Eva's journal

When went to Ikea yesterday I found this fabric and bought 2,5 metres of it to make a dress. it's slightly heavy for a summer dress, but I thought that was an excellent quality for a sturdier housecoat type of dress. I decided to use the same pattern as for this dress, now sadly worn out.



I am surprised that I had the energy to do this today, because I was really tired after work. But apparently I found some new energy around 8 pm. Not enough to do more than cut out the pieces, but that's the boring part anyway.

I think I want to add piping in teh seams, I wonder where I can buy that - or do you have to make it yourself?

So, as I promised clothsprogs: photos of my finished Lacey-inspired dress. I finished it yesterday and took it out for walk today. The fabric is a polycotton twill that I got from my dad and the embroidery is cotton floss.



( antoher one )

In a very convoluted way it is clothsprogs fault that I have now embrodered flowers on one shoulder, and possibly will put flowers, on one hip of my new dress. It was he who introduced me to Lacey Smithsonian and thus it is his doing that I got inspired by one of Lacey's outfits in the latest book and felt that I desperately needed a navy dress with emboridery in lilac and pink assymetrically placed on one shoulder and one hip.

Yes, I do love you Teddy!

Yesterday and today I made some new clothes for the dad in the dolls house.

yesterday evening he got some undies, sewn by hand as Maja and I watched Professor Balthazar on DVD. The undershirt is cut in one piece with an opening for the neck cut out. It was sewn together with small blanket stitch and then turned and put on. Then I turned teh edges at the cuffs, neck and waist and stitched them down.
The longjohns were cut out and sewn on directly to the body. The material? Well, I wanted a thin soft jersey so I sacrified and old par of panties. At least i didn't make dish cloths from them.



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Daddy putting more wood in the stove.

Yesterday I made a dress for me and today I made a shirt for Rickard from the Tardis/starry night (inspired by the "Vincent" episode of Dr Who) fabric that I bought from Spoonflower a year ago or so. The dress pattern is Vintage Vogue 8728 from 1946. It was rather simpel and the only major changes I had to do was to add 2" in height over the bust. The shirt is made from a vintage Swedish pattern from the 1960s that I think used to belong to my mother.





( Close-up of fabric )

Spending weeks rubbing my sweaty hair into a pillow wasn't very good for my har, especially not after last years bleaching. So it needs to be cut and I woner if any of you have any experience with this pdf- book? Or has any other tips; I suspect that I will have to show the hairdresser how to do it.

This is what I'm aiming for I think, since I must cut off so much of the damaged hair I have to go quite short:

Like Sickan here:


Or like the shorter hairstyles among these pretty girls:



And look at these:


I guess that you start with a bob. I used to have curls when my hair was really short, but not enough for most of these looks. But I have a curling iron and I'm not afraid to use it. No one that I know has had any good experinces with perms, so I will not use it, at least not now.

Or should I buy the Vintage Hairstyling book? Or just go and ask for a bob?

In any case I have a horrible cold that won't let me leave the house for quite a while.

As I wrote in yesterday's post I had a wool dress in 1930s' style which had got a moth hole right in front on the tummy. The "Make Do and Mend" challenge gave me the kick in the butt I needed to do somethign woth it, except packing it down for summer and packing it up for winter. I made the new skirt from a wool twill that I bought from a friend a couple of years ago when she sold out most of her fabric stash. To tie the two pieces of the dress together visually I also made a new collar (as you can se in the post below it had a white cotton collar) from the blue wool and made patch pockets from remnants of the glencheck wool used in the bodice and sleeves. This time I made the skirt shorter, to the, to me, more flattering "little-above-the-knee" length of the 1940s.
From the lower part of the original skirt, which didn't have moth holes I made a skirt for Valeria. I feel very thrifty.



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The Challenge: # 1 Make Do and Mend
Fabric: 100% Wool tabby and wool twill
Pattern: Not as such, it started its life as a '70s pattern, but has been heavily re-made to a) fit me and b) to give it more of a 40's style. You can see here another example of how I changed this "1970s does 1940s pattern" into a 40s dress.
Year: ca 1940-44. Typical for the war years with its combining of materials and rather short skirt.
Notions: Four plastic buttons, a zipper for Valeria's (modern) skirt
How historically accurate is it? Wool was a common dress amterial in the 1940s, unlike now, so the materials are good. It has machined button holes, which wasn't common in home made clothing and the plastic buttons are probably from another type of plastic than the one used then. While the pattern is from the 1970s it has been changed enough to make the pieces look like what you can find in an original 1940s pattern. The sleeves are taken from an original 1940s pattern too. Mixing fabrics like this gives it a very authentic look for the war years (at least in Europe) where every scrap available was used. I have studied many sewing patterns and Swedish women's magazines from the period and I think this would pass without comment or notice. (The magazine on the "old" photo is one of the leading Swedish women's magazines, from 1945)
Hours to complete: Not many, maybe five, including Valeria's skirt.
First worn: For photos I wore it today, but since I'm at home recovering from a hole in my duodenum, surgery and four weeks in hospital it may be a while before I wear it "officially". It will be great for work when I get back though.
Total cost: Nothing now, since everything is from stash, nothing newer than two years old. However, if I try to remember the price of the two fabrics I would end up with c. 150 SEK for fabric, which is about 29 USD, and then 20 SEK for a zipper (for Valeria's skirt) and 16 SEK for the buttons, so in all ca 35 USD. The lining in Valeria's skirt was scraps I can't calculate the value of.

Very cheeful and colourful, isnt it?

Since I've spent quite a lot of time at the beach lately I got the idea that it would be nice to have something pretty to wear when you're having a break from swimming and play with a frisbee for example. or when you yourself has finished swimming but your kid haven't and you walk around at the water edge. Or you can put it this way: An invented need is also a need :)
So hubby and I went to a fabric store and I bought the red polka dot fabric. The blue fabric, the ric-rac and the buttons I already had. The buttons are from the Salvation Army and probably from the 70s.
It is a little big, but my main concern with this dress was not to show of my figure, but to make something comfortable. And pretty.



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Other than that I'm slightly hung over and really ought to write on article which should be finished on the 15th, but instead I'm going to see a friend who has a summer house in the archipelago of Gothenburg. I also sleep too little, but for excellent reasons.

Well, it was finished over a week ago, but I had to have the time, energy and help to document it. The pattern is self-drafted, except for the sleeves which I took from a 1936 dress in Janet Arnold's "Patterns of fashion 2". The skirt is a full circle. The fabric is old - I found it in a dark corner where Gårda Textil, the shop where I nowadays get a lot of my fabric. They have vintage fabric for cheap there - this cost 40 SEK/metre I think. I thought that it was viscose and washed it as such, but when I started really working with it I felt the typical silk smell. After a burn test my suspicions were confirmed and I now have party dress in silk.

I'm posing both without a petticoat, for a more authentic (late) '40s look (yes, I know that I have purple hair) and with a huge tulle petticoat. I think I like it best without the petticoat. The shoes were on sale for 75 SEK (c. 7 pounds) on H&M a few weeks ago. The dotted tights (with a seam) are from What Katie Did and the pretty necklace is from Pimp your garb.



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