Link Love ~ Vintage Angelfish Outfit

I love this outfit of Solanah's ~ it's stunning!  If you haven't already; do check out the full post.

Vixen Vintage: Angelfish   

This weekend my mother hosted an "Under the Sea" party, and I went as an angelfish.  :)

xox,

bonita

Sailor Me Away

I’ve been hankering for a nautical inspired outfit for a while, and this 70’s-does-a-little-late-30s/early 40s maternity dress fits the bill nicely!  It’s been my outfit of choice for the past few weeks ~ easy to slip on and go as the dress does a lot of the work so it doesn’t need much in the way of accessories and fancy do-dads.   Yup, do-dads is a word.  I’m sure of it.   ~ _ ^

During this insanely hot summer weather, the less fuss the better! 

Now les’see, I think Bump Watch makes me at 28 weeks in this outfit?  Wow, I can’t believe how quickly the time is flying by!  Not long now and we’ll actually be able to meet little Bump ~ how super thrilling.  : D

Anyway, apparently this heat has sapped any and all witty, intelligent, thought provoking, and extremely interesting post content that is clearly my usual standard of fare to offer, so feel free to insert said writing here:

xox,

bonita

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Pearl Earrings  ~  Christmas Gift from Hubs   Nautical Navy Dress  ~  Etsy   White Tooled Belt  ~  JayJays   There’s No Place Like Home Heels  ~  Rivers

Happy Go Lucky

 

I have been wanting to write this post for the last two weeks, but as I recently procured a new notebook to replace my old laptop {11” Mac Air – eee!}, I couldn’t actually write it until Hubby set up a virtual computer to host Windows on.  Once he did that, I could finally access Live Writer again. 

Apparently there is not one good PC based blogging platform for Macs at all.  Wordpress is supposed to be the best web-based blogging platform available, but frankly, I really dislike their set up for handling photographs.  Of course, this blog is quite picture-heavy, so that’s kind of a little important!

Anyway, I’m finally back – yay!  : )  

Now to the heart of the post ~ I love how simple this outfit is!  Cute heels, cute dress, a pretty updo, and I am ready to take on the world, pregnant or no!

It’s so easy that I think I’m going to live in floaty vintage dresses this summer.  A forgiving, but cute dress is the perfect uniform when your figure is constantly changing, and even more relevant, when it’s super hot.   >  <

I aim to sew at least two dresses to add to my limited supply ~ as over half my dress wardrobe no longer fits.  I do hope to eke out the ones that do a little longer.  I also may have one or two new items to show you, but they’ll have to wait until later.  ; )

xox,

bonita

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Vintage A Patch of Garden Dress  ~  Etsy    Gingham Picnic Wedges  ~  Modcloth

Link Love ~ The Tale of the Little Black Dress

More fabulous vintage history from Glamour Daze  ~ this time featuring the origins of the Little Black Dress and how it became the quintessential evening piece in any gal’s wardrobe.  Find out it started in the 1920’s,  how it went from day to night wear in the 1940’s, and how it was influenced by Dior in the 50’s and more…

The Little Black Dress – from Chanel to Givenchy

A big fan of single neutral colours, Chanel was really just pleasing herself with this number. In mourning mode after the death of her lover in 1915 ; Chanel's tendency towards black naturally crept in to her designs…

xox,

bonita.

Stitching Stories ~ Tackling Bias Cuts & Pattern Matching

This post is on the behind-the-scenes details of my latest me-made project, which I recently featured in an outfit post ~ My Fall Fancies Dress.

  

So I started this dress in February with this vintage Advance 9785 dress pattern I got off Etsy and this vintage thrifted cotton.  I think the Advance is late 1950s – early 1960s?  I’m not 100% sure, but I thought it was pretty anyway.

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I had to tackle a few new skills with this pattern ~ doing to an FBA on a kimono sleeve bodice was just for starters.  The dart ended up looking funny, so I just moved it to where I thought it should go and thankfully it worked! 

