The Mojo Dress

2015 has not been very kind to me so far with sewing projects.  I had a string of sewing/shopping disasters, so I finally got fed up and took a break from anything costume-related for most of February.  But inspiration comes from the strangest places, and for me, it was seeing the horribly tacky 60's/70's clothes in the new Mad Men promo pics.  I know most people would run screaming from all that pastel, plaid, and big hair, but I love it like crazy!  It's hideous and glorious and it made me want to sew something RIGHT NOW, so yesterday I whipped up my own pastel plaid monstrosity to wear to a retro-themed bowling event today.  It felt great work on a no-stress dress for a change, and hopefully it will help me get my sewing mojo back on track again.

To make my dress, I used a very simple mail order jumper pattern from the late 60's or early 70's.  The fabric is vintage wool plaid that I found at an estate sale many years ago.  This is actually my second garment that uses this fabric - it also made an appearance in a pair of Victorian pants.  What can I say?  I LOVE crazy plaids!  The dress is finished off with a few vintage buttons that were given to me by my mother-in-law, but unfortunately, I wasn't paying attention and make the dress button on the wrong side.  Whoops!

I also used today's outing as an excuse to wear my Vintage Coat of Awesomeness.  That was another amazing estate sale discovery.  God, I love that coat!

So that's about it.  It was fun to make, fun to get dressed up, fun to do something different, and fun to indulge in my Mad Men obsession.  A perfect palate-cleanser project.

Wearing History Kickstarter

If you haven't seen it yet, I just wanted to mention that my friend Lauren from the amazing Wearing History website and pattern company is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a line of her own ready-to-wear vintage clothing.  Even if you prefer to make your own vintage styles instead buying them, you can help support her project by buying one or more of her amazing Victorian, Edwardian, or Retro patterns as one of the Kickstarter options, and the funds will go directly toward making a her dream a reality.   I bought two of her patterns, and now I'm wondering how I will ever narrow it down to just two - they are all so wonderful!

So if you'd like to pick up some fun new patterns, or even better, some fabulous retro clothing, go help her out!

Antique Elegance Show



Americana display from A Wilder Place in Time

Earlier this month, I met up with group of friends from the DFWCG for our twice annual trip to the Antique Elegance Show in Richardson. This show features a variety of pre-1960 antiques and collectibles, but the coolest thing about it is that a majority of the dealers sell vintage and antique clothing, textiles, jewelry, and accessories.  So not only is this a really top notch antiques show, but it is also something of a hands-on fashion museum where you can actually touch, try on, and peek at the insides of 100+ year old garments.  It's an amazing experience, and it has really done wonders for my understanding of the construction and materials used in historical clothing. 

The vendors and patrons at the show are also incredibly friendly, and they always seem happy to humor our quirky habit of dressing up in costume for this show.  Sometimes we go all out and wear Victorian, Edwardian, or Regency clothing, but this year, most of our group took the easy way out and wore vintage.  It's a fun compromise becasue you still feel "dressed up", but it's much easier to fit into the sometimes crowded booths and dig around though all the bins of goodies on the floor. 



 

Usually I go to the show with a list of supplies and accessories to shop for that I can use for future costume projects.  If I ever want buttons, ribbon, lace, or trim, this is the first place that I look, and I've also bought a wide variety of accessories like purses, hats, gloves, and parasols here too.  This year I didn't really have a lot of specific things that I needed, so my friend Christy and I amused ourselves by trying on vintage accessories that matched our outfits.  I had no idea how many navy and white dotted items there were in the world!

If you live in area and you've never been to the Antique Elegance Show before, I highly recommed that you check it out.  The next show is February 16th and 17th, and it will include a fashion show featuring coats, capes, robes, and other outer garments from the 1860's - 1960's.  Also, Keven Jones and Christina Johnson from FIDM will also be giving a presentation on Royal Dress.  I hope to see you there!

Drooling over an amazing 1880's bodice at the Vintage Martini booth.  The full dress can be see here. 

Oodles of eye candy on display by The Cat's Meow

You can see a few more photos from the weekend on my flickr. 

the Joanie remodel

So like everybody else on We Sew Retro, I have been bitten by Mad Men fever this month. I didn't even realize that there was a sew-along going on for Mad Men dresses until this past week, but as soon as I caught on to what was going on, I decided that I had to join in on the fun too. So thank-you Julia Bobbin for the inspiration!

Instead of making a copy of a specific Mad Men dress, I was more inspired by specific fabrics.  One of the $15 estate sale dresses that I picked up a few weeks ago was this mid-century monstrosity.  Although the shape seems like something Betty might wear, the fabric reminded me of a dress that Joan wears in Season 4.  Both fabrics are a mottled mess of turquoise, olive, terracotta brown, and magenta.  It's so wrong, but oh so mid-century modern right!

In its original state, this dress was definitely wearing me more than I was wearing it.  And when I got it home and started looking at it in good light, I realized that all of the magenta and terracotta colored areas of the fabric had discolored to bright purple and blackish-brown on the bodice.  I'm not sure if that was from heat or perspiration or who knows what, but once I realized that, it drove me crazy and I couldn't look at anything else.  Then I discovered that the sewing thread was rotted and the whole dress was splitting at the seams as I was wearing it.  I started wondering why on earth I had bought this silly thing, so I decided that it was safe to put this dress out of its misery and reuse the undamaged skirt fabric for something new and improved. 

So the skirt of the original dress has now been reincarnated into a wrap blouse using this pattern from 1953.  Although the pattern dates from a decade earlier than the show, Joan wears a wrap blouse in Season 1 so I decided to go with it.  Plus it seemed like a very timeless blouse shape, so I might get away with wearing it in my modern wardrobe from time to time too.


The skirt is a very basic pencil skirt made with this Vogue pattern from 1959.  I used some vintage estate sale wool from my stash for the skirt, and I picked this fabric because this type of warm brown is a color that Joan wears often on the show, including in the scene with the wrap blouse.  Although it was a snap to put together, I had to re-sew it 3 times before I could get it tight enough, and I'm still not wearing it anywhere as tight as how Joan wears her clothes!  The skirt pattern also had gathers in the front which made the fabric pooch out in an unattractive way, so I sewed darts in the front where the gathers were.  I really love the way this skirt turned out, and I can't wait to make more blouses to wear with it.

So that's pretty much it!  It was a really fun little diversion, and once again I was amazed by how fast vintage dresses are to make after working on older historical costumes the majority of the time.  This stuff is quite addictive. 

vintage shopping

Two weeks ago, I ran down to a "going out of business" sale for a Dallas vintage clothing shop.  I could have spent days looking through all their clothes, but I only had an hour or so to spare, so I sped-shopped and came away with with 5 fabulous new vintage dresses... for $60 total!  Woohoo!

This weekend, there was a new Vintage Clothing and Jewelry Show that I was very interested in checking out, so I picked one of my new vintage dressed and headed out for more shopping.  There were a ton of amazing clothes there, but I didn't buy anything this time.  It seemed silly to buy even more dresses when I'm not even sure when I'll get a chance to wear the ones that I just bought.  But I still had a blast at the show and I saw a lot of other ladies wearing fabulous vintage attire, which was a lot of fun.  I'm going to cross my fingers and hope that it comes back again next year!

 And I really enjoyed wearing my new dress. I think it has a very classic shape that doesn't look too terribly "costumey", so I think that this dress this will get a good bit of regular use in my modern wardrobe.  I don't wear dressy outfits very often, but when I do, I LOVE wearing vintage!