I’m really enjoying shorts sets at the moment, and, having dyed a ready to wear set that was given to me more than five years ago, I thought I would make one. Here is the before and after. I used to try this on and take it off straight away without really thinking about the […]
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I’m very fond of the whole skort look, and discovered this pattern in my stash. It’s from the 1990s and it’s one my sister passed on to me. I thought I’d make one from a pair of pillowcases left over from when I used the matching doona cover for a sewalong I did in 2020 […]
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Having made the Emanuel Ungaro top from Vogue 1543 from a lovely soft Indian cotton, I immediately wanted another one, this time at the proper length and with the armholes dropped a little. To refresh your memory, here is the pattern envelope. it’s a pattern from the 1990s, so still a bit oversized as per […]
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I first made this pattern in the mid 1970s when I was in my early twenties. I see that it was bought at a fabric shop at my then local shopping centre, which is long gone and which I can barely remember now. I remember making a maxi version of this dress from some gorgeous […]
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I had a silk pillowcase that was past its useful life and a gorgeous tee-shirt made from modal and cashmere that was no longer wearable, and kept thinking that there was enough fabric to harvest from each to make something, but had no idea what so they languished in my stash until I happened to […]
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There’s another challenge happening on Instagram at the moment and it’s the sewover50 so50vintage, so I thought I’d make this dress which has been on my list for some time. As can be seen from the line drawing it’s a simple shift with gorgeous French darts. It has darts in the back neck, a short […]
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I won a prize in the 2017 Designin’ December challenge for this Dior knockoff, the prize being two PDFs from the Vintage Pattern Lending Library. I chose the 1920s hat (made here ) and also this rather fabulous kimono pattern. I had some silk that I bought in India picked out to make this kimono, but […]
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I wasn’t going to blog yet another hat make, except that this one has a few features that I felt made it blogworthy, and also for me to expound some of my lessons learned for future reference. It is once again the Vogue 9230 from 1975 but this time I was going to ensure that […]
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I wanted to take two wool jackets to the Fibres West retreat as I knew it would be freezing, but only managed to get this one finished. I got Butterick 5652 from 1990 cut out but realised very early on that there were no pockets included in the pattern, which needed to be remedied very fast. […]
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