Sewing

Butterick 4870: still going strong

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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Sewing

Silk and modal top from scraps

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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Sewing

Butterick 2704: vintage shift dress

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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Sewing, vintage

1920s kimono negligee

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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Sewing, vintage pledge

Channeling Audrey

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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Sewing

A vintage jacket: B5652

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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