Prairie Style, 1978: Butterick 6038, McCall's 5948, and dirndl skirt

Clearinghouse post on 1970's prairie style:

The first bit is Butterick 6038 (1978 or 1979), a casual blouse with a split neck, gathered front, collar, and side ties at the waist. I wasn't sure how I felt about this but I think it's growing on me. I'm notoriously fussy about fit and I was sort of afraid this just said, "boxy!", and possibly, "maternity!", but I don't really think now that it's that bad (and I'm trying to become less picky about fit). If I make it again, I'll trim down the tops of the sleeve caps, both to avoid having to gather them so much and to make the shoulder fit a little less awkward.

The fabric is Kona cotton in "Snow" which, ironically, is off-white. It's about the color of unbleached muslin but without the natural brown flecks (I wanted to use muslin but couldn't find any that was opaque enough to look decent). It's kind of stiff but it did behave beautifully, without any stretching or distortion.

6038 also looks cute with jeans.

I have no idea why I'm not smiling.

Here it is with an improvised dirndl skirt, which is not specifically retro but also not really not retro. This one was made of two yards of brown Indienne-style calico and uses this awesome half-elastic waistband tutorial.

I'm from Texas; I'm allowed to wear boots with everything. If it's not already in our state Constitution, it should be.

Here's 6038 again, but with McCall's 5948 (1978), which is full-blown Seventies prairie chic and not ashamed to say so.

The waist ties.

This pattern didn't include pockets, and I am morally opposed to clothing that doesn't have pockets, so I added some small patch pockets to the front, since the side inserts made side-seam pockets awkward.

STtDC - Project 1, the Dirndl

Heya all,

As part of my foray into the Sewing Through the Decade Challenge, my first project was the pleated waist dirndl skirt with a border print (i'm looking at the mid-late 50s).

Here's the design:

Here is mine (no petticoats), with added pocket. Pocket = love.

And a version in plaid taffeta

These skirts are amazingly easy to sew, and I love swishing around in them so much! Really recommend making one if you've been thinking about it. Onto the next project challenge... the blouse!

xx Bex xx

New Year sewing

Having made a resolution to sew at least 12 garments this year, I spent the first 2 days of 2011 sewing up my frist 2 items!

The first was McCalls 4728, a 1942 issue pattern which I have a reproduction of.

The pattern was pretty easy to follow, although as the first true vintage pattern I've used, I found the lack of explicit instructions a bit nerve wracking at times!

This dress has lots of nice features, like darts, gathers and bound buttonholes and I'm very pleased with the result!

Then I made this simple dirndl skirt which closes with a tab and button. This was based on instructions on Gertie's Blog for Better Sewing and was really simple to make.

There are more pictures and details on my blog and at pattern review.

Simple Dirndle....Long Time No Post!

Last night I whipped up a simple dirndle skirt in a pretty patterned fabric 

To see more, Visit me over @

www.thelongandwindingbobbin.blogspot.com

From a doona cover to a dirndl.

Cute full dirndl skirt.

blogged here

lore
x

Gertie's Dirndl Skirt, a la Nancy

Thanks to Gertie's excellent dirndl skirt tutorial, I whipped this up in 45 minutes, and still had time to customize the eBay Calvin Klein shoes I wanted to wear with it! What I love is that it's full enough that I don't feel like I need a crinoline under it. Of course, that means it makes my derriere look even bigger than it is.... but I don't care. How can you be unhappy with a skirt that has bubble print fabric, and isn't *tight* on you anywhere? For more pics, go to my blog.


Thanks for the great tutorial, Gertie! I'll be making more of these for sure!

Bird Seed Skirt

I have oodles of vintage patterns for this style of skirt, but they are all just big squares of tissue paper so I opted just to make up my own pattern. I cut out three panels of fabric, stitched up the seams, and gathered the waist. Easy and fast and oh so cute!

 

MoxieTonic

Very 50s Dirndl skirt

It seems like cheating to post a Dirndl because they are so, so easy. Plus, this was a border print so I didn't even have to hem it! The fabric is vintage from Ebay - if you can't make it out, its a medieval couple with a cart full of flowers pulled by a St Bernard. I so covet vintage border print skirts like this - especially since Prada did a similar line of "travel" themed skirts a year or two ago that were just gorgeous - but the Prada is definitely out of my price range, and even vintage skirts of this type go for a lot on ebay. Plus, they are usually in teenager sizes (25" waists). I was pretty excited when I found the fabric and was able to make my own!

Here I'm dressed for work. It turned out to be a 14-hour day, which reminded me of another perk of the dirndl: So. Comfortable.