The Vintage Purple Velvet Dress

As promised, here's a closer look at the vintage dress I bought while on vacation!

Let's start with a few of the outer details, the bow details on the sleeve and, suprise (!), pockets:

As to be expected, there is a metal zipper. The seam allowances of the zipper seam are finished with hem tape, the same you'll see in the hem later. Only one side is stitched to the seam allowance.

The bodice of the dress is lined, but the skirt is not, as you can see in the photo below:

The bodice and lining are joined at the top edges, but treated as one for the side seams and darts. The lining is taffeta, and pretty close to the color you see below. The dress also has dress hangers attached under the arm.

The center front and center back skirt seams were cut on the selvedges. This is something I would do, too to lessen the possibility of fraying.

The dress also includes an inside waist belt to support the skirt. It is attached to the waistline seam allowance and includes a hook and eye. You can see that one side of the eye has come unattached.

Last, we have the hem. The hem is finished with hem tape and is hand stitched. Notice the small pleats to help ease in the fullness of the hem. The pleats are one way to deal with easing in hem fullness of thicker and heavy fabrics (darts and cutting out small triangles are two others that I can think of at the moment.)

Tomorrow I'll be blogging from Virginia - now I need to get in the car and get there!

Parting Shot: Packed and Ready to Go. So, we're off for a road trip. Notice that the sewing machine is front and center for the this trip.

It's Not All About Her!

My son likes mom to make him things, too! I bought this bright yellow fabric a while ago and finally decided to make him something. He of course, loves it and wanted to wear it right away. I used the same Patrones pattern that I used this spring to make my son a shirt, but made a few modifications. First, I did not use the pocket. I didn't feel that it needed the pocket because of the fabric print. Second I added white trim to the yoke seams and the sleeve cuff. Third, I cut and shaped the back edge of the yoke following the curve of the fabric print.

Here's how I did that curved back yoke:

This style of yoke takes a little planning before stitching. Basically you can use this method to make any shaped yoke on the back of a shirt without have to figure out how to cut the lower back to match or stitching any weirdly shaped seams. When cutting out your fabric, cut one yoke according to the pattern piece (inner yoke) and another yoke (outer yoke) with the lower edge shaped as you desire. Make sure that the finished shaped edge of the outer yoke is longer than the seam that will join the yoke to the lower back. It must be as long as the finished original pattern piece or longer - take care when cutting curves or deep inward v-shapes to make sure that the yoke will be long enough.

Step 1: Prepare the outer yoke. Staystitch, clip and press the seam allowance on the lower edge of the yoke to the wrong side. To add trim or piping, baste that in place at this time. Also baste any matching trim to the front edges of the yoke. Notice that the seam allowances on the front edges are *not* pressed to the wrong side. For the trim, I used white premade bias tape unfolded and repressed in half. (wrong side of outer yoke shown below)

Step 2: Assemble the back. Stitch the lower back and the inner yoke (the piece that was cut according to the pattern piece) together with the right side of the yoke to the wrong side of the lower back. Press seam allowance up toward yoke. This might look strange now, but it will work.

Step 3: Stitch yoke, front and back together at shoulders. Carefully layer the three pieces together in this order: outer yoke right side up on the bottom; fronts, right side down on top of outer yoke and finally the back/inner yoke right side up on top of the fronts. Stitch together at shoulders. This seems like an odd step, but trust me.

Step 4: Stitch outer yoke in place. Open out fronts and back and press outer yoke toward the back. You'll see that the outer yoke will cover the inner yoke/lower back seam. Topstitch along bottom edge of out yoke onto the lower back. Done!

Finishing from the inside, there's only one line of stitching so the inside is just as neat and clean as a regular lined yoke application:

Lastly we have a few self-portraits done by my son. I didn't realize that second one was on the camera until I downloaded them!

Q/A: Jenn wanted to know regarding the buttonholes on the blouses I've recently made, "I have a quick question...do you leave the buttons horizontal on everything you make? I am wondering why - I have been remarking my buttonholes to be vertical (save the collar buttons) so that the shirts look similar to store bought/factory made clothing. Is there any particular reason that you leave them horizontal? " No real reason, actually. I basically make the buttonholes however the pattern has them made - unless I feel that the buttonholes are wrong for the button or effect that I'm trying to achieve. My son's shirt, above, has vertical buttonholes.

Parting Shot: As Promised. The vintage dress I bought in Tampa. There were many dress I tried on and could have bought - all beautiful and interesting examples of 50's/early 60's clothing. It is purple velvet and I think made by a seamstress at home as there is no label. Tomorrow, I'll do a detailed post on the insides and construction - if you've never seen the inside of a vintage dress this will be your chance.

