and I sort of stole her mittens for it too.  ;)   I still want to make a vintage coat, but have not happened upon any mountains of free wool coating with which to make one just yet.  And somehow it's way more fun to spend money on pretty dress fabrics........and boots.  ;)

This past summer I found this pretty velvet hat at an antique store; I can't even remember if it was local or out-of-town, but in any case, I really like the hat.  It didn't want to stay on in the frigid wind, but other than that it seems to do so quite well.  And since it is velvet, it matches my boots super-good!!  ;)

I've been on the hunt lately for some good cream-colored sweater tights; so far all the pairs I've tried have been dreadfully short and therefore totally unwearable.  They always say that they'll fit a 6' tall person, but when you try them on?  Hehe, let's just say that they don't.  At all.  So the hunt goes on.  In any case, these gray ones are my absolute favorite because, well, obviously, they're GRAY, and they also fit very well!  ;)

It's so much fun to be able to wear colored tights now that I have these boots; none of my other vintage shoes seemed to look decent when paired with them.

That pose doesn't look familiar or anything, now does it?  *cough*

My hands and pretty much my whole body was freezing while we took these pictures, but my feet sure weren't!  :)  Hurrah for warm boots!!

---

• Pictures by my wonderful mom, as always.  <3 •

Thank you so much for stopping by!!

• It's All About the Boots •

It's time for the big, exciting, amazing, and long-awaited shoe post.  :D

In short, I have new boots.  And to say that I love them is a definite understatement.

Last month, Royal Vintage Shoes announced that the Victoria Carriage Boots were no longer going to be available on the RVS website, and therefore were on sale.  Well, I have been mourning the lack of any winter-appropriate footwear in my "shoe wardrobe" for a long time, and these were so utterly tempting, I couldn't resist.

The boots are made of velveteen on the outside, with genuine mouton (soooo soft) fur trim, grosgrain ribbon ties, and a quilted sateen lining.  In short, they are the fuzziest, wuzziest, most wonderful boots I've ever owned, or will ever own.  And on top of that, they are gorgeous and oh-so-vintage, instead of looking like bedroom slippers!  ;)

Since the soles are made of leather, I took them in to our (amazing) local cobbler and had him put some thin rubber soles on the bottoms for both durability and traction.  He did an excellent job, and they are now ready for anything winter throws my direction!  I also gave them 4(!) coats of waterproofing/stain-repellant spray, which has worked wonders so far.  All the crunching through snow that I did in this and two other consecutive photo shoots left them dry as a bone; the snow didn't stick to them, and any moisture just beaded off.  Amazing!!!!!!!  :D

The boots are still available on the American Duchess website HERE, but only until the remaining sizes sell out, then they'll be gone forever.

As for the outfit, this skirt is a recent make of mine.  My dear sis Sarah sent me a "just because" package back in January, consisting of a vintage pattern and two different wools, one of them being this plaid and the other a solid brown, which I also recently made into a skirt.  I love wool fabric, plaid, and the color gray, so this was a total winner.  It is so good that I waited practically a year to make it into *just* the right garment!  ;)

I've been making quite a few skirts lately, and am having a blast wearing them.  Before I started making my own clothing, my wardrobe consisted of about 97% skirts and blouses with only about 3% dresses.  Now that I do sew my own clothing, however, the situation has just about reversed for whatever reason!  I am really enjoying adding more skirts and blouses to the mix though; they are so comfortable and very easy to customize for a dressier or more casual look.

For this one, I used a vintage '50s pattern in our stash for a medium-fullness, flared skirt.  I definitely wanted that chevron effect at the front and back seams, and shockingly enough, none of our modern repro patterns seemed to have that!  The pattern I used had the centers front and back directly on the bias, with the side seams being on the straight grain.  It was the perfect pattern for the fabric, because it fit on to the 2 yard piece just right!  :) 

The blouse is a make from earlier this year; you can read about the construction of it here.  

Although I love plaid, I tend to avoid making garments out of it like the plague, because I have so little faith in my matching skills (and rightly so!).  This one was a real confidence-booster though!!  It's always so fun when something comes out just the way you want it to.

Have I mentioned it yet?  I love these boots.  --->SO MUCH<---

Another super-exciting aspect about them is, they not only work great with my everyday vintage wardrobe, but also will work (even more so, if that's possible) beautifully with my historical dresses as well, since the original design dated from the 1860s-1920s.  I can't wait to pair them with a big, fluffy dress.  ;)

This is a pretty good photo to end with; it pretty much sums up the way I feel about my new shoes, and this skirt.  ;D

A big thank you to Sarah (<3) for my gorgeous wool, and also to Lauren and the crew at AD and RVS for the stunning boots!!  I would highly, highly recommend them to anyone looking for wintry vintage footwear; comfortable, incredibly high quality, and downright gorgeous.

