Almost Gordon 1940s Simplicity dress

Pattern: Vintage Simplicity 3417, bust 34”

Fabric: I had 3 metres; didn’t cut very economically because I pattern matched =)

Haberdasheries: Three buttons, a 30 cm zipper, a belt clasp and waist band

A few years ago I made a 1940s dress using this pattern and I wanted to use it again, but with some alterations. With hindsight, I find the bodice of that dress too long and baggy; even though it’s an authentic look for the 1940s, I just don’t like to look like I’ve got a roll of fat that I don’t! And since I don’t exactly follow today’s fashion, I hardly think I would have been without personal taste at the time ;).

I took 10 centimetres (!!!) out of the bodice width, despite this pattern being for a 34” bust, which should be slightly small for me. Simplicity patterns just had sooo much wearing ease! Because of the additional length in the bodice of my first dress, I expected that I’d have to take some length out as well, but I came to the conclusion that I must have added the additional length myself, which obviously I shouldn’t have done! So I only shortened the skirt, as I did for my first dress as well.

It took me a while to find a suitable fabric; most fabrics I saw in stores didn’t really have a ‘40s vibe for me. Until I read something about plaid (or tartan, as I prefer to call it ;)) fabrics being quite usual at the time, and I remembered this fabric that I’d seen at my local fabric store ages ago, but knowing their turnover rate, I suspected they’d still have. I like it because it’s almost Gordon dress tartan. The thin white lines should just have been yellow! And I already had a matching self-knitted cardigan.

According to the label the fabric was 80% cotton and 20% poly, but as I was working with it I thought: “yeah right!” Sadly, it doesn’t feel like cotton at all, although it can be ironed well without melting.

I pattern matched everything as well as I could, lining up the lines on the different pattern pieces by pinning them in place.

And of course, I had lots of feline sewing help! Thankfully she didn’t attack the fabric and make loops in it.

Because of the colour scheme of this fabric, for once I didn’t have difficulty finding a matchting zipper, buttons and belt fabric!

The buttons are vintage, from about the 1960s, and have a nice story to them. My grandfather was director of a button factory at the time, and my mother was sewing herself a green skirtsuit. So my grandfather had buttons made to match her fabric! I guess these were the surplus buttons; in any case, I liked using them on my dress.

 

I first wore this dress to an event in remembrance of Market Garden 1944. The re-enactment group War Department did a stunning and impressive portrayal of a field hospital, and I even got to depict a Dutch civilian helping there!

Photo by Menno Bausch

World War I QAIMNS nurse hat

In 2014 I made a World War I QAIMNS nurse uniform, and I’ve worn it a lot since, at several memorable World War I events. My group has, for instance, portrayed a hospital stationed inside a country house, at Museum Huis Doorn.

Now, we’ve added the ‘walking out’ or parade version of the uniform to our repertoire. This means: no apron, no cuffs, a hat instead of a veil, and white gloves.

The hats, naturally, we had to fashion ourselves. Here’s a QAIMNS hat from the collection of the Imperial War Museum, which I used as my main example:

We ordered a number of grey wool felt hats, but they had a pretty weird shape, with a round rather than an oval crown. This made it hard for me to get the hat to fit properly, because the brim would get wavy when I put it on, but some steam pressing did improve it.

Unfortunately we could not buy the same ribbon that was used at the time. We could have had some made, but only by the roll of 200 metres or so, and we needed about 10. But as the colours were similar to Iron Cross ribbon, we used that, and sewed grey ribbon onto it.

To make the ribbon fit around the crown without all too much puckering, I eased the different ribbons onto each other. First I eased the Iron Cross ribbon onto the top grey ribbon, and then I did the opposite, easing the bottom grey ribbon onto the Iron Cross ribbon. It’s quite amazing how big an effect this had on the shape of the ribbon, as you can see below (the left part of the ribbon was sewn normally, without easing on).

I made the flat bow out of three different pieces of ribbon, since actually tying the ribbon into a bow would have made it bulkier than the bow on the IWM hat.

And here’s the hat sewn up:

We first wore the walking out uniform at the recent Passchendaele event at Zonnebeke in Belgium. It was particularly suitable to wear to the remembrance church service.

