Verity Vintage Studio

Baby Dresses - Sewing 1 Pattern 4 Ways

My little girl was outgrowing all her clothes, so a few months ago between other projects I sandwiched in making some 6-9 month size dresses for her. I used a very basic baby dress pattern (not vintage, but a classic style) and cut out 4 dresses at once from leftovers in my fabric stash.

 

I did variations on each one, just for fun. This fun pattern has a band added at the bottom which allows for a lot more creativity than if the skirt was all one piece. And I didn't even try color blocking with it yet! All of them are sleeveless, both to make them a faster project, and so they are more versatile. In these photos I layer them over long sleeves, but they could also be worn over short sleeves, or during the hot weather without any other layer underneath.

My first dress turned out too tight in the arm and neck, and I did the band wrong, so it is not my favorite. Still wearable, I put it away with a smaller size of girl clothes. This one had contrasting piping at top of the skirt band.

 

This next one was cut out of a skirt of a dress my mom didn't want anymore. It's amazing how little fabric baby clothes take! It's so easy to squeeze them out of a good section of fabric from an old garment.

 

This one I simply sewed rick rack over the seam of the bottom band, and added decorative buttons on the front.

 

The neck and sleeve openings fit a lot better, once I cut them a little bigger. I used double fold binding and left the binding show, since this was an everyday dress.

 

Dress #3 is made from leftovers from my 4th of July dress a few years back. Again I cut the arm and neck holes larger and just used bias binding to finish them.

 

I found some vintage poppy trim in my stash that exactly matched the colors of the poppies on the fabric...on a larger dress it would have been too much, but on a baby dress, can you have too many poppies???

 

This shot is purely to show off those adorable red-gold curls. She gets compliments from strangers about her hair ALL the time when we are shopping.

 

My favorite, dress #4, I spent more time on and made it fancier. When I was sewing the top pleats in, I mistakenly put the wrong two marks together so I ended up with only 3 darts - which was perfect, because that automatically made the neck opening larger. That also meant I could top stitch some cotton lace between the 3 darts.

 

I used the same lace as insertion lace between the band and the skirt hem, which turned out so cute! The pattern shows insertion done with jumbo rickrack, which I like too.

 

This one I turned the bias binding to the inside for a neater finish to the neck and arms. I like how the band, which you fold in half, makes a nice deep hem finish as well.

 

This dress used leftovers from fabric I bought many years ago and used for one of my earliest sewing projects that I took more care with and actually turned out well - a 1940s dress. It's a good color for a redhead too!

 

The nice thing about dresses like this is they will fit for a long time. It doesn't matter if the skirt's a little short eventually. Also the pattern is easy to adjust for a larger size. I'd like to make another one combining two different fabrics...and I haven't tried a sleeved version or any of the accessories included in this pattern yet either.

The blue one took the longest because of adding the lace, but none of them took very long - and doing them in an assembly line fashion made the process even speedier. It's such a quick way to get a bigger baby girl wardrobe in a new size!

 

A Simple 1940s Easter Ensemble

Easter sneaked up on me this year. I realized one week before that if this was Palm Sunday, that meant Easter was in exactly one week! I had already cut out some sewing projects, so I spent Monday getting them to a stage where I could lay them aside, and work on something for Easter.

 

Usually I gravitate towards 1950s styles for Easter. But this year, with the short time frame I had to sew, I didn't feel like attempting anything elaborate or fussy, so I looked over my sewing queue to find something suitable already there that I could make in time for Easter, thus crossing something off my list instead of adding to it.

 

I chose a 1940s two piece dress pattern paired with a pretty floral quilting cotton I got last fall from mybluprint.com on clearance. I made it from start to finish in one day, so you can see it wasn't very time-consuming. The gored skirt is quite basic, and the jacket also easy & quick to make, with the gathered front that is so flattering, as its only detail.

 

I have made a few pretty similar patterns with gathered front sides earlier, so I didn't have any trouble with this one. I had to size the pattern up, but thankfully it was one of these handy patterns that has "let-out" seams, so by sewing those more shallowly, it made the sizing-up job easier. I also added a few inches to the skirt length.

 

I finished the neck plain, first deciding which of my vintage collars I wanted to pair with the jacket, then trimming the neck of both jacket and facing to a V of the right depth for the collar before finishing it.

 

I don't remember where I got this lovely vintage crochet Irish lace collar, but it matched the little flowers in the fabric perfectly, and makes quite a statement. I tacked it on; it would be easy to swap it out if I decided to use a different collar.

