I have been sewing for ages but haven't sewn from vintage in a while. (Even though I have collected loads of vintage patterns over the years!) This year I decided that if I wanted to keep them, I had to start using them! And here's the first project I have finished up:
It's from this 1955 Butterick pattern (view B):
I would normally not have attempted such a tough pattern for a 4-year old who's going to grow out of it quickly, but my daughter is firmly anti-jacket and we live in NY so...she really needs to wear a coat! I thought that if I let her have some input maybe she'd wear the result, and she wanted a red coat that "looked like a dress". I assembled some patterns, and this is what she picked out. Gulp! It was hard going but the results were worth it -- and the project was a success! She loves it and I think she's actually going to wear it all winter. For the most part, I followed the original instructions (down to putting in mini shoulder pads) but one thing I did differently was to heavily interface the skirt part of the coat, since it's actually designed to be worn over full skirts and petticoats which would have helped hold it out a lot. It helps a lot, although, when the coat actually is worn over a full-skirted dress and petticoat it looks amazing:
If you want to know more about the pattern and coat, you can read my blog entry, see more photos on flickr and check out the write up I did on Pattern Review!
I look forward to working through my vintage pattern collection and sharing the results!
♥ Sarah