Even our hairstyles were uniform here! =)

Er, no no, the green one

Pattern: improvised, based on officer’s coat

Fabric: about 2.5 m dark green wool, about as much lining fabric

Haberdasheries: 10 large brass buttons, 6 small brass buttons

My husband and I, and some friends, had a totally brilliant civilian Regency weekend a week ago (more about that later!), and for that I made him a tailcoat. He bought green wool fabric for this a while ago, and ever since, the working title for this coat was ‘the green one’ – as in: “Er, no no, the green one. Yes, that’ll do!” I love having a man who knows his Mr. Darcy quotes! =)

I made my husband a Regency officer’s coat two years ago, and used the pattern for that to make one for this coat. Both coats are double breasted, but there are several differences, so I did have to make several changes to the pattern. For one, I made the tails quite a bit longer. The officer’s coat has a simple standing collar, but most original civilian coats I saw had a collar that was folded over, often with ‘M’ notches. Those had to grow on me, but once they did, I decided to include them, as they are characteristic of the time! Also, I made pockets with pocket flaps.

 

 

Argh, I lost my notes, so I’ll add more about making the coat when I recover them! :P

Also, I’m still waiting for photos of the weekend from the official photographer – will add those when I get them, so you can see the coat worn in context!

My wedding dress

Pattern: Colette Parfait, heavily modified (of course! :P)

Fabric: purple satin cotton.

Haberdasheries: a zipper.

A first: making a 1950s-ish dress. It won’t be the last! I really like this style. This wasn’t actually the first wedding dress I made – I also made a Regency style one for a friend in 2008.

I got married this month! :D And I made my own wedding dress. Here’s a summary of the process.

I’m not the kind of girl who dreamed of getting married since I was a child. I always wanted to be with someone, and from early on in our relationship I knew that if I wanted to marry anyone it’d be him, but just living together was fine with me as well. Nonetheless, it can be hard not to get sucked into what society thinks a wedding should be! So I found this quote really good to keep in mind:

“A wedding is a party, not a performance. If at the end of the day, you are married to the one you love, then everything went perfectly!”

Despite this, unfortunately I still got very nervous :/.

I never dreamed of getting married, and I also didn’t dream away at the thought of a big white dress. So I knew from early on in the planning process that I’d probably have to make my dress myself. But I did start by going to a bridal shop which had lots of coloured dresses on their website, with my mother and my mother in law. It was funny to try on the dresses, just a special thing that you can only really do for this one occasion, but there wasn’t any dress that I truly loved. In fact, I found that most wedding dresses and party dresses are made of cheap materials, not very neatly finished, and thus very much overpriced. I know that everything connected with weddings is automatically twice as expensive as it would normally be, but I wasn’t expecting these dresses that are so important to many people to be made of polyester… Unfortunately, as a seamstress, I couldn’t help noticing these things and found them disappointing.

After this, for a while I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted, mainly of what I didn’t want (polyester, white, strapless). I considered having a dress made, but one shop I looked into had a 20 week delivery period and charged over 800 euros! As it was already less than 20 weeks until our wedding it wasn’t even possible to have my dress made there, but also, if felt a bit silly to have this dress made by someone else while working on less important things myself. So I set out to find a nice fabric, which also proved difficult…

Then my mum and I went shopping once more and ran into a vintage style shop I’d never seen before. I tried on some swing style dresses there, and (partly because of the shop assistant who had some very good suggestions) finally knew that this was the style I wanted – swing style, just below the knee, with a petticoat! I felt so great in those dresses, and thought them really flattering, showing off my waist and the slimmest part of my legs.

(The evening before this revelation I found this collection of coloured wedding dresses online. I liked several of them – especially, yes, the 1950s style ones!)

I eventually bought purple satin cotton in bed shop. I’m used to sewing with bed linen, so this was not as strange to me as it may be to some people ;). The fabric was beautiful, finely woven and shiny, and available in a nice colour that was bright enough for me, but not garish. As I wrote here [link to Spring For Cotton post] I had a colour analysis done to find out which colours were most suitable for me. I initially considered a light pink wedding dress, but since intense colours suit me best, I chose purple with light pink accessories instead. (The colour is actually a lot less bright in real than it seems in the photos, but I love both versions of it!)

Then I still had to find a pattern… I considered a shelf bust, but decided on a sweetheart neckline instead. I came across the Colette Parfait pattern and ordered that. It was too summer dressy though, so I attached the straps to the top part of the bodice with a smooth line, as well as making several other modifications to the bodice to reduce the hanging boob effect I think it had :P, and to make it fit me better. I didn’t use the skirt parts of the pattern, but cut a full circle (in two halves, as I had to accommodate the zipper). I hemmed the skirt by hand, which went a lot more quickly than I expected!

I bought a black elastic belt with a bow at the vintage style shop, which goes with, and really spices up, almost any outfit. But I didn’t want any black in my wedding outfit, so I made a purple version of the belt. I felt it looked nicest with the bow at the back.

I definitely want to make the original version of this pattern some time! I love this striped one.

Photos by Happy Photographer.