I’ve finally finished the 1930s Day Dress and debuted it at The Big Chill music festival last weekend. My boyfriend is rather fond of crisp linen suits and his beloved authentic Panama hat, so I thought we’d strike the perfect couple pose strolling around the Malvern Hills…
As you may have already read, I started work on a sheath dress made from a 1960s dress pattern. I am happy to report that the dress is now finished, though the end result bears little resemblance to the pattern sketch. Mostly because the pattern sketch does not show a sack of potatoes. Once again I fell into the trap of being entranced by the lovely, stylish drawings on the fronts of vintage patterns, choosing to ignore the little voice in my head that knows you can only trust a photograph on these kinds of things.
…it was just before closing time and there was some cute fabric I wanted to grab (and the boy wanted some pear cider from the Swedish shop) so I allowed myself to be dragged into the 9th circle of hell, just this once. Across the warehouse-wasteland expanse of the store, a bold red print called out to me. But on further inspection, the print belonged to just some pillowcases. How disappointing!
Or, what if I could somehow turn those pillowcases into something wonderful? It took an evening, but out of two pillowcases and a bit of bias binding, this skirt emerged (and because the pillowcases each had a zipper, I’ve got an extra now!):
I made this with a vintage-style crepe-de-chine dragonfly print from efabrics.co.uk (99p a meter! and it was coincidentally made in Japan), and a matching jade green crepe-de-chine from the same place that wasn’t on sale, so it was £2 a meter. I was really breaking the bank on this project…
I made this in November 2005 with ten day’s notice. My boyfriend told me that his best friend’s birthday party was back on for the weekend. This wouldn’t cause too much alarm in most cases, but this was her 30th birthday and she was renting out a country house for an entire weekend with a black tie catered dinner on Saturday night.
Yes, I said “black tie” – that means I needed a posh evening gown in 10 days!! I don’t have posh money, but I did have a this pattern, Simplicity 5876, for a vintage evening gown that I fell in love with but had no occasion to make or wear
