Completed: two 30's outfits!

Inspired by my love for the 30s look, my realisation that maybe I've been avoiding the 30s for all the wrong reasons, and of course all the lovely comments from you guys on whether I should try it, I decided before summer to make a 30s summer outfit with a skirt and a blouse. "Summer?", you may be wondering, "but Erika, it's fall now!"
I know, I know! But... well, I didn't get done in time... and the skirt fought back... and somehow I ended up making a second skirt + top outfit...

Alright, outfit number one:

A bias cut A-line skirt with side-buttons, and a blouse with a tie-collar and snaps in the side. The skirt is in a lovely faric, it's matka silk! Matka is a plain weave with double strands in both warp and weft. The fabric is coarse and has a lot of body, but at the same time it has a slight slight lustre that's too polite to be called a shine, and even though it has body, it still has some drape. Wonderful!

So how did the skirt fight back? Basically, it was the fabric. When I bought it they said it could be machine washed, but even after a gentle wash with silk-detergent it came out stiff as cardboard. After a good rinse with fabric softener (worked better than vineger, tried both on test squares. And yes, of course I should have machine washed a test square as well...) and ironing it dry, it regained some softness and drape. I'd seriously recommend against machine washing matka, no matter what the salespeople say!

The skirt closes in the side with buttons and handmade buttonholes.

The skirt sits in my natural waist and the waistband is straight, folded. I lenghtened it considerably after looking at old fashion- and pattern magazines, and measuring the few 30s pattern I own, so it hits just below mid-calf.

The blouse is made from leftovers from last year's big dress+jacket project. I used a combination of different patterns I've made before, it took a couple of toilles, and the fit is still a bit off. I have two major issues I need to adress before making it again, first is the bubbliness at the front, second is the excess in the peplum. 30s peplum laid very slim and close to the hips, while the bodice bloused against the waist (opposite that of 50s peplum blouses/dresses). I love the style, though! So easy to wear, cool and soft, not restricting the movement at all, yet with a feeling of elegance.

The blouse closes in the side with snaps.

Second outfit!
 

Remeber the jerseydress I showed you in the last post? I loved that fabric so much I went back for another 1,5 metre! I had already found a nice linen on a 50% sale, so I figured it would be great to have a 30s outfit that's easier to wash and iron. Hence a linen skirt and a jersey top!

The skirt is tea-dyed (I bought it as a bleached white) and cut on the bias. However, since the first skirt has a tendency to pull a little over the hips I figured it would be better with a bit more room in the skirt and made it just a few cm wider. Unfortunatly, it didn't make the sideseam lay flat, quite the opposite...

Another part in the problem may be that I was a little bit short on fabric, and did a "design feature" at the top. It might be a coincidence that the skirt pulls the most just below the "V", but I doubt it.

Also, the zipper buggled. This is the third installation, and I've done all I can think of. I'm leaving it be, it's time for fall sewing and either the fabric will shrink a little during washing, or I'll wear something over the top of the skirt, or... It's a later problem =)

The top is a version of my by now TNT jerseydress pattern, not much to say about it.

Except that I love the fit in the back!!! With my narrow back, nothing RTW has ever fit and I still get a little giddy everytime I see myself wearing a garment that fits my back =)

This is just a short presentation, I'll be returning soon with some thoughts on drafting patterns that are based on a specific period, and of course a bit more about the silk skirt. It was an epic make ; )

Love, Erika

Summer SWAP 1,2 and 3

First items on my Summer Sewing With A Plan are ready!

1) Half circle skirt in blue mixed cotton. At least I think/hope it's part cotton... I bought the fabric ages and ages ago, and half of it became the first sewn garment featured on this blog (a pleated summer skirt). I've had loads of grand ideas for the 1,5 metres left of this fabric, but nothing has ever seemed right. This may not be a fancy fabric, and it has a shady content, but it's grease and dirt-resistant, it hardly wrinkles and the pleated version is one of my most used items. Hence; another half circle skirt! =) This time with an invisible side-zip.

On a side-note: now I understand the whole shebang about using invisible-zipper feet. I'd only tried it on very thin and flimsy fabric, and thought it was a big hoax. But on this sturdier fabric it worked great!

2) Jersey top. Not much to the naked eye, but a big deal to me as I've adressed and - keep your fingers crossed - conquered the fitting issues in my previous makes! The excellent advices I got on my post really summed up to one thing: a modified SBA. What?! I'm an E-cup, for heavens sake. A very new situation to me... However, my starting point was my sloper for wovens. That sloper has undergone serious alterations, amongst others an FBA. Protruding things stretches jersey more than flat surfaces, meaning that what would in woven have been needed extra fabric for my bust, was in jersey surpluce.

