Vintage Patterns

Back in September I entered a contest Craft Book Month. There were various prizes awarded and I won one of them. My prize was these three vintage patterns from Goofing Off . I honestly think I had that pattern for overalls back in the seventies and I made them. And thought I was right cute wearing them too. I showed this to my 23 year old daughter and she exclaimed that no adult person should ever wear overalls. I offered to make her some. I tend to agree with her about adults wearing overalls unless you are working in the garden or something.

Maybe I will try making one of those robes. I think that would be cute and useful. And my daughter would not be ashamed to be seen with me because I could only wear it around the house. I think the vest and skirt pattern may be cute in the right fabrics. I will have to think on that a bit. Anyways I am glad I won something and it is fun seeing these patterns again. I am beginning to get quite a collection of vintage patterns, many much older than these. They are fun to have and fun to look at.

Renaissance Garb

I made this Renaissance Costume for my daughter a few weeks ago. Today we attended the Maryland Renaissance Festival and she got a chance to wear it. I made mine a few years ago. In fact my Renaissance Costume was my very first blog post. It was a perfect fall day for being outside and enjoying all the activities at the festival. It is a great place to people watch and I love seeing every ones outfits. And they have every kind of food on a stick. We had a really good time and watched a few entertaining shows. And it was fun to wear our outfits.

For Rebekah's outfit I used parts of four different patterns. She liked the skirt from Simplicity 3809 view B with the bustled over skirt. However I had bought the pattern in my size and she is very tiny and there were none in her size when the patterns were one sale for $1.99. She also liked the blouse from view A with the ribbon bows on the sleeves. Since the skirt is gathered to a waistband it was easy to adjust to her measurements. I decided to use the waistband from McCall's 4090 and I had the pattern in her size. I liked the way the closure used eyelets and lacing at the back. The fabric I used for the skirt is a burgundy cotton chintz that was given to me. I was trying to use only my stash for this project but I didn't have enough of anything that coordinated well with what I had. So I went to a discount decorator fabric store in my area in hopes of finding something. I got this pretty stripe and the green that I used for the corset.

The corset is Butterick 4669. It has four different corset styles included. I picked view A because it was a very simple style and all the others had a peplum. I thought the simple style would look better with the bustled over skirt. I didn't think a peplum was necessary. I edged the corset with bias trim I made from the same fabric as the underskirt. I thought it tied everything together nicely.

For the top I used the blouse from Butterick 6196. That is the pattern I used for my entire costume. But for Rebekah I only used the blouse because it was in her size. I just added another row of elastic between the cuff and the upper arm so I could get the look of the blouse from the other pattern. The fabric is a cream colored dotted Swiss. I trimmed it with eyelet lace at the cuffs and the neck edge. And I added some ribbon bows to the sleeves.

I think she looks adorable in her new garb and we may have a chance to go back next year and wear our outfits again.

Crocheted Chicken

I have had this crochet book for a little while. Tasty Crochet. The book is full of all kinds of play food to crochet. I love to crochet useless things. I guess crocheted food isn't totally useless as it is fun for kids to play with. However I don't have any kids around to give it to. I do know of a couple of little girls who would like it. The usefulness to me is that crocheting is relaxing and it makes me feel good to get a cute little project finished quickly. It just brings me pleasure to knit or crochet quirky things.

I decided I wanted to make something from this book and looked around in my yarn stash for some yarn in the right colors. I was still in Stashbuster September when I made these so I didn't want to go out and buy anything. I actually found enough yarn in my stash to make several of the projects in the book. When I get time I will be making some more food. This time I whipped up two chicken drumsticks and a slice of bread. I was planning to make a whole peanut butter and jelly sandwich but I only had enough of the white yarn to make one slice of bread. I tried some green beans but the green yarn I had was more of a Christmas green and just didn't look anything like green beans. I plan to make more as I find time. Even though you can't eat these they are fun to make.

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Fat Quarter Apron

Several months ago I was the winner of these Fat Quarters from Miss Sews-It-All.
Don't all the colors coordinate nicely? I felt like I should put these to good use as soon as I could because Miss Sews was having the contest in an effort to get rid of some of her stash. So I didn't feel right about just adding it to my stash.

