A little more vintage sewing action

It's with very good reason that I'm taking the entire year to think about my career. I didn't spend any time considering it in February. On nights when I had the time, I wanted to write (which--yay!), or watch the Olympics (Go Canada, I love figure skating!). My task in March is to get back on track.

In the meantime, a quick post or two about my sewing endeavours.

The last time I posted about sewing (1940's coveralls), I said my next post was going to be about a skirt and bolero I made for the Christmas season, so:

Again, I'm not going to do an in-depth on the sewing process (maybe on a future project?), but really, I'm not that good a seamstress. I seem to be capable of making clothing that looks respectable,...as long as you don't inspect it too close. I cut corners, and I don't always get things perfectly flat/turned/whatever.

My fabulous friend and photographer, Alexa Baker, helped me take this photo, as well as the one below.

The skirt doesn't fit me quite exactly. I fiddled a lot with the waistband, but still didn't get it to fit snug like it looks on the pattern envelop. I'm not sure if that's a fault in my sewing (or method), or an issue with the sizing. It's only a tiny bit loose, and maybe if I hadn't decided to line the skirt ((Go Me! for improvising) (I had leftover lining from an earlier, failed project) (it's a winter skirt, but I only made it out of cotton)) I might have been able to fix it better.

I'm super pleased with my efforts on the bolero. I thought it was going to be tricky, but it turn out not too bad. I had to look up one YouTube video about turning a lining in a jacket (I couldn't quite get it from the pattern instructions), but other than that it was pretty smooth. The one minor hiccup (because there has to be one) is that the cuffs are a trifle tight. If they slide too far up my forearms, they get stuck and I have to pull them down again.

I wore the bolero to several Christmas events, not with the skirt, but with jeans.

I'm currently working on a couple of 1950s style shirts, then I've got one more untouched pattern (this one's a doozy, so it might sit for a while) from this round of projects. I've put in a request for two more patterns: another one from the 1940s with pants, shirt and vest, then one for a day dress from the 1930s. Once I've gotten through the shirts and at least one new pair of pants, I might circle back to this pattern for another skirt and maybe even another bolero.

I've also sewn two pairs of pants from the coverall pattern. I've been wearing them around a fair bit lately and gotten a couple of compliments. I'll write a quickie post about them, and how it feels to walk around in pants that are very much not the current style, soon.

Ciao,

Andrea