School Wardrobe - Blue Blouse

McCall's 4866 - 3/4 Length Sleeve

This blouse is from the same pattern as the blouse I showed you yesterday except that this one has 3/4 length sleeves instead of the short sleeves. For Kristine: the sizing runs pretty true. I've made a size 10 for my daughter and it seems to fit like most things labeled a 10. I do think that the blouse could be an inch or two longer. My daughter has a long torso, so these shirt probably will not be worn tucked in. If they get too short during the school, I have an idea to fix them, here's to hoping I won't have to use it!

Here's my method for putting garments together quickly. I do this only for simple garments and for those that do not have a lot of hand work or particular details. I'd never do this for expensive fabric or for something that I'm using couture techniques to make, but it works well for children's clothing. What you see below is the beginning of the blouse. I go through the entire garment and pin together everything that can be pinned together and sit down and sew it all in one sitting. From left to right: the sleeves, they need the basting at the cap and the hem guides stitched in; the collar pieces that need to be stitched together; the fronts, with the interfacing pinned to the facings and the darts pinned, and last the back with the darts pinned.

Once all that is stitched, I move the whole group to the ironing board and do all the trimming and pressing. I also pin anything together that I can for the next round of stitching. As you can see from the second photo, all my tools are on the ironing board, ready to go so that I'm not hunting for them and wasting time.

The picture below shows the second round of stitching waiting to be stitched. There's the collar and stand pinned together waiting for assembly and the fronts with the facings ready to the be stitched and then turned to finish the bottom edge for the hem.

I continue working this way until I get to the point where I have finished units to stitch together. If you think about it, it is quicker to sit and stitch a lot of items and then press them all at the same time rather than hopping up and down to the ironing board from the sewing machine. This works for me because by the time the fronts are ready for the collar, the collar is ready, too. There isn't a good reason not go ahead and make up the collar and sleeves since you're going to be sitting at the machine anyway. This method does take some reading through this instructions and figuring out what components can be made ahead and what can't, but once you've made a pattern the first time, this actually isn't so hard.

Parting Shot: Vintage Buttons. I picked these up on my vintage shopping experience in Tampa. The shop had a couple of boxes worth of buttons and although I could have bought a lot of them, I knew I only had so much room in my suitcase! Tomorrow I'll show you the vintage dress I bought.

School Wardrobe - Blouse

McCall's 4866, Short Sleeves

Thank you all for the warm welcome back! I will be posting during this next vacation as I know that all the places that I will be have internet connections. It wasn't necessarily that way during the last two weeks!

Before I left for vacation, I cut out two blouses for my daughter from McCall's 4866 so that when I returned home, I'd be able to make them quickly. When I return from Georgia, I will still have two weeks before school starts, so I plan to finish the remainder of the school clothes then (3 skirts, 1 jumper, 1 dress and 2 knit tops).

This blouse is a very basic blouse, with front and back darts, buttons, curved hem and three sleeve options. My daughter wanted short sleeves for the pink blouse. She also chose snaps for the closure because we didn't have any matching buttons (hundreds of buttons, but no matching ones, go figure!) and because I just got a new toy, a snap tool and snaps from Snapsource.

Here's a quick peek inside the blouse, showing the serged side seams, the front dart and the finished front edge of the facing. For these blouses, I've been serging the shoulder seams, attaching the sleeves while still flat and then serging the underarm seam and side seam in one long seam. For me, this speeds things up a bit.

To keep the facing edge neat, I stitch the interfacing to the facing right sides together *before* fusing it to the fabric. After stitching, I turn the interfacing to the wrong side and fuse it to the fabric.

Tomorrow I'll show you the blue blouse and how I sometimes sew to save time for simple projects like this.

Parting Shot: In a Jam. Due to a lot of schedule difficulties this summer, we have not had a chance to go pick berries to make jam. When I saw yellow tomatoes on sale at the grocery store, I knew it was my chance to make Yellow Tomato Preserves. I bought 5 pounds (2.25kg), enough for two batches of preserves. You might be thinking, "yuck, yellow tomatoes?!?". Actually, the preserves don't taste like tomatoes at all. Each batch contains a lemon, an orange, and cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. My mother in-law loves this stuff and will rub a chicken with it before roasting for a very tasty chicken.

I'm Back.

For Four Days.

I'm not kidding. I leave on Friday for a trip with the children to visit their grandparents in Georgia. I am leaving a little later this year than usual as I'm coordinating the trip with my brother's visit to see our parents, so we will all be able to visit together. He's stopping in Georgia on his way back to Los Angeles after a summer doing archaeological research in the Middle East.