****ALSO****

My Etsy shop is having a Christmas sale right now!!  Save 20% off your purchase when you use the coupon code MERRYCHRISTMAS20, valid through Sunday, December 25th.  Stop by the shop and check it out!  :)

• 1930s Day Dress in Plaid •

Life can get so hectic and stressful at times, and as such blogging gets put onto the back burner.  Thanks so much for bearing with my crazy and impromptu schedule though.  :)

Today I'm sharing another dress I made for my vacation back in August.  I wore this dress on the day I left, making it my airplane-travel dress.  It worked amazingly well for that purpose and was extremely comfortable, which is a huge bonus!  So yes, I was that gal trotting around the airport sporting milkmaid braids, a goofy dress covered with yellow bows, and hand-sewing a colonial corset for a doll.  What else would you expect from me?!!  ;)

This dress from Raleigh Vintage was always one of my favorites, so when I happened upon it again in a search for plaid dress styles, I knew that it was the one to make.  The fabric I used is from the Aunt Grace Ties One On collection by Judie Rothermel for Marcus.  It is an absolutely lovely fabric that is comfortable to wear, nice and thick, and doesn't wrinkle much at all!

For the front bodice, I used Simplicity 3688, cutting the neck a bit bigger (I think?), adding a center front seam on the yoke, and spreading the gathers out a bit more on the yoke front-bodice front seam.  I also took in the bodice quite a bit at the waist for a more fitted look.

The original dress actually just has a bias-bound keyhole opening in the front, but since I didn't want that much neck showing, I opted for a little zipper instead.  At a glance, the original dress actually looks like it has a zipper, so it works out just fine!  ;)

The back bodice is also (sort of) from S3688, modified to have a back yoke and a gathered back bodice.  In essence, the top of the bodice was cut wider in order to gather it onto the yoke, but the bottom was then cut narrower than the pattern in order to have it be fitted without darts.

Since I have always found the sleeves from S3688 to be terribly restrictive (I can't raise my arms without the whole garment shifting), I used the sleeves and armscyes from Simplicity 3847.  That worked really well, so much so that this dress features some of the most unrestricted arm movement of any of mine!   Hurrah!!! 

The skirt is comprised of two pieces, a front and a back.  The front features two large pleats that are topstitched down, and both the front and back pieces are flared.  I had to cut the skirt approximately 11" longer than the finished length (adding 4.5" for a 2.25" finished width tuck, plus 5" for the hem and 1.5" or so for seam allowance and hem adjustments).  From what I could tell, the original dress had a deep hem that extended up beyond the base of the tuck, thereby hiding the stitching line.  So I did the same with my dress!  I sewed my tuck all the way around, then used some gorgeous blue 1" rayon seam binding from my stash to hem up the skirt.  It worked famously, and I was able to machine-stitch the hem with no guilt whatsoever!  (Actually, I do sometimes machine-stitch hems that are going to be visible, and really don't feel guilty about it at all.)  ;) 

The skirt hangs so nicely with such a deep hem.  Too bad there isn't always enough fabric to do that!!

Sarah made me aware of the gorgeous Kona cottons at JoAnn to my attention, and I couldn't be any happier with them.  Great quality, nice and thick, and a far better price than one can purchase an equivalent for at a quilt shop!  I found some perfect yellow and white solids that were just what was needed for the accents on this dress. 

The bows are just tacked on so they can be easily removed for washing.  The upper one is tacked to the zipper pull, thereby disguising it.  ;)  The collar was a bit of a trick to draft, and I didn't quuuiiite get the shape right, but it's pretty close.  Close enough to be quite satisfied with!!!  ;)

Sometimes, like with this dress, you need a plain fabric tie-belt.  But I always hate wearing them because of the way that they scrunch up as soon as you start moving around.  So with this one, I was determined to figure a way to stiffen the thing in order to prevent that!  I finally came up with the solution, which was to sew wide grosgrain ribbon (exactly like what I am wearing for a belt in these pictures) to one half of the belt before sewing it together.  The ribbon only extends around to within about 2-3" of the knot on each side, so it doesn't interfere with the knot at all, but stabilizes the belt perfectly!!!  I couldn't be any happier with how it came out.  No fuss, no muss, no constant fiddling, yet it is just as comfortable (if not more so!) as a plain fabric belt.  I can't wait to use this trick again!!!  :D