Not wanting to alter the length of the sideseam or the shoulderseam, I reduced the overbust, the neckline and the underbust-gathers. I cut up the front bodice along these lines:

And then overlapped the desired amout (meaning: I made a rough estimation by testing the last top and tested by pinching how much it made sense to reduce over the actual bust. So, I guessed). It worked out darn well!

I also reduced the sleeveheads so the sleeve is inserted flat.

3) Time to test the new top-pattern as a dress! This is a real Frankenstein... The skirt and midriff is from the chevron dress (with 1,5 cm added at center front of midriff-piece), the back bodice is from when I altered the chevron-dress pattern for a V-neck dress that didn't get made, the front bodice and the sleeves are from the new TNT. (And I traced all pieces so all patterns are complete! Quite shocking...)

I've skipped the stabilizer in the underbust seam, but kept it for the shoulders. The waist is helped by an elastic inserted in the overlock seam. I messed it up a bit, though, as I sewed in the elastic wrong (forgot to stretch it and put it on the skirt side instead of on the midriff side) so this dress will be best to wear with a belt. The elastic may also get a bit better after washing. Ah, well, this was the test-run dress =)

New solution to finishing the neckline: cut a 4 cm wide strip and treat it like a mix between biastape and waistband. Attatch right side to right side...

...fold over the overlock-seam so it's engulfed by the band and top-stitch with a zig-zag just next to the seam. Setting my machine on a narrow zic-zag, I can use my zipper-foot (or whatever it is, that's what I most often use it for) and get really close. The finished band ends up a bit round, but I like the effect.

All the hems are folded under once and then top-stitched with a narrow zic-zag.

That was my three easy starting projects; fast to make, versitile and easy to wear. Now it's time for a couple of more jersey projects on the summer SWAP!

Love, Erika

I've sewed not one, but two skirts!

A post long overdue... I've finished an everyday wearable skirt! I first wrote a bit about here, and it's a wool/poly blend that I bought the fabric for ages ago. Of course, at the time I didn't know it was going to be a skirt... Ever had a moment when you suddenly just know what to make with something, and it's so obvious that you can only marvel that the idea hasn't struck sooner? This was one of those moments for me =) After stashing the fabric for three years, and lamenting the fact that I had too few fall/spring skirts, that all my skirts were blue, that I had the sewing funk and just wanted to make something fast, then I finally put two and two together and made this fabric into a very wearable but easy to make skirt.

It's a halfcircle, cut on the straight of grain with no front- or backseam (only sideseams).

The zipper is lapped and inserted in the sideseam. To make my life easy I just cut all the sideseams with extra wide seam-allowance =)

The waistband is in one single piece, the whole of it interlined with a stable woven fusible. The back of the waistband is stitched down with a stitch in the ditch (from the right side).

That's really all there is to it. I actually finished this skirt before the Stockholm trip in October, but for some reason I just haven't come around to photograph it until now.

 

The second skirt is an UFO from last winter. After I finished the coat I wanted to make something easy, something fun and fast. An A-line skirt in wool seemed to fit the bill, and I had the perfect TNT pattern and a good fabric. So how on earth did it become an UFO? Basically, I have a very, very hard time to keep things simple. To stick to the plan.

"Wouldn't it look a lot more interesting with the plaid on the bias?"

"Pockets would be fun to add!"

"Let's try out this cool new method for the waistband!"

Nevermind the fact that I hadn't done pockets on this pattern before, and only once added pockets to any pattern (not a huge pocket fan) so drafting and sewing those took a lot more time than I thought it would. I hadn't sewn on the bias before either, nor matched plaid to this extent. Not very advanced things, but they did slow the project down a lot!

The pockets and inside of the waistband.

To make matterns worse, when laying out the pattern I had a hard time fitting all the pieces on the bias on my 1,5 metres of wool. I made two pattern pieces and refused to "waste" time and paper on drawing up two more so I would have one piece of pattern paper for every final piece of fabric. Not a mistake I'll ever make again... After playing around with different pattern layouts, I finally figured "Well, this looks like it might not work, but then on the other hand it just might! I'll just start by cutting these two pieces and then I'll see how I can cut out the other two." If by now you're wondering "What was she thinking!!!" then you're totally justified and I'm pleading temporary insanity ; )
I could not cut out two or even one more piece. So I set about puzzling together these pieces instead.

From the inside...

And from the outside.

