Flashback Friday: Ye Olde Butterick Dress

Like seemingly everyone else who makes vintage clothes, I once made the Butterick "Walk Away" dress. I made it probably 8 or 9 years ago and used the original vintage pattern number 6015. I amazingly got this pattern in a huge lot of vintage patterns I bought off ebay for a dollar (shipping included!).



Jumping Jack Frogs, I was SKINNY then!

The back/over piece is black silk, bound with black silk bias strips. The front/underpiece is a black tapestry with a dark pink design woven in. The buttons (hard to see in the photo) are covered in the tapestry fabric, which I recall caused lots of cursing and stabbing.

This dress was made to coordinate with a suit I made for the fellow I was dating/dancing with at the time; the suit was black with very thin hot pink pin stripes. We entered a vintage costume contest and only won second place which cheesed me off because the winning entry was someone who bought a original vintage dress for about a billion dollars and I MADE mine along with a durned vintage suit for my partner. Lookng back now, the dress that won was gorgeous and totally deserved it. I guess. Maybe.

I must say, although I think it has been over done, I do love this pattern. No side seams, the front wraps and hooks in the back, while the back wraps and hooks in the front. And it was certainly terribly flattering to my hourglass figure.

My new weight loss goal....fit into this dress again. Without a Corset of Death. :-)

Flashback Friday, WAAAYYY Back. a.k.a. I'm a MAN, baby!!

Back in the good old days of December 2005, I was invited to a 12th Night party by a group of historical costuming friends whom I had only known via the interwebs. So I had a month to make an outfit to impress a group of people who knew what they were doing, all of whom had likely been working on their costumes for months and months and months.

No problem....yeaaaah.

I decide to go in drag as an 18th centuray man because all womens outfits for almost any period involved undergarments that I just didn't have time to make. Plus I had fabrics and patterns on hand (don't ask me why I had 18th century mens clothing patterns in my stash because I have no earthly idea).

The frockcoat and breeches I did in a grey cotton velvet that I had bought for an Elizabethan gown that I never got around to making. The waistcoat I did in a mulberry satin scrap that I don't even remember what I bought for it.

And what does a girl do when making an outfit in a hurry to make it look impressive..... embroider the CRAP out of it and hope no one notices the fitting and construction mistakes underneath the loud decorations. :-)

Here are some pics of me at the event.



The coat is totally unlined and the facings are safety pinned on the inside. The waistcoat armholes are also completely unfinished, not even bound, just zigzag-ed on the raw edges to keep them from fraying. I was not going to take that frock coat off, so I only finished what you could see. I totally forgot to make a shirt to wear under the waistcoat, so that is an old dress shirt that I forced to work, again hoping the Power of Embroidery would be distracting enough that no one would notice.

Details:

Breeches
I started out using a pattern by Pegree of Williamsburg which was HORRIBLE. I ended up scraping that version and using a pattern by J.P. Ryan instead (Yes, I not only had 18th century breeches patterns, but had several of them from different designers. No, I don't know why.). Every J. P. Ryan pattern I have worked with has been a delight to use. I recommend them.
To save time I made a bunch of alterations, so the finished product was not much like the pattern. I left out the pockets and the back gusset, and took out a lot of the fullness in the seat. The top of the pants are not even finished, just pinned together where it should button closed. Again, since it wasn't going to show, I didn't finish it. I did covered buttons in the grey velvet and used old purse buckles for the knee straps.

Frockcoat
Another J.P.Ryan pattern. I machine embroidered little designs (that matched the waistcoat designs) with yellow and gold metallic threads on grey velvet scraps and covered all the buttons. I used gold braid trim to outline all the buttonholes and the pocket flaps.

Waistcoat
I used a pattern from Rocking Horse Farms. The embroidery I did by machine, and used my new fangled "design" software for the first time to create the total embroidery design. I took a couple basic flower designs that came with the machine and doubled them, flipped them, repeated them, changed the colors, etc to fill the space. I used more gold braid trim to outline the pocket flaps and the edges of the waistcoat, and then used one of the decorative stitches already on my machine in metallic gold thread in between the braiding. Again, the buttons were embroidered and then covered to match the waistcoat.

All in all, an impressive outfit if you don't look too close. I made a grand entrance and I had a great time at the party and, once I got a little comfortable with the folks there (it was my first time meeting ANY of them in person!), we all had a little giggle as I opened the coat and revealed just how sloppy it really was.

Flashback Friday, the second

Another flashback friday wedding (I think I have weddings on the brain). About 7 years ago, my lovely friend Abi got married in July. Which is very warm here in VA. But her reception hall was very very very air conditioned, so she wanted a Jane Austen-ish coat to wear over her wedding dress to stay warm. There was a jacket that Kate Winslet wears in the Sense and Sensibility movie that she wanted to model it after--I paused my way through that scene about 20 times to see as much detail on it as I could. And here is the final result.




I started with the Spencer Jacket pattern from Sense and Sensibility Patterns's Regency collection. We made a few alterations--took out the poofyness of the sleeves and changed the front opening--to make it more like the movie jacket.

She chose a lovely blue and silver dragon brocade as her fabric, and we decided to line it in a blue cotton since the lining would show a bit. I love the way it turned out--I have always loved that style of jacket, and it really suits both Abi's figure and her personality perfectly.

Flashback Friday, the first.

I love the flashback fridays that Sharon does, so I am going to try to do them myself.

This flashback is from about 6 years ago, when I was talked into making the wedding dress for one of my swing dancing friends. Her wedding in general had a 1940s swing feel to it. She talked me into making zoot suits for the groom and best man. Then somehow her mom--who was supposed to make the bridesmaid dresses and hats--couldn't handle it, so I made them too. And then made an outfit and hat for myself as well. All over a period of two months. I never called in sick to work as much as I did during those two months---simply from pure exhaustion from staying up the night before and sewing. But it all turned out lovely. (I'm the one in red).



This week I am focusing on the hat and dress I made for myself--I will prolly talk about the other outfits in the pics (I made them ALL) some other week.




My dress is the now OOP vintage vogue pattern 2610. The fabric is a polyester with a really nice hand--I actually thought it was mismarked at the store because it didn't have that weird synthetic fabric feel. I made several alterations to the dress to make it fit me. I had to take it in a lot at the waist (oh how I wish I still needed to do this kind of alteration!), changed the snaps to a side zipper, and I attached the skirt in a different spot. I added back darts to the bodice and skirt for a more fitted look. I also made the skirt fuller for better twirlyness when dancing.



The hat was loosely based on a Vogue hat pattern--I can't find the number right now--but there were so many problems with the pattern that I ended up just fiddling with it and ignoring the pattern until it looked like the picture.



I dated the best man for a while and he was my dance partner. He is the one we all refer to as The Devil because he was eeeevvvviiillll. I am friends with him now and he makes a MUCH better friend than boyfriend. But then again, if he hadn't broken me and if The Boy hadn't been around to cuddle and console me through it, The Boy and I might never have broken that friendship barrier and be getting married ourselves in (GULP) nine months. Everything happens for a reason.