Continued sewing adventures with vintage style patterns

As promised, another blog post! And it's once again about sewing.

Does this sound familiar: You finally decide it's time to go shopping for new clothes, you brave the mall, then when you actually go to a store (or stores), you can't find anything you like?

This is me, almost always. It's so disappointing and frustrating when you can't find clothing you want to buy--especially when you've spent months saving up the money. Part of it for me is, I'm usually looking for something a little...different. In my teen and early twenty years, that meant super colourful. Now in my thirties, I think I'm looking for something with a vintage feel.

I don't remember when I first learned how to sew, maybe around grade 7 or 8? That's definitely when we had 'Home Ec' class, although come to think of it, I could already sew basic boxer shorts by then, so maybe earlier. My mom always sewed--for as long as I can remember. She didn't make whole wardrobes or anything, but she usually made me Sunday Dresses, and one or two other things. She sewed my wedding dress, too.

Although I've known how to sew for a long time, I am NOT an expert. I make mistakes, don't get my corners perfectly turned, or my seems exactly aligned. I get frustrated and rush things when I just want to get it done. But, I can still put together reasonable garment, that as long as you don't examine it up close, looks decent enough.

Sew (see what I did there...), without further ado, behold my next vintage-style piece:

Initially I thought I'd make the pants to start, but I mixed up the yards and metres, so I knew I'd have a ton of fabric leftover if I didn't go for the whole overalls. I went with a plain black, light denim fabric, but purchased some fun rainbow-holographic buttons to jazz them up.

Laying out the pattern, as my Mom taught me, saving as much leftover fabric as possible. Also, I have to do this on the floor, since we still have the same tiny Ikea table we had when we moved to Edmonton 12 years ago.

My sewing machine isn't quite the same vintage as my overalls, but it's still a heavy-duty classic. 1970 Kenmore sewing machine, solid metal and weighs a ton. It was my Mom's, but she's got a fancy-dancy computerized thing now.

As is often the case with sewing patterns, I don't fit nicely in a single size category, which can be something of a problem when I'm making a garment that has to cover me from top to bottom, like a dress, or overalls. I've got huge aerialist shoulders, a tiny chest, an average waist, and hips that are much more narrow than what pattern makers expect for my waist size. As I said, I'm NOT an expert seamstress, so figuring out how to make patterns work can be a tricky.

For the overalls, I cut out the size that was supposed to fit my waist, but once I sewed the pants together and tried them on, I discovered I was swimming in fabric. From there I took the seams in by 3/8 an inch on ALL SIDES. I might have over done it a tad, as the finished product is a bit snug. I continued to adapt the seam width for the bodice.

Beyond the sizing issue, my biggest problem was making the button side of the waist band lie flat. There's so much fabric in the spot where the waist band meets the top of the pants that no matter what I did (I only felt comfortable trimming the extra fabric so far) that I couldn't get a nice, neat seam. In the end I decided it was on the side of my body, and right where the buttons would be, so no one would really notice.

Hopefully I'm right.

Me! In the finished product.

The overalls are pretty comfy, even if I took the seams in a hair too far. I sewed the buttons as close to the edge of the button placket as I could, so it works. Honestly, the biggest downside with these overalls is there are 7 buttons to do up, plus 2 more for the straps, meaning I need to be careful with planning my bathroom breaks.

Next up, a 1950s style skirt (already complete), and bolero.

Ciao,

Andrea