Matching these up and making them lay still while I sewed was no mean feat. There was basting on all sides involved! But I doubt the casual observer will notice the patchwork =)

The final straw (this past fall/winter), was when I had finally sewn the whole thing together and hemmed it and it was done - and the zipper boggled like crazy. Unpicking tiny stitches in thick, wholly wool was for a time my perceived version of hell ; ) I handsewed it back in, even gathered and steamed the skirt to counteract the stretch of the bias, but I'm still not happy with it.

Boggling zipper

This is a bit weird, but my measuringtape says my waist is 3 cm smaller than in October when I last tried on this skirt (and it looked good). I made it a bit roomier in the waist, very comfy for days when I... just need a little bit of extra room in the waistband, let's not dwell on that, right? Also good for layering stuff underneth it during the very cold months =) Smart thinking, but now a few extra centimeters has become too many extra cm's! The skirt sits too low in the waist and therefore falls wrong. It feels... just wrong... in the waist, and I'm pretty sure that's why the zipper goes crazy.

If I pull the skirt up to my natural waist (where it's meant to be) the zipper looks good. Problem is, the skirt doesn't stay there...

I'm undecisieve on what to with it. Scrap it, sell it, save it in case it will fit later in life? I have no illusions that I will keep my current waist-measurment for the rest of my life, but do I like the skirt enough to store it until it fits? Also, it's a style that I fear would look very old lady on me in 10-20 years. On the other hand, who knows what will happen the coming year? Maybe next winter it will be the only thing fitting in a closet of skirts just a smidge too small =) It get's to stay, for now. If it hasn't been worn in a year or two, I'll re-evaluate.

It took over a year to finish this project, but I learned something important: when I want a fast and easy project, I need to stick to the basics and not start adding "interesting features". Keep it simple, and leave fancy for when I feel for a more demanding project. And if a project becomes an UFO, measure again to make sure it still fits =)

It feels good to be done with these two projects. The green skirt was an overall nice experience, from inspiration, planning, sewing and all the way to wearing. I managed to keep it simple! The plaid was an interesting learning experience on many levels, and even though I didn't end up with my comfy warm winter skirt, the work was not in vain. And who knows, maybe it'll come into use eventually.

Love, Erika

A finished project! And happy new year =)

December... Wow, it went by fast! It's one of my favorite months; the decorations, the smells of cinnemon and saffron, candles and small lamps lightning up the darkness. I had grand plans (as always. I'm sure that one day I'll learn to have reasonable plans, but now they're always grand) of making two blouses and a dress for Christmas. Naturally, it didn't happen. =) However, I'm quite proud of myself that I didn't start them when I knew I wouldn't have time to finish them. Instead of creating one more thing to stress about, I decided to just relax into the holiday-spirit and enjoy seeing family and friends.

But I have finished a project! It was a while ago, but I've been lazy in taking pics of it =)

Ta-da! The first of the two green t-shirts I cut out some months back. I did some changes compared to the last version, I gathered the top to the waistpiece under the actual bust, instead of centered in the mid-front and then spreading out. It, mostly, solved my old problem of pooling fabric between my cups!

 

This fabric proved to be a nightmare to sew. It's very thin and very slippery, at one point I spent 3 hours adjusting the tension, differential feed and pressure on my overlock, and the stitches still won't form without stretching the fabric if I'm sewing a single layer. To counteract the light fabric, I interfaced the bands at the neckline and the sleeves with fusible knit. It made the fabric less stretchy and causes some ripples, but it also keeps the bands from collapsing so I'm happy.

The back. Some ripples due to the angle of my arms, but look how little fabric-pooling there is at the waist! My RTW-tops are always a mess of horizontal pleats there.

Also, this is by far the best ever pictures taken of my favorite everyday skirt. It's made of surpluce military wool, meaning thick and almost never wrinkles. It might be some blend, though, as it has a nice luster that washing, steaming and pressing hasn't dimmed. This skirt was my second modern wear project ever, made the months before I started this blog. It's versitile and easy to style in different ways, which is good as I wear it at least four days a week all through the cold season... It has been very hard to photograph though, it always looks too dark, or the shape get's totally lost (as here).

The previous attempt at jersey-top, where the pooling-between-the-cups-problem is quite visible. Also, A glimt of another project I finished long ago (before Stockholm sewing expo, to be honest) but I've failed to take pictures of. It's a half-circle skirt, with a lapped side-zipper (first seen here). Quite nice, and I'm happy with it. Great to have another skirt to wear at winter besides my blue... ; ) However, I forgot to pack it after Christmas celebrations at my moms place, so now I'm not sure when I'll get it back so I can take proper pictures of it =(
Eventually, it will be done ;)

Happy new year!
Love, Erika

Getting my groove back

I had a free weekend and decided to do my best to get my sewing groove back. While having finished an UFO would be very satisfying, the actual process of finishing it is boooring. Cutting out a new garment on the other hand, that's fun. So Saturday I did this:

Sorry, murky picture.

