Blue summer outfit & vintage charity shops

Blue summer outfit & vintage charity shops

I am reliably told the colour of this 1950s Chrysler is "Sea foam".

I do like an arresting blue. I recently found this very charming vintage umbrella in a local charity shop. I used it as a parasol last weekend at Hedingham Castle vintage fair. That handle and contrast lining alone are worth the £15 price tag. I love the way the colour really pops in the sunshine.

Classy handle with sparkly sapphire stones.

The charity shop I bought it in recently relaunched as a Vintage shop. It's right in the middle town and the prices are reasonable so it's proving quite popular. They do have some advantage over other vintage sellers, with free stock and an army of volunteers. There are now half a dozen sellers, as well as pop-up shops and fairs in our little town, so competition is tough but I suppose there must be enough customers to go around.

A bamboo grove at Hedingham

The dress was from ebay in 2012, one of the first in my 'new' vintage wardrobe. I sold all my vintage dresses about 10 years ago because they were too small for me and I needed the money. Silly me.

The dress turned out to be Marcel Fenez, it is nylon and quite sheer so I found a frilly petticoat to wear with it at the same shop as the umbrella. It has pink bows too! I didn't plan it but the whole outfit (umbrella and bag included) is from the mid 60s.

And finally a bit of blue from about a month ago. A view of bluebell woods on the Essex / Suffolk border. Blue doesn't get more delightful than this.

A spectacular view over ancient bluebells in West Bergholt. I think that's Suffolk over there.

Distractions and learning to sew properly

Distractions and learning to sew properly...

So, it's May again. This time last year I tried to make this shirtdress.

It was my first ever attempt at a shirt style garment and it stalled at the toile stage. Like many sewers I have quite a few half finished projects lurking, sometimes just because it's really easy to be distracted by new ideas... (parasols anyone?)

This May I am most excited be doing a short couture course. I know completing Simplicity 5124 for this would teach me loads (see the list below). It is a lovely dress and I will wear it. But still something is pulling me towards this girly Vogue 9260.

It has a big collar, button front and a full skirt, but it's less of a challenge. And I know exactly what the big draw is - just look at those sweet pink and purple dahlias on the vintage fabric I am planning to use for it! I am dying to make it up and I have enough of it for a full skirted dress.

Whatever I end up making, I cannot recommend going to sewing classes enough. I am used to reading books, blogs, watching craftsy etc. but finding a good teacher and going to regular lessons has been amazing. Sewing with a group is a treat; you get less done but chatting and learning from other each other more than makes up for it.

For this 10 week course we will cover some interesting stuff which will fit with either of my dresses:

• Collars and cuffs
• Bound button holes
• Patch pockets
• Top stitching and seam finishes
• Arrowhead trims

I am off to give myself a good talking to and hopefully produce something nice to wear at the end of all this. Watch this space.

All matchy matchy for my first blog post!

How fabulous is this print? I loved it the minute I saw it in my local fabric shop.
I bought this in January and it has waited for the Sew Dolly Clackett challenge and the lovely Emery pattern to come along to liberate it from my stash. When Roisin and Nic decided to marry I bet they didn't count on unleashing the tide of fun and madness that has been Sarah's Sew Dolly Clackett challenge. It's a feast for the eyes and the heart.

Sew Dolly Clackett Kimono Dress & Parasol.

Not only is this the best fitting dress I have made so far, it has a matching upcycled parasol! I love it to bits. I am planning the next "set" now, I want to make the whole outfit from some vintage fabric.

Back to this dress. The print is covered in kimono clad lovelies strolling through a springtime garden. So I thought I would take the pictures in a downtown beauty spot (aka. a little patch of green hidden behind a car park) where a pear tree was covered with the fluffiest fattest blossoms I have ever seen.

The pear tree which must be 100 years old,  in full glorious blossom.

Upcycled Parasol:  Perhaps it was the print itself that suggested the idea of a parasol - there's dozens of them on there. The matching dress and parasol set idea was probably last 'big' in the 1950s, as seen in this McCalls pattern for a border print  dress.

I love those old umbrellas with their curvy handles, pointy ends, beautiful fabrics and matching covers. They are so impractical but so cute. This parasol started off as a faded 60s umbrella. I removed and used the original cover as a guide pattern for the new one, following some online instructions on the Threads site.

It was fairly straight forward, I cut it out in the most frugal way I could without matching anything up. I did a really thin fell stitch with a zig zag for strength. I finished it and then realised it was UPSIDE DOWN! So I did another, and used the upside down one as a lining. So much for frugal.

I don't normally use invisible zips but for this print I had to, and hurray it worked! See note below.

The Emery pattern:  Emery is really good for full on prints like this, and as everyone says the fit is very easy to perfect. I took an inch altogether off at the waist, I also increased the shoulder darts quite a bit, but that was it. The BEST thing about Emery for me is that it takes up very little fabric. I can get a full skirted dress for not much more than 2 metres (depending on the fabric width). I think I did some matching on the sleeves and the back (and the bigger the print the more fabric you need to pattern match) so I probably did use more than like 2.5 metres on this one.

This is a quilting cotton but I didn't wash it before I made it up, and it has shrunk a bit after its first wash. Hey ho, it's still lovely.

That invisible zip bit: I really don't use invisible zips, but with this print it seemed a good idea. I did one before (in a class) and learned enough online to know invisible zips are easier on stabilised openings. I used a couple of strips of very lightweight fusible interfacing, a woven type so it has some give. And once it was stable I was able to match the pattern perfectly as I put the zip in.

I confess, I went back and bought more of this fabric. I really want to make another dress with it but I have promised I would to make a shirt (front panels only with this print) for my partner. His and hers matching outfits were big in the 50s too. The visual effect of two people wearing this print may be a tiny bit too much, but I won't let that put me off.

When Sew Dolly Clackett was announced two months ago I thought it was a nice idea, but seeing all the love and effort spent on these dresses really is life affirming (for us sewing obsessives, for normal people it probably just looks mad). Well done to everyone involved and best wishes to Roisin and Nic for their wedding!