I also had to try my hand at my first on-the-bias project, as the bodice was bias cut, and to make the layout trickier, I had to pattern/stripe match as well!  This meant that it took me THREE hours just to cut out the bodice, and I wasted a fair amount of fabric which led me to the conclusion that, although pretty, bias cuts aren’t necessarily worth it. 

Buttonholes and pleating were also two new skills to me ~ and I have to say I adore my Bernina 860!  It’s five step buttonhole program is the easiest, simplest way to do buttonholes and once I practised a few I just breezed through the three buttonholes on the dress’s bodice.  I never thought I would say this, but ~ I love stitching buttonholes!

The pleats were relatively simple, and I am positively ecstatic with how they look!  I think that they suit my figure far better than gathers, so I know I will be trying these again. 

Of course, although I like the original pattern, I still made an alteration and took out the buttons/facing strip down the front of the skirt.  I think my reasoning for that was that the bodice buttonholes were scary enough without having to do more!  Plus, I find button-down skirts annoying.  They tend to pop open a lot for some reason.

I had trouble with the collar/neck facing and end up tacking and sewing that down in about a hundred different ways/places, as well as the collar being a pain to put on.  I had to re-apply it and rip it out at least three times, but even though the inside is a little messy, you can’t tell from the outside, which is good. I guess these things just take practise.

All these new challenges meant I did a lot of stop/start sewing; sometimes leaving the dress for weeks until I could summon up the courage and the time to pick it up again. 

However, the thing that I am most proud of with this project is how perfectly my seams match!  The centre back seam and the shoulder seams are spot on and I love how the front facing has that lovely ‘bridge’ between the two front chevron-stripes.  Pattern matching is fiddley and time-consuming, but oh, so satisfying when it comes out right!

~ Project Details ~

Year:  Late 1950s – early 1960s
Pattern:  Advance 9785
Fabric:  About 6 yards/5.5 metres of thrifted cotton doona cover {$9.00} ~ this is one fabric eating pattern!
Notions:  Three buttons {$3.00}
Time to complete: I have no idea…
Make/Wear again? Definitely wear again!!  I am really happy with how it came out: I love the fit, the style and the fabric. However, I am not so sure that I’ll make the pattern up again.  I’m thinking that once was enough.  Although, I do love the skirt, so it does seem likely that I might use that part of the pattern again. 
Total Cost:  $25.00 including the pattern

xox,

bonita

Golden Gingham Days

Reel Red Cardigan  ~  Thrifted   Pearl Strand  ~  Antique Shop   Go Gingham Girl Dress ~  eBay.com  Embroidered Gloves  ~  Thrifted   Eyelet Petticoat ~  Thrifted   Santa Cruz Beach Heel  ~  Modcloth 

~ * ♥ * ~

I think I’ve got a gingham virus affecting my brain.  Seriously people ~ every time anything remotely gingham pops up on my computer screen I’m like “Ooo!  That’s so cute!!  Gotta have it/something resembling it RIGHT NOW”

Thus, how I acquired this dress.  I was already in the process of bidding for another cute 50s cotton day dress on eBay when I some how stumbled onto this gorgeous blue-checked beauty.  It was love at first sight.  I’ve been hunting down the perfect gingham dress since last summer, so I knew this one had to be mine. Never mind that it’s autumn, almost winter here, and that I was already in the process of bidding on one unwearable summer dress.  I had to have this unwearable summer dress too!

I promptly turned around to my husband and said that I hoped my bid on the previous dress fails because I want this one more!   However, as the luck o’ the eBy would have it {seriously, how perverse is it?!! Always giving you things you don’t want, and never the things that you do!} my offer was accepted, so now I had to decide what to do. 

