Mod Arrow Dress Project: Simplicity 8682 from 1969

I used Simplicity 8682 from 1969 to make this green polyester dress. I significantly hemmed it, tailored it, and added white felt applique arrow designs. I also used white ribbon trim at the bottom of the dress.


I like the pop art effect created by using applique to apply everyday objects and symbols to dresses and skirts. I did have some snafus (unfortunately, quite a few) that you can also read about on my blog Sew Sixties.

Happy sewing!
Astrid

In anticipation of the royal wedding!

I was so excited to make this dress. I'm not a royal enthusiast but I thought it would be fun to do something patriotic in time for Kate & Wills' wedding next Friday!

I used Simplicity pattern 3929 with the pencil skirt. This is my second dress of this pattern and I have only good things to say about it. Same goes for the fabric, I love it!

Hope you like it as much as I do - more pictures on my blog pretty odd wonders!

Sofia x

Pink Houndstooth Mod Mini Dress

Recently, I've been way ahead project-wise but way behind posting-wise. That's why I have a flood of posts all of a sudden. Yesterday, I FINALLY took pictures of the backlog of projects I had completed.

This one is Simplicity 6783 from 1966. I completed View 3. I've been playing with fabrics lately and now that I've expanded beyond the limitations of Joann's, I'm much happier.


You can read more about this on my blog Sew Sixties.

Blue Charmeuse Dress: Butterick 4029

I recently completed Butterick 4029. It's from the mid-60's (I think), but I couldn't find a date on the pattern. I exaggerate when I refer to this dress as a "disaster" in my blog, but I'm just not very keen on the style.


You can read more about it on my blog Sew Sixties.

Take care,
Astrid

Simplicity 6861 from 1966: Sea Green Crepe Dress

I completed Simplicity 6861 from 1966 in a sea green polyester crepe. I made view 1 but ended up leaving off the sleeves. You can read more about my adventures, or rather misadventures, on my blog Sew Sixties.

Australian Sunday Sun 4620

Well it's taken me weeks and a bit of paid help to get this dress finished. In the end I wanted this dress finished more then I wanted to master the pattern and took it off to a seamstress for help. I started it in mid November Here and got stuck, once I to came to the truth (this pattern was getting the better of me) I decided that my pride should not stand in the well of finishing this lovely dress.

While the only person I know who also sews is my mother she was not able to help me, so after some talk we agreed a seamstress would be the best bet to finishing. To see more of the drama please visit me Atomic Mum.
On a different note I would just love to say how much I love this blog and seeing all the lovely clothes people make. It really makes me feel at home. Happy Sewing!

Simplicity 7749 - Mod Dress with Colorblocking & Raglan Sleeves (1968)

I made Simplicity 7749 from 1968. It turned out alright, but I did have some struggles (of course). Read more about it on my blog, Sew Sixties.

Simplicity 8381- 1969- Long Sleeve Colorblock Dress

I made Simplicity 8381 from 1969. Anyone who's read my blog knows that I'm in love with colorblocking. I wish I had better things to report, but what can you do when you start off with a major fabric mistake?


You can read more about my fabric mistake (and quite a few other mistakes) on my blog Sew Sixties.

Simplicity 7796 (1968) Beatles-inspired mod gray dress

I created this gray Beatles-inspired dress from Simplicity 7796 (1968). It looks great in pictures but not so great in person (sigh). One major issue: I just can't get my stand-up collars to stand-up. They are literally a "let down."

Read about all my trials and tribulations at my blog Sew Sixties.

Hi Sew Retro Comunity,

I finished my dress 60s inspiration, it´s a free version of a pattern on line, I have´n the pattern so I made a mix with the pattern photo and some little change, more photos on my blog

My Enid/Ikea dress

I made this dress from my vintage (1950s/60s) Enid Gilchrist pattern book, 'Junior Teens and Smaller Women', and some 2010 Ikea fabric ... I love the mix of vintage and modern :)

I wrote on my blog about it here :)

Linda

1960s McCalls 6673 - A Pretty Pouffy Skirted-Dress

A while ago I fell in love with Gertie's Lemon-Tea-Dress - a gorgeous frock that was simple in design with short sleeves, darts, and a pouffy skirt.

I trawled etsy looking for a similar pattern that wouldn't break the bank and came up with McCalls 6673:

It was very cheap ($3), had never been cut out and contained the pieces to make all three styles. I feel quite lucky to have scored such a bargain!

I made this dress up in cotton sateen as a 'test' garment before cutting into some beautiful Japanese cotton I bought before breaking my arm a few months ago. So - here is my version of McCalls 6673 View 'A':


I think the print makes it look more modern (not that I intended to make it look more modern) - what do you think?

My blog has a few more pics if you are interested!

New dress!

Here is my new 60s dress. I'm so sorry I'm not in it! I couldn't be bothered doing my hair and there's no light in my usual photo corner at this time of day.

I'll love you forever if you come and visit my blog. :)

Disco Dress- Simplicity 4605

This is my pattern. Everyone voted for the blue dress in the poll, so that's the one I made.

I tried, and succeeded, matching the stripes in all of the darts as well as the side seams.
It's cute, but it makes me feel like I'm wearing a costume. Many more pictures and other projects on my blog- here! I'm also giving away the big piece of this fabric that's left, so go enter if you would like it!