 

I found the outfit comfortable to wear; dressy yet low key enough for an Easter at home. It will be a great easy to wear spring and summer addition to my closet - and as I've mentioned before, has my favorite versatile element of being able to mix and match with other skirts or blouses if desired.

 

It could easily go casual, but since it was Easter, I dressed it up a bit. Of course I chose my largest hat, adding a spray of vintage millinery daisies.

 

I also paired it with a favorite true vintage necklace, heels, and gloves.

 

We had a gloriously sunny Easter, but it was very windy. There was no way I could take pictures outside, so I had to experiment with indoor locations. I was quite pleased by how the window pictures turned out. The view out the window (lovely in its own right) was blanked out when the camera focussed on me, creating a nice white-box background.

 

Taken on its own, the outfit might not be terribly "Easter-ish", but I bet it will get a lot of wear - more than a fancier gown would have. And perhaps it is similar to what would have been worn for Easter in 1942, with wartime economy going on.

 

At any rate, I'm pleased to have this idea materialized successfully and now in my closet...while simultaneously managing to continue the tradition of making a new dress for Easter Sunday. It's my own little yearly tribute to the day when all things were made new.

If Christ is risen, then nothing else matters.

And if Christ is not risen...then nothing else matters.

-Jaroslav Pelikan

He is risen indeed!

Palm Sunday Outfit: 1950s Gray Dot Spring Suit

This March and April so far have been far more productive than the previous few months, sewing wise. I chose this new make to wear first on Palm Sunday, even though we had church at home (so thankful for technology!)

 

I have a lot of new pretty gray fabrics to use, so that will likely be a theme this year. This one uses some cotton jacquard I got from sewvintagely.com when it was on sale a while back. So far I had only seen polyester jacquard, but this was a whole new ballgame! I highly recommend. It was amazing to use - the ease of quilting cotton, but with better drape and a more sophisticated sheen. It does fray terribly, so I was grateful for a serger to finish my seams. 

 

I've been inspired by the lovely outfits Donna Reed wears on The Donna Reed Show recently, so this was definitely influenced by her style. I had the idea for the bow at the neck from one of her dresses on the show.

 

Gray goes with everything, so I wanted to make a 2 piece suit that I could mix and match. I used the pattern for a skirt from a mail order dress pattern, with a pointed yoke. In retrospect I wish I'd made it a plain suit skirt since the jacket covers up most of the detail, but it still works well enough. Of course if I wear it with a tucked in blouse, the yoke will be visible.

 

I used a 1950s jacket pattern I'd tried years and years ago when I was a sewing newbie. It was a terrible make, ill fitting and with mismatched stripes in all directions. So it was high time to do a better version - and I discovered how much I like its simple, classic style, especially the double darts in the back. Yep, it's a bit wrinkly after wearing it all morning...but that's life!

 

Doing it with short sleeves and dress style buttons gave it more of a formal 2 piece dress outfit instead of a suit, which is what I was looking for.

 

I used some white embroidered dot fabric I'd thrifted a while ago for my contrast. The yardage has the dots, and one edge has a wide decorative border. I've been hoarding it for a while, so I finally decided to use a little bit of it for this project. I cut the bow to have the border at each end, and cut the collar and cuffs from the dotted section.

 

I made the bow removable - it's just safety pinned on each shoulder. So I can easily take it off and unbutton the top button for a more casual look. Nothing better than having two looks in one!

 

This type of outfit will work well during at least 3 seasons. I went classic and accented it with black and white for this photo shoot, but it would have a different flavor and coordinate well with so many other colors as you can imagine...pink, lavender, navy blue, emerald, etc. I will have a lot of fun wearing it this spring and summer, pairing it with different colors.

 

This was one of those projects that went together pretty smoothly, with just enough challenge to keep interesting, and no real frustrations. I did have to unpick the skirt yoke after the first try, and do a lapped seam instead, but otherwise everything went well and I enjoyed seeing it come together. 

 

Speaking of black accessories, I got some new shoes from Rocket Originals, and they are my new favorite! I wore them all day and they remained comfortable. They are so classy with their patent leather trim stripe and the wrapped ankle strap - a perfect blend between a more formal heel and a more casual wedge. I also have them in another color way, and I'm sure they will get a lot of wear (and probably appear on the blog more than once!)

 

I was hoping for a dressy, easy to wear, mix-and-match outfit that I could button up and go with - and it was nice to find all those goals met successfully. Not every sewing project turns out as hoped for (like the last one), but this one boosted my confidence again and started off a sewing mood that resulted in quite a few finished garments I'll show you over the next little while. 

It might not be quite Donna Reed, but close enough to make me happy!