It's a half circle skirt with a lapped sidezipper and a one-piece waistband, meaning only a total of 3 pieces to cut.

This colour is closer to the truth.

I hand-picked the zipper, on both sides, to avoid stretching the fabric. So the sides are sewn, the zipper is inserted, the waistband interfaced with thick woven fusible and then added to the skirt. All that's left is finishing the waistband edges and adding closures, and of course hemming after letting it hang a few days.

Sunday I had grand plans of turning a lovely green jersey into a dance dress. This was my idea:

It's based on my other jersey dress pattern, with some alterations in the bodice. However, after drafting the changes and laying out the pattern I realised I was short of 20-30 cm of fabric. I tried reducing the skirt width 4 cm both front and back, and it would have worked.

Works in theory, but it'll be very tight to add seamallowances.

But it was a squeez, and then I got the idea, how about two tops instead? I love this fabric, and what would get most wear, two tops or one dress? Obviously the tops! Esp as this jersey goes with almost all my skirts, both summer and winter. So I cut out the tops, and that was pretty much the day. No actual sewing done, but still 6 hours of sewing prep. It felt really good to have some productive sewing hours! Actually did get some of my sewing groove back... Altough my overlock did it's best to erase that groove yesterday. I've reached a stage where I thought me and the overlock had become friends. I usually thread it and balance the tension and change all those itty-bitty settings in 10-20 min. Yesterday, me and the overlock argued about just about everything for two hours! Which was my allotted sewing time. *Sigh* Ah, well, at least I got the darn thing ready for sewing the tops next chance I have to sew.

The two tops laid out, the extra space over the left bustpiece is for the second sleeve. See, there's room for seam-allowances! =) And I got some scrap fabrics, which was good when I did a zillion test stitches on the overlock!

Both these projects were made from stash-fabric, and as I've used three stash-fabrics lately, I'm elligable for some fabric shopping, right? Esp as my new altered jersey dress pattern needs a fabric... Well, I'll very likely have a good chance at finding some during Stockholm sewing expo this upcoming weekend. Yup, I'm going to Stockholm sewing festival! So excited, it's been 8 years since the only time I've visited the sewing expo (it always collides with something else in my scheduale). But this year I'm going! Yay! Also looking forward to seeing family and friends, so it's a really good weekend that lies ahed of me =)

Lot's of half made things today, but at least I am sewing again! How are you coping with the change of seasons? What's on your sewing table?

Love, Erika

A skirt, and thoughts on the creative process

It's closing in on winter, the snow remains on the ground off the pathways even though it's a few degrees plus, and there's that chill in the air. So yesterday I gave in, and put on a winterskirt =) A bit silly to wait so long, when I just love my skirts in warm wool! This one I used for the first time ever yesterday, but it's a skirt with many memories. My father gave it to my mother somewhere in the mid 80s, after one of his buisnesstrpis, and it was her favorite for many years. In most of my early childhood memeories she's wearing this skirt! It doesn't fit her nowadays, and so she passed it on to me. It may be 80s, but doesn't it have a strong late 40s feel to it?

On another note: skirtlengths! I realised while trying on my winterskirts that they're all about 5 cm / 2" longer than the summerskirts! Makes sense, for warmth and so on, but I also believe it has something to do with the material, wool drapes so differently from cotton. Does the skirts and dresses in your closet tell the same tale?

Last week I was pretty out of it (darn wisdom tooth!), so I'm afraid I missed my T hursday creative post... Yesterday I was at a fabricstore. Just to buy some sewing notion. Not fabric, I have too much fabric, too many projects just waiting to be realised. So I was not. going. to. even. look. at fabric. Who was I trying to fool? Seriously? =) I walked in, and there was the perfect coatfabric for my sister. Perfect! It was as if someone had made a fabric to match her soul and her very essence of being. And she's been wanting a spring jacket... She doesn't feel up to sewing one herself, but I could make it for her!

There my brain finally cought up with itself, and I remembered all my projects, all the things I want to make. I started thinking about how my brain works around sewing, and here's where I landed: I can never have just one project in my mind. I'm constantly constructing garments, from patternchanges to hemming and everything in between, in my mind. While working on one project, my mind can one afternoon totally skip to another.