Easter Dress! McCall's 5898 in Yellow Linen

I finished McCall's 5898 in time to wear it for Easter! I have had the fabric (yellow linen/rayon blend with embroidered flowers in orange, brown and green, from JoAnn Fabrics) in my stash for more than a year. It felt great to finally get it done! Here it is, with the kind of wrinkles you get in linen after a crazy day of baby wrangling:

The pattern is from 1961. The illustration shows that lovely bouffant shaped skirt, but I believe that shape requires the imagination of the pattern illustrator and/or a specially made fluffer with extra fluff at the hipline. I wore my regular two-layer net fluffer, which has more of a conical shape. I generally have plenty of my own fluff around my hips, but in this case it wasn't enough to get the skirt shape shown on the pattern envelope. Also, note that this pattern is not specifically designed for a bordered fabric. The bottom edge of the skirt is curved. I went ahead with my bordered fabric because it was a loose floral with an uneven top edge. The thickness of the border on my skirt varies a little because of the curved hem, but it's not noticable with the fullness of the skirt and the looseness of the border design. This pattern would not work with a boldly striped border print, but it's fine for this fabric. Details posted here.

I am obsessed with border prints. Speaking of which, I realized I never posted this one:

I found this fantastic fabric obviously inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's Coonley Playhouse window design at my local Hancock Fabrics. I have read that Frank actually designed a few dresses, but I couldn't find any pictures or sketches. If you've ever seen one of Frank's dress designs, please let me know! I used a very simple pattern from the 1980's: Butterick/See & Sew 3887. This pattern is super simple and ideal for a 45" wide border print. Details here.

I can't decide if I'm 1960s or 1970s

I made a new dress. It's a 1960s sheath dress with 1970s circular sleeves. I love it!

Feel free to swing by my blog.

Need some advice

Hi everyone! I posted over on my blog about two vintage patterns that I brought home from my mom's stash last night.

I'd like to combine them so I make the bodice out of McCall's 7208 and the straight skirt from McCall's 6767, 1963/64.

My mom drew little lines on the bodice of one of the models to show the chevron pattern because the pieces are cut on a bias. What would happen if I cut the skirt straight? I am afraid a straight skirt cut on the bias would make me look like a circus ride.

I have a striped cotton/silk blend fabric that I'd like to use and I think would be lovely for the bodice, but would vertical stripes (very tiny) for the skirt clash with the chevron on the bodice?

Thanks for any advice you can give me!

My first Enid

Hi, I'm loving this retro look right now, and am really excited to have found Sew Retro :)

My name is Linda from Adelaide, Australia.

Sometime last year I found my first Enid Gilchrist pattern book in an Op Shop for 20c ... since then I have been collecting as many as I can find ... I am still amazed at how many patterns she could fit into each book! My collection ranges from babies through to adults, with my favourites being the women's patterns ... the fashions, from about the 50's through to the late 70's, are just awesome :)

I recently made my first Enid dress (blogged here)... the pattern, style and fit were all perfect, and I can't wait to make some more :)

Linda

My blog is called Clickertyclick :)

McCalls 9193 - the fake shift dress

So I had a major craft FAIL when it came to the Mad Men dress competition, but I licked my wounds over the weekend and came up with this dress instead. It's McCalls 9193, a misses "easy to sew" 1968 pattern, which was indeed easy to sew although I had to go and make it a bit harder of course!

Since I'm still breastfeeding my daughter and probably will be during the rest of our forthcoming summer, I picked this dress to sew because I thought it was front opening. Until you start nursing a baby, you don't actually realise how hard it is to access your 'girls' in most clothes without stripping half naked! But it turns out that the button front band and those pocket bands are in fact just decorative bands topstitched to the front and the dress is just a standard shift with a centre back zipper.

Easy fixed though, I just sewed the centre front seam closed beneath the band, attached the button band to one side of the dress, added a band of matching fabric on the other side to sew the buttons on and with a few black buttons from the stash I had a functional dress. I did however leave the pockets as they were, because although pockets are immeasurably handy in a dress, I don't need extra bulk around my hips and thighs so they were sacrificed in the name of vanity.

The fabric is also relatively vintage, I think it's 1980s or earlier and came from my gran's stash. In fact I've refashioned it from a UFO that she had started who knows when. It is a lovely textured cotton in a gorgeous deep coral colour, and the white bands are also textured cotton leftover from another project - so combined with buttons from the stash this was very much a zero cost project.

More details over at my blog.

Vintage jumper dress

I'm absolutely loving all the great clothes that everyone has been posting lately, so I thought it was about time I got my butt into gear and posted again. I made a jumper (tunic / pinafore for those of us living outside of the US) from Butterick 5000 - how's that for a pattern number eh? No date on the pattern envelope, but from the looks of it I'd say 1960s/early 70s - anyone else hazard a guess?

I started this dress to enter into the June competition, but oops, I missed that deadline! I like to call this 'the dress that should have taken a few hours but instead took many weeks because I have a six month old baby who never sleeps'. I think you get the picture of why I missed that deadline.....

Anyway it was simple to sew as the pattern envelope claimed, although I used a rather unstable and thin cotton bought from an op shop or garage sale (long term stash resident so can't quite remember), and even though I underlined it with black organza it still had a tendency to slip and slide and generally misbehave. But I got there in the end, and here is my dress in all of it's school uniform/modest librarian look:

No further details on my blog about this dress, but feel free to stop by and see pictures of the little imp who's keeping me from sewing and read all about my odyssey to stop my UFOs becoming my vintage sewing of the future!