Ha.  Yeah, right.  The decision was pretty much foretold, and I sat on tenter hooks, waiting for the auction to end so I could bid.  Did I mention that I am really, really, really bad at bidding?  The auction nerves swallow me alive, and my Twitter feed bore the brunt of it because Husband thought it was all quite a ridiculous fuss over nothing.  Nothing!  It’s ONLY the MOST PERFECT gingham dress EVER!

Needless to say I won it, and now that I have it in my sweaty little grasp, it is never escaping… *bwhahhaaahhahahahaha! etc*

Do you like how I managed to sneak in at least one wear of it before winter starts?    > U <    Never underestimate the power of a cute dress! 

xox,

bonita

P.S. ~  Yes, I’m not forgetting about my shoes, I would like to talk about them too, but thought that it would make this post even more ridiculously long.   Short story ~ I saw them on The Glamorous Housewife, wanted them, ordered them, waited for them, found them on my front doorstep, unwrapped them, gasped/exclaimed/danced over them, then loved them forever!  ; )

My Dress And Me ~ Stitching Stories

Happy days!  I get to share with you the details of my very first me made dress!  Yes, it’s a shirtwaist ~ er, of sorts {you’ll see why  say that in a bit}, it’s got an A-line skirt, a self –drafted Peter Pan collar, cute buttons and pockets; and oh!  I should stop talking and just SHOW you. 

I started out with the McCall’s M4769, in view C.  Because I have never sewn a dress and have no idea how to do a tissue fit or anything I decide to trace the pattern pieces and then do the Full Bust Adjustment I knew I would need from the measurements on the back!  I found that this FBA tutorial on Sew L.A. Blog was EXTREMELY helpful, and I could actually understand what I needed to do. Yay for comprehension!

  

I did a muslin out of butcher’s paper to check that I was on the right track…

 

Then a fabric muslin to double check.  It seemed to fit tolerably well, though to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell if didn’t!

I didn’t take any photos of the construction process, unfortunately I was too focused on the garment and getting in finished ~ I had an end of 2011 deadline, so I was all guns blazing!  The fabric I was using was a pale baby blue with cute little three colour flower/teardrop things with with white diagonal lines.

Thankfully I was paying enough attention to notice as I cut out the first piece of skirt that the back skirt piece and the back bodice were “upside down” on the fabric and the pattern would have been going the wrong way!  A reshuffle of pattern pieces, and the disaster was adverted *whew* so that all the pieces were going the right way and would match.  After I finished cutting out, the dress seemed to come together quite easily.

My first sleeves set in really quickly, which was a pleasant surprise for me ~ but I think I was helped because I adjusted the sleeves so that they were puffed{using this tutorial} rather than a plain cap sleeve, so that meant I could have gathers to my heart’s content up the top of the sleeve and smooth out the underside so that it matched the arm scythe nicely.

  

I changed the button closure to a zip for ease of breastfeeding access by sewing the zip to the left hand front placket and then to the inside edge of the right hand front placket so that they overlapped and hid the zipper.  I also sewed two invisible snaps to hold the placket shut on the top of the bodice, and a hook and eye at the waist because all the vintage dresses have them so it seem right to do that!  I sewed the skirt shut so that the placket overlapped and couldn’t fly apart, as the zip was only 16” long.

 

Then I ran into my waterloo ~ the collar.  Of course I hadn’t been able to leave well enough alone, and had adjusted the shirtwaist collar into a Peter Pan collar.  {That’s why I am not sure if this dress technically counts as a shirtwaist at all!}  This changed the whole front of the bodice and the construction of the collar which meant I skipped steps 42 to 48 on the pattern instructions and just had to wing it.  I think if I had ever attached a Peter Pan collar before I might have been fine, but as it was, there was almost a meltdown of nuclear proportions, with a ton of seam ripping, fraying fabric and some holes as well as - well, swearing.   It did finally go on{although I had to mend it before I wore it as I somehow missed a bit and there was a hole already!}, and even looks quite alright for a totally made-up-as-I-went-along attachment.  The collar turned out to be quite deep which I also really love, even though it was a total fluke!