An extra bonus?  The ribbon is yellow and polka-dotted, so it not only matches my belt, but makes it super fun to look at when taking it on and off.  ;)

This was such a fun dress to make, and I love having my own version of that pretty green one.  And it really brought home the point to me once more, that you can quite easily recreate a lot of dresses just by combining patterns that you already have.  It might take a little bit of finagling, but it's so worth it in the end.  Have you ever reproduced an original dress?  I would love to hear about it!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a lovely week!!  Enjoy these last weeks of fall!  :)

Simplicity 1587 • Version 5

It's rather ironic; I had planned on photographing and posting a tropical, lightweight rayon dress today, and instead I ended up posting a wintry plaid dress worn with furs. Interesting how that works, isn't it? ;)

The weather took a sudden turn into coldness again, so I decided to buck the April fur deadline and sneak in one last appearance of them for the season. It was cold enough to need them, that's for sure! 

I made this dress before Christmas, and have worn it a lot since then! It is made of the same material as my plaid 1912 skirt; a thick, woven cotton material that has a slight stretch to it. In short, it is the ultimate dress fabric. :) 

We bought this fabric quite a few years ago! I wanted my mom to make me a dress like one that Kit, an American Girl doll had. That was so long ago, I can't even find a picture of the original dress! Sadness! ;)

As you may have guessed, that particular dress never got made, so I had about 5 yards of this lovely material laying around to make into something. I made the plaid 1912 skirt out of it first, but had a little bit of material left afterwards. I never thought there would be enough for a dress, but surprisingly enough, there was! I was able to *just barely* squeeze Simplicity 1587 out of it, using the Vogue 8767 skirt.

I suppose the amount of times I've made this pattern rather speaks for itself. Suffice it to say, I love it. And I'm not going to say that I have enough of them, because every time I do, I end up sewing yet another one. ;) There is another summery version that has not been blogged about yet, in fact!

Click to see versions 1, 2, 3, 4.

I made three-quarter length sleeves on this dress, and opted for a bow-less front with a simple (nut) button as an accent. We happened to have a belt buckle that was similar in texture, so that worked well!

This dress matches my vintage 1940s shoes from Two Old Beans better than any other, I think. I just love them! 

Thanks for stopping by! I'll be back in a couple of days with a lovely tea-themed blog post. :) Stay tuned!

• 1950s Wintry Gray Ensemble •

Also entitled, “The Outfit of UFOs.”

;) This outfit took a very long time to come together, but I’m quite pleased with it now that it’s done! My original plans were for an “ice skating outfit” to wear on our trip to Duluth last year. The colors of the plaid were not only my favorite, but they also happened to be the perfect colors to match my ice skates.

I started making the plaid flannel into a half circle skirt, but soon found that I DID NOT like the way it looked, or hung, or…pretty much anything about it. Into the UFO drawer it went. Or did I hurl it? ;)

Meanwhile I started on the blouse, made out of some coordinating gray cottons from the local quilt shop. I was…extremely confident in my sewing abilities, apparently, because I thought that I would just cut out a blouse shape, sew in some darts, and make myself a beautiful blouse.

The only problem was, it didn’t work. At all. It was too small, the darts were in all the wrong places and were all the wrong sizes, AND I had serged all of the seams. Guess where the blouse ended up?  ;)

Periodically I would pull the blouse and/or the skirt out of the Drawer of Shame and examine its possibilities, but it would soon be rehurled into its chamber of disgrace. Finally, last fall, when I got my 18th century cloak, I got the itch to make one myself! The wool cloak that I have is actually a half-circle with some simple darts sewn in to form “shoulders,” so it gave me the idea that my partially-made skirt could be turned into a cloak! I quickly started unpicking the basted seams, resewing them, and what do you know? It was starting to look fabulous!

The next problem was finding a suitable lining. It just so happened that I had some gray houndstooth flannel in my fabric stash that was formerly destined to be a jacket of some kind. It matched so perfectly, and there happened to be the perfect amount of it, that I just couldn’t resist using it!

I used Simplicity 5794 for the hood, and simply eased the "neckline" (formerly the waist of the skirt) onto it. Since I was lining the whole cloak, there was no hemming involved, just a little spot of blind-stitching! Yesssss!! ;)

Once my cloak was finished, I decided I wanted to tackle the blouse once and for all. If I recall correctly, I was able to use the original back bodice (minus the ill-fitting darts), and cut out new front bodice pieces from the little bit of extra fabric I had leftover. There was so little fabric left that I had to piece the front bodice at the waist. Thankfully it doesn't show when the blouse is tucked in, and even when when I wear it untucked it doesn't look that out of place. Make do and mend, right?!?