For the past two weeks, I've been on vacation in Florida with my husband. My in-laws watched out children here at home, so we made the trip into our 15th anniversary trip, even though our anniversary isn't until August. The first week or so was spent in Tampa, where my husband was actually on a business trip. After that we spent a week in Naples, FL at a resort right on the Gulf of Mexico. This was the way to the beach right outside of the accommodations:

We spent a lot of time at the beach, in the water, basically doing nothing. We did do some shell collecting too and took a short trip north to Sanibel Island (we've stayed there before twice) to do some shelling and enjoy the beaches there.

We only booked the resort in Naples for a week and we had two extra days before our plane trip home, so we decided to take a trip to Key West, FL. Our main reason for going there was to take a trip to the Dry Tortugas - more on that in a minute. On the way to Key West, we drove through several bands of rain and while on the Seven Mile Bridge, we happened to look out towards the Atlantic Ocean and spotted a water spout! A little unusual, but I told my husband just to keep driving.

We arrived a bit early in Key West, so we drove around, seeing the sights and taking a few pictures. Here's my husband at the the southern most point in the US, only 90 miles from Cuba.

Another photo in Key West, the light was just right to catch his reflection in the car window:

Now for more on The Dry Tortugas. The Dry Tortugas is a group of very small islands 70 miles west of Key West. The name comes from the Spanish for turtle, "tortuga" because the Spanish explorers saw many sea turtles in the area, and dry because there is no fresh water there. These islands are the United State's most inaccessible national park. You can only get there by ferry (there are actually two ferry companies, the link is for one of them) or seaplane. We only had time for a half day trip, so we decided to take the seaplane.

I got to ride up front in the plane - lucky me, just due to how the pilot had to distribute the weight of the four other passengers.

From the plane, you could see all sorts of sea life on the trips to and from the park if you were looking carefully. I was able to see sharks and sea turtles.

The Dry Tortugas is home to Fort Jefferson, a very large fort (16 million bricks!) that was never finished. My husband took hundreds of pictures of the trip out and back, but here's one from the plane of the main island and fort. Yes, the water really is that blue!

Here we are, just after the plane landed in the water:

We had about 2 1/2 hours to explore the fort and to go snorkeling in the waters around the fort (part of the flight package was snorkeling gear!). Again, we have a lot of pictures, but I'll just show you the old classic "in front of the sign" pose, taken after snorkeling before we boarded the plane to return back to Key West:

Once back in Key West, we stayed in the Keys one night and headed back to Tampa to catch our flight back home. We had a great time and after a stressful late winter/spring it was just what we needed.

I'm back to the usual routine here, so tomorrow I'll show you what I made today. I'm still working on my daughter's school wardrobe, so that will be my main focus beside Ride 'Em Cowboy with a few other little projects thrown in for fun for the rest of the month.

Parting Shot: Vintage Earrings. I didn't go on vacation and not shop! I did some vintage and fabric shopping while in Tampa, and I'll show you some of the things I got in the next few days. First, we have a nice set of vintage rhinestone earrings bought for a specific art ensemble, which I haven't even started yet, but will be starting on in September. Notice these are intended for unpierced ears, and have a screw style back rather than a spring loaded clip.

Vacation Wardrobe

One Last Piece!

I finished this top today and will be packing it tonight. Tomorrow we leave! The top is model #23 from the current Patrones, seen below.


The fabric is leftover from my Easter dress. This top is simple, and probably would have been quicker to make had I used my serger and finished the inside seams that way. Instead, after binding the armholes, I turned and stitched the seam allowances down because there is a slit or vent at the side seam.

I didn't change much about the top, except to shorten it a bit and to make the back hem even with the front. You can see from the line drawing above that the back hem is rounded and longer. I didn't care for the look, so I cut it evenly. I also used two buttons on the collar because my buttons were a bit small.

Here's a close-up of the little black buttons. They're plastic, but they're just right for the blouse, as they have a scroll like design on them:

I will be up very early tomorrow for an early flight to Florida for a combined business/pleasure trip with my husband, so I think I ought to get my laundry done and actually pack the clothes I've made and a few other things! I will be posting throughout the remainder of this week until Friday, although it may not all be sewing related. I will not be posting the following week, but will be back home Sunday, July 27.

Parting Shot: Hollyhocks. My hollyhocks are blooming this year. Two years ago, some insect ate my plant. Last year, I had one plant and a few blooms. This year I have two plants and a lot more blooms. I do hope they will spread like they did at my grandmother's old house in Omaha, NE. She had a lot of hollyhocks, and I've planted these to remind me of her.