 

When I tried the dress on the bodice ended up being too large at the back, so I pinched out 2cm of fabric from the middle with a dart and made a belated Sway Back adjustment.  Of course I had already attached the bodice to the skirt by the time I figured that out, but it still worked out ok. 

 

The thing I love the most about this outfit is that the belt I am wearing with this dress is thrifted, but it matches it perfectly and is such a nice contrast that I am not sure I am even going to bother with the same fabric belt I was thinking of making earlier.  To finish off the dress I did a blind hem, which is a nice touch I like to do, popped my new pretty on and did an outfit shoot ~ On My Way.

Here is a sneak peak of The On My Way Dress in all it’s glory ~

And that my friends, is the saga of my first sewing foray into Dressland, of which I hope there will be many more tales to follow! 

~ Project Details ~

Year: Modern, 2005 styled by me to look 1940s
Pattern: McCall’s M4769
Fabric: About 2.9 yards/2.6 meters of thrifted cotton{?} doona cover {$9.00}
Notions: One zipper {$? ~ I think $5.00}, three buttons {$6.90}
Time to complete: About a week on and off ~ maybe 15 hours all up?
Make/Wear again? Yes! Now that I have a perfect fitting bodice, I am dreaming of all sorts of ways to mix it up.  I think I want at least two more of these dresses; I am planning to add a full circle skirt for a 50s shirtwaist dress, and another version with gathers at the shoulders for a really 1940s look and tulip sleeves.
Total Cost:  $20.90

I would totally recommend this pattern for beginners who want to sew a dress. I am a total beginner, and I did it, so you can know for sure that it’s a pretty easy pattern.  : 3

xox,

bonita

P.S.  ~ Yes, I named my dress.  I just couldn’t resist ~ it’s fun.  > u <

Roses and Raindrops ~ Outfit Fifty Two

50’s Day Dress ~ Etsy   Rose Peep Toes  ~  Thrifted   Rainbow Ribbon Handbag  ~  Forever New

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I love how well my new purse goes with my outfit; I brought it recently from Forever New.  I don’t know if any of my Aussie readers have seen that shop?  Honest to goodness, that store is like princess crack to me….  > 3 <  ~ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Practically all of their stock is in some dreamy pastel shade, and is dripping with lace, pearls, flowers or rhinestones!!  It’s by far my favourite modern place to shop.  I also love how a lot of their stuff is extremely vintage inspired, like my purse, and fits beautifully with almost any vintage outfit.  What I don’t love is how a lot of their stuff is really quite pricey.  It kinda bites…  : P  

But they certainly have my number because I am sure that expense regardless, I will continue shopping there.  So you definitely know that I am hooked because I am quite stingy when it comes to shelling out big bucks on just one item!  They also have a website if you are interested in looking at their stuff ~ Forever New.  It’s not hugely inspiring, but there are some great items there if you dig for it!  Plus, the sales are good.  Now go forth and get addicted…  ; 3

xox,

bonita

Inspiration Round~up: Vintage Shirtwaist Dresses

I’ve been shopping.  Again. : P  I just can’t stop myself!  My vintage wardrobe feels very lacking, so I’ve have been perusing shirtwaist dresses with the aim to get a few.  They are the best vintage buys for me at the moment {breastfeeding still} so they are number one on my shopping list.  Although those high~waisted jeans I am after are on my Christmas wish list for sure! 

Here are some lovely inspiration pictures of vintage shirtwaist dresses {a few suits snuck in as well 
> o <} to enjoy ~ I am sure you will see why I have put them {yes, multiple!} on my shopping list.  Most of the images {if not all} are from the 1940s and 1950s, and I think that they are perfectly lovely!

         

~ * ♥ * ~  Photo sources:  Most of the images came from Pinterest and the others from my computer.  If any of these images are yours or you know to whom they belong, please contact me and I will link them up.  Thank you!  ~ * ♥ * ~

xox,

bonita