I used a vintage pattern that we have for the collar, and (as far as I remember) just my basic bodice sloper for the blouse bodice. The sleeves are from Simplicity 1692. I decided to do contrasting bound buttonholes, and I really like the effect!! The buttons are vintage. I even have an extra one leftover! The only problem is, it's down under the seat of our car, never to be seen or heard from again. I have this amazing knack for dropping buttons when I'm sewing them on in the car in just the right place so that they are utterly irretrievable. There are...several different ones down in there. ;) Thankfully I still had enough left to finish this blouse.

Meanwhile we are driving around in a vintage button museum! ;)

The back cloak seam came out quite well. :D It's always so fun to be able to match something up and actually have it turn out!

This gray skirt is actually store-bought!!!!! (insert gasps of horror!)

I bought it about 5 years ago at TJMaxx, and have gotten a lot of wear out of it since! Admittedly, it's not the most amazing-looking skirt for vintage wear, but until another alternative comes up, it will do. ;) It's a wool blend, which makes it nice for winter.

It's time for a shoe-admiring break. 

;)

No, really, these are my favorite shoes EVER. I've been looking for low-heeled, everyday-vintage-style shoes for SO. LONG. So when I found these beauties (that actually come in size 11!) from Shoe Embassy, I knew I had to have them. They are made well, immensely comfortable, and they match pretty nearly everything. It does take an eternity for the shoes to arrive, and the customer service at Shoe Embassy is some of the worst I've experienced, but if you do manage to get your shoes, as I did, you'll love them. I ended up with an extra pair of these due to a mix-up, while my mom's shoes were "disposed of" by the Royal Mail authorities. Long story short, don't order two pairs in two different sizes at one time. :| And be sure not to get any kind of shoe spray or protectant, because that is apparently what the Royal Mail system calls "illegal or dangerous items." And it's always a good idea to demolish a pair of shoes because they are in a box with an aerosol can, right? 

Rant ended.

Back to the cloak! :) Here you can see the reverse (houndstooth) side of it, with the blue plaid showing on the hood. It is a very versatile style, and it works for quite a few decades (or centuries!!). I found quite a few examples on Pinterest of plaid capes in the 19th century.  

I'm so glad to finally have pictures of this outfit! I've been wanting to take them for ages, but since we seemingly haven't had a single flake of snow all winter, it's been a long wait for an appropriate background! ;)

Thanks for visiting! I'll be back next week with my mom's version of this outfit! :D

• 1940s Christmas Plaid Dress •

And now for Christmas Dress #2!!! :)

Maeberry Vintage was having a sale several weeks ago, and when I saw this adorable dress, I just couldn't resist it. 1940s. Right size. Right length (!!!!). And the only issue was a couple of teeny stains on the third scallop from the top. Thankfully, they washed out so well that they are hard to even locate. The fun part is, the brand name is Fruit of the Loom! I have a feeling they don't make dresses like this anymore. 

I was definitely born in the wrong era.

The design of the dress is fairly simple, but SO cute!! I love the little bias-bound scallops, and the black buttons are the perfect touch.

The neckline is quite fun too!

I was able to let the hem down around an inch, which made it the perfect length. (And I sewed on rayon seam binding....I LOVE that stuff!!)

The waist length of the bodice is a tad short, but I borrowed the green belt from my Kerrybrooke 1950s dress to hide that fact. :)

And in case you were wondering, yes, it is made of diagonal plaid fabric! My mom is planning to make a dress just like this out of some diagonal plaid fabric that she bought, so we were very curious to see if this dress was bias or straight-grain.

I wasn't intending to make yet another Christmas dress, but it sort of happened anyway! :) I pulled out the leftover plaid fabric from my Pleated 1900s Skirt and managed to squeeze a dress out of it! So now I'm all set in the Christmas dress department. No shortage of things to wear this season!! ;)

The side opening on this dress is absolutely ingenious. The buttons on the front are just decorative; they don't unbutton, so there has to be a way to get in the dress, right? Well, I naturally assumed that the dress had a zipper, but I was definitely mistaken! Instead it has one of the niftiest side openings I've ever seen!

The dress has a pocket on the right side, so when you look at the left side, you think that it just has a buttoned pocket. Wrong! It's actually a gusset-like opening that unbuttons and gives you enough room to take the dress on and off.

This has got to be the niftiest thing I've ever seen! I can't wait to try it on one of my dresses!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas! Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!!

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6