Upcoming Vintage Sewing Projects

It is official, my friends. I have been bitten by the bug.

Not a literal bug, fortunately – the sewing bug. For years I had a rather distant relationship with our sewing machine; I had used it a couple times, but I didn’t really feel comfortable with it or feel like I knew what I was doing, and if I wanted to fix something or do a sewing project, I stuck to hand sewing. But now all that has changed, and the sewing machine and I are becoming fast friends. I took a basic sewing course on Udemy, and have been building up my sewing machine skills with various sewing projects.

(This roll-up organizer is one of said projects…I made it by following instructions given in the sewing course; I highly doubt it would have turned out as well as it did if I were trying to figure it out on my own.)

The catalyst for this sudden change was an absolutely marvelous website I discovered, oldpatterns.com , which sells, as you may have deduced, vintage patterns. I had been looking for just such a website for some time – actual vintage patterns, sold at a reasonable price, seemed nigh impossible to find. And voila, there it was. You can imagine how excited I was at the discovery, and how I soon made the rest of my family aware of my excitement.

Well, then my dear mother bought me a couple of the skirt patterns, which was a fantabulous thing and for which we are immensely grateful. (Thank you again, Mom!) And then I couldn’t help myself, and I bought a couple of the dress patterns as well. So today I will share with you my vintage patterns and my current plans for them.

Here’s the first skirt pattern, which is from circa 1948.

This will probably be the easiest pattern (if you don’t add a pocket, there are only three pattern pieces!), so I’m planning to start with it to get me eased in. (Bear in mind that as well as having a distant relationship with the sewing machine, I have also been intimidated by sewing patterns for years, so figuring out the ins and outs of how to read a pattern will be an adventure in and of itself.) I’m going to do View 3, the beltless one with the slightly shorter length…I think that will be more versatile. I already have a couple very long black skirts, and I feel like you only need so many floor-length outfits.

I’m currently thinking of using this fabric for the pattern.

Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s left over from a very pretty Easter-y dress that my mom made me when I was a little girl. The only problem is that this fabric was bought years ago, and from Joann’s…which, as you may know, broke the hearts of crafters all over the US by going out of business. So, in short, we almost certainly will never be able to get this exact fabric pattern again, and it therefore seems a shame to use it up. But on the other hand, it’s not much use just sitting in a box as it is now. There’s a fair bit of it left, so hopefully there’s enough that I can use it for the skirt and still leave plenty for something else. (You can be assured that I’m definitely going to do a ‘mock-up’ version of the skirt first in a cheap fabric…I probably will for all these patterns, actually. I’m still rather a novice sewer, and I don’t want to run any risks here.)

Here’s the second skirt pattern, from circa 1953.

I’m currently thinking I’ll do View 1, since I don’t always like skirts where it’s meant to be worn with a belt but there are no belt loops – too often the skirt keeps slipping out from under the belt and you need to be constantly adjusting it.

We have a navy blue fabric lying around (I think it used to be a sheet, actually…who on earth had a navy blue set of bedding I don’t know, but that is neither here nor there) that I was thinking of using for this one. I also really like the idea of this one in red…rather like the one on the pattern cover, but brighter. Maybe at some point I will buy fabric to make that, but for now I’m going to use the fabric that we already have.

Now here is the first dress pattern, from circa 1949.

I’m undecided about which view to do…I like things about both View 1 and View 2. I’m also rather hazy on what kind of fabric I want to do this in. I thought that something like this

would look rather pretty, but that looks similar-ish to my one vintage 1950s dress that I already own, so it might make sense to go with something a little different. I’ll probably spend some time mulling/looking over vintage pictures for inspiration before I make any decisions on this one.

And here’s the second one, from circa 1953.

This is one that I had been eyeing longingly for quite some time. It’s exactly my kind of dress; it’s just the right blend of casual and formal and detail and simplicity. And I absolutely love it in red, as shown on the right, so I would definitely get a bright red fabric for this one. I’m thinking I’d probably make View 1 first, (minus the little fake pocket things on the blouse, which I’m not a huge fan of), but I would most likely eventually want to make several dresses from this pattern using both views. Because, as aforementioned, I love this dress style.

Well, that’s that! I will be keeping you updated on my progress…I’m so excited that I don’t think I could help myself!

Which pattern strikes your fancy the most? Have you ever tried using a vintage pattern? What are your favorite things to sew? Any advice for a beginner-ish sewer like myself?