This insight is far from new to me and before I've always seen this as a lack of charachter. What struck me yesterday is that maybe it's not. Maybe it's how I keep myself motivated. Just thinking of one project would bore me, and in the long run make me put down the project at hand to never finish it. But now, I take a vacation now and then to a future project, and so keeps the interest for the creative process itself alive. I never start drafting patterns or cutting out a new pattern before the on-going one is finished (the coat being the exeption to the rule), so this divided attention doesn't disturb the order in which the projects get done, altough it might prolong the process. Maybe that's why it takes me so much longer to finish projects than other sewists I know? Because I am slow, I know that. But things do get done, eventually.

So maybe it's time to go a bit easier on myself? What I've seen as a charachter flaw might instead be viewed as a creative strength, something that keeps the creative process going. Most importantly, it keeps the sewing fun, and that is after all the whole point! Another benefit is that all my projects are very well planned. I've turned the pattern and the pieces around and around in my head so many times that when I actually get to sewing, I've already worked out many of the problems that would otherwise have presented themselves as I went along.

So what conclusions to make from all this? It's ok to plan as long as one doesn't cut the fabric? Or just that I sometimes needs to go a bit easier on myself? One thing is for sure, though: I am not allowed to buy fabrics for more projects! (For myself, at least. Kajsa's spring jacket is still an idea) Why? Because I almost can't close the fabric cabinet as it is! =)

Now I'm off to cut out the second toille for the coat, a toille that might be upgraded to a summercoat if it behaves properly. =) Hope you're all having a great creative week!

Love, Erika

A New Beginning

October? How did that happen?! Somewhere between moving to a new appartement, travelling, dance classes starting, social dance nights starting (with all the meetings coming with the dance-stuff...), being ill, work etc, the blog fell away. Two weeks without a post, that's bad. One month, I figure we're talking revival, right?

So this is a New Beginning of Swingin' it in vintage! Since blogging a bit here and there doesn't seem to work very well for me, I'm going to aspire to a post-scheduale. I feel I have a tendency to get stuck in one thing all the time, so I thought I'd do two posts a week, with different themes. One post around Sunday, showing outfits, vintage finds, fun stuff I've done etc, and one post around Thursday, about creativity (like sewing projects, all sorts of craft, but baking also would fall under this category). What do you guy's think? Does it sound like a plan? Please note the aspire and around, I don't do too well with things I must do, so I'm keeping it more like a plan of intentions than a fixed duty =)

I figured I'd start right here and now! It's Thursday, so it's all about creativity and creations today! A year ago I got the idea that I would sew a coat. A really warm, vintage-inspired wool coat, to be warm but pretty in. I thought about modern patterns, as the style I wanted seemed to be hard to find as a vintage pattern, but then this Vogue pattern from 1952 came up for auction at Tradera:


It was perfect! The princess-seams, the lovely collar, even the size (with a FBA, of course).
The coat in my dreams was green, and I knew just the place to get the fabric: Handelsgillet. Did you know wool in ordinary fabric stores can have as much as 10 % other material, and still be called 100% wool? Horrifying! *shudders* However, people who sew historical clothing sometimes are very picky with the authenticity of their fabrics, so some companies (like Handelsgillet) have specialized in making sure their fabrics keeps to the standards demanded by for example medieval re-enactors.


My fabrics! From the left: 1) The wool. Warm, breathes, relativley thin, heavy. Perfect! =) From Handelsgillet. 2) Interfacing, a woven but fusible interfacing. 3) Interlining, 100% wool, so soft and light I keep picking it up to see that I've not imagined it =) 4) Lining, in a strange colour that shifts between brown, purple and sometimes gray. All the last three fabrics are from Sidenateljén, a local seamstress that sells beautiful fabrics by the meter.

A coat demands way more tailoring skills than I master, so I signed up for an evening sewing class. It's great to have someone show me the trickier parts and hold my hand through the project!


Longtime projects are fun, but sometimes the sewing bug demands instant gratifications. For this skirt, I had the outer skirt already cut out, bought some lining, made some pattern changes and put the whole thing together since Tuesday.


New things for me with this mini-project: lapped zipper, lining, this version of waistband and the back-split. (Above: lapped zipper and covered button, and a so-and-so waistband).


Front view (sould have pressed it better...). I inverted the pleats from how I did them the last time I used this pattern.

I had plans to just machine stitch the lining, but then the machine kept pulling it, so I ended up doing an invisible seam. Quite fun to hand stitch, and I love how it looks! =)

All for today, I'm off to sewing class to figure out toille-changes for the coat. Wish me luck! ; )
Love, Erika