I’ve done the vintage pledge for the last couple of years, but was quite surprised to receive an email inviting me to participate this year, so of course, I blithely said yes not realising that the game had changed a little bit and that my efforts would receive a day (18 July) and be featured by astitchingoddysey. Aagh, this caused me to rethink my usual offerings and make something we wouldn’t all be ashamed of. Soo, without further ado, here is my outfit.
The outfit consists of a dress and a capelet. I will talk about the dress first.
It is a 1937 Lutterloh pattern with some lovely bodice detail, and a slightly flared skirt. Because I didn’t use any colour blocking some of the detail is a bit hard to see, but this image from the book shows the interesting shapes in the bodice. The sleeves have a dart that runs from the wrist to the elbow, giving a lovely line.
First I had to trace off the pattern and tweak it to fit me.This is what Lutterloh patterns look like.
I even toiled it! I took it off to my pattern making class to ensure that I had a perfect fit, and felt a bit Greta Garboesque; but then I cut a hole in the dress so that stopped me making it the final dress if I ran out of time.
The fabric that I finally chose for this challenge is a beautiful brown and black viscose (?) that I bought a couple of years ago from Tessuti. I am so glad to have used it, particularly for a dress that I love so much.
The back view, which has tiny buttons all the way down. There is no way I can dress myself!
and now a gazillion photos trying to show this outfit to best advantage. We were about to have a storm (see the colour of the sky) and I was getting anxious about getting wet. Then the sun came out and I had shadows everywhere. Anyway, I wasn’t prepared to risk having to take more photos so got lots and now I can’t choose the best ones!
squinty sunshine on a really dull day
I did have one major blunder. Lutterloh patterns do not include seam allowance, and I carefully added it to every piece except the sleeves. I only realised as I was cutting out, so the sleeves are a bit snugger than I would like, but I can, at least, get my arms in them.
The button detail. These are from the ’30s or ’40s and I bought them at Buttonmania in Melbourne some time ago.
The belt detail. The buckle is an art deco one that mirrors the diamond shape of the centre bodice. The buckle background almost exactly matches the dress fabric. They are a match made in heaven and the buckle was in my stash!
Finally, here are the fabric scraps from the dress with some snips for perspective. I could almost claim this as a zero waste make!
The jacket is the Decades of Style 1930s Capelet, the pattern for which I’ve had for at least a year. Isn’t it a gorgeous jacket?
Once again I toiled it, and then I made a practice one, which I’ll blog in another post. This one is made from green silk velvet that I got from Sarah and she and I tried to dye it brown. Epic fail on that! I lined it with some Japanese gold silk, so it’s pretty luxurious. Unfortunately, the two fabrics that I enjoy sewing with least are velvet and silk, and here I had them in combination.
Of course velvet doesn’t really press crisply, so I feel as though my edges are a bit rounded instead of being sharp, but, given some of the issues I had with it, I think it’s something I shall enjoy wearing.
I used this little art deco buckle to hold the two fronts together.
close up of the back of the cape
showing off the swingy skirt of the dress
Finally, I knew that I had to style this outfit properly, so fussed and fretted about the backdrop for the photos. I explored art deco buildings in our general area and even took some photographs outside one of our movie theatres, but in the end I got Mark to take my photos outside this beautiful art deco building, which just happens to be our local town council building. The building burnt almost to the ground in 2010 but they managed to save and restore this beautiful facade in 2014 to the joy of all the local residents.
I did toy with having a Marcel wave (see here for my trial 1930s hairstyle – nothing like a marcel wave really!), but felt a bit silly to be honest. Sooo, it’s hair as usual I’m afraid.
