Vintage sewing lust

Shift dresses without good waist definition just aren't my thing and mr man doesn't wear suits. But Caroline's sweet little piped dress is banging. It wouldn't be a difficult look to recreate either. A basic yoke pattern with a couple deep pleats in the bodice, a peter pan collar, and a good strong piping and you're all set.

Look at little Jack jr's delicious wittle baby legs. Don't you just want to pinch them a little? I recently picked up a similar pattern for pudding in anticipation of Christmas. Looks like it will be put to good use if I keep coming across nifty ideas to use it.

I really adore Michie's patterns. They come on nice heavy white paper and all the pieces are straight forward and easy to trace. They also come in a wide size range in one envelope so you can take one classic look and with easy adjustments, stretch it from infancy to toddlerhood in a variety of ways. It never made it to the blog but pudding's Easter outfit last year was a Creations by Michie pattern, #105, the sailor bubble. You couldn't ask for an easier pattern to put together. It's totally not Michie's fault I ran over my finger with the sewing machine needle. It's what I get for procrastinating to the point where I was putting together that bad boy at 3 am Easter morning.

I also relied upon Michie for pudding's St Patrick's day outfit which if I recall correctly did not debut on the holiday itself but the weekend after. I used #120 Sunsuit/Dress. The main fabric is a soft seersucker from Hancock's because Joann's seersucker feels like upholstery fabric. The round yoke was cut from a muslin sateen and embroidered with a Celtic knotwork J in green perle cotton which is apparently girly and impossible to read judging by the comments I got.

As usually happens here, I've strayed from my topic but I had to take a moment to share some Michie love. A quick search on google will show all the ways people use this pattern. I especially love her because the heirloom sewing world is awash in all types of pretty for little girls. Michie makes it a point to design for boys. If it wasn't for her patterns, I don't know that I'd sew much for baby pudding.

Decisions, decisions

I'm finally working on the Easter, ahem, I mean Spring dresses after more than a week of inexcusable procrastination. Don't ask me why I'm admitting that I've just been lazy. I have a two and a half month old pudgelet. He's like a built in excuse. He's also a very good baby, I mean he's such a terrible, horrible, cantakerous, demanding little man and thus I am only now getting started on dresses that should have been done last week.

Thank God Pinocchio is just a story. I like my nose just the length it is, thank you very much.

As I was saying, I cut out pudding's outfit this morning and after more gardening, I fired up the old netflix, put on some Doctor Zhivago and started cutting the pinkleminkle's 1950's vintage dress. After cutting out the bodice overlay from a silk organza I bought on sale from Martha Pullen, I realized I have to sew the pintucks into this thing in order to get the proper pattern for the main fabric. I did so and now I'm presented with a problem.

Which bodice look do I go for?

The first is three columns of embroidered ribbon. I know it looks like Irish green shamrocks here but I promise they are pretty turquoise and aqua flowers.



#1




The  next one are three columns of lace beading insertion threaded with robin's egg blue ribbon. Just pretend it looks that color and not the sky blue it appears to be here.




#2




Then, two rows of the ribbon and lace on either side with insertion lace down the center.




#3



As above but switched.




#4



And finally, the simplest option, three columns of lace insertion.

#5

 I'm kind of partial to number four. What say you?

Lookie, Lookie!

My friend Elizabeth decided that little skunk/raccoon/squirrel looks like an Emma and thus, this is the Emma dress that I hurriedly finished this morning. I'd forgotten all about Daylight Savings Time otherwise, this dress would have been sitting under my presser foot still and I would have made it to church for Sunday school.

The pattern is vintage Simplicity 7466, purchased from The Quilted Heart over at Etsy. It's sewn from cream Imperial Batiste purchased from another etsy seller whose shop seems to be inactive. There was supposed to be a pretty embroidered collar with lace trim but it would have hidden Emma's sweet face. I'm saving it for another project I guess, maybe a little blouse? I trimmed it with brown and pink piping leftover from another project. Since piping is made from bias tape, I took apart some of it and used it to bind the armhole openings.

We won't discuss all the mistakes I made. Suffice to say, once all my Easter sewing is completed, I'll be taking apart at least the back bodice pieces and redoing this properly. But at least the smocking looks good, for a first attempt anyway.

Overall, I do like how this turned out and I think it will look faboo once I've fixed it, including lowing the collar as my kid has informed me that the neckline is choking her out.

Good! It's authentically vintage now since poor little girls in the 50's had to sit in church wearing uncomfortable dresses and praying for the sermon to end so they could get out of it.

Next up, St Patty's outfits!