I started looking through my patterns and books to find a good project for these pieces.
I also needed a gift for a friend. I found the perfect pattern in my book Small Stash Sewing by Melissa Averinos. Apron For All used three fat quarters and a half yard of coordinating fabric. Since I only had five fat quarters and no 1/2 yard pieces I thought I could adapt the pattern to use all my fat quarters. I only had to buy some bias binding to match. I was able to make the apron using almost every scrap of the five fat quarters. I think I have enough left over to piece together the top of a pot holder. I had to adjust the size of the straps to make everything fit.

I like the way she suggest making the seams. They are sort of like french seams, they are sewn wrong sides together first and then the bias binding is sewn over the top so everything is enclosed. It is very easy to do and the finish is really nice with no exposed raw seams edges. The pattern was easy to follow with very clear instructions. I think every project in the book is very straightforward and easily accomplished.


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Ruffle Backpack Tutorial

This is only one box of ruffled lace that was given to me by a friend. She had collected all this lace because she made fabric scrapbook covers. I knew I could think up something to do with all this lace. I have several ideas but the first one I came up with is a ruffled lace backpack. I made a trial one a few weeks ago. There were a few things I wanted to work out differently. So I made two more which I like much better. From the pictures they look about the same. But on these I boxed out the bottoms and I strung the straps so the opening closed more efficiently. And I decided to take some pictures of the process so I could try my hand at writing a tutorial. So here goes.

Supplies:15" X 34" outside fabric (I used a polyester heavyweight twill)

2 pieces 17" X 3" same as outside fabric for strap casings

15" X 34" lining fabric (I used a floral cotton)

4 yards of cording for straps

And an assortment of pre-ruffled laces at least 15 inches long. I used about 14 pieces of varying widths.

Start by sewing the lace in overlapping rows onto the front of the 15"x34" outside fabric. Make a mark at the 17" halfway point of the piece and then make a mark 2 1/4" up from the halfway point. Sew the first piece of lace so the bottom edge meets this mark. Continue adding lace overlapping the row before it slightly. The very top piece of lace should be about 1/4" from the top edge of the fabric. I found it helpful to mark a straight line about every 3 inches on the front to keep everything lined up. I didn't do this on the first backpack I made and my rows got a bit slanted.


Now make the strap casing. Take the two 17"x 3" pieces press under 1 1/2" on each end and top stitch a hem. Then press them in half with wrong sides facing. Sew them to the top edge of the ruffled piece both front and back. Leave a 1/2" on each side.






















Now is the time to thread the cording through the casing. Cut the 4 yard piece in half make two 2 yard pieces. Thread one piece into the casing front and back according to the green line in the picture. Thread the second piece according to the red line in the picture.



Even the ends of the cords and pin one set on the left side of the bag and one set on the right side. Pin them at about one inch above the lower edge of the first row of lace. Stitch them in place by back tacking several times as these will get a lot of stress and you want to make sure they don't come undone.




















Now turn the bag right sides together and sew the side seams. Starting at the top edge back tack right next to the casing and sew half inch seams all the way to the bottom fold. Catch the straps in the seam where you have back tacked them in place but be sure not to catch them in any other place.












Now box out the bottom. Line the side seam up with the bottom fold. Measure 2" up from the point. Sew across the line. It is the black line in the photo. Be sure not to catch the edge of the lower piece of lace in your stitching. Turn the bag right side out. See how that makes a boxed bottom.







Make the linning by sewing the side seams right sides together with 1/2" seams. Box the bottom of the lining the same way as the outside bag.

To keep the lining from pulling out of the bag insert the lining into the bag and line up both points. Sew point together so they fold to the inside.






Finish off the top of the bag by sewing the linning to the outside bag right sides together. Pin the side seams first and turn the bag inside out. Sew around the top edge leaving a 3" opening at the center back of the bag for turning right side out. Turn the bag through the opening. Topstich the top edge closing the opening left for turning and stitching the top ruffle so it is kept from rolling up.

Ruffled Drawstring Bag

I came across this tutorial a few days ago and decided to try it out. I have seen similar bags before I think this idea has been around for a long time. She explains the process for making this very well in her tutorial even though English is not her first language. It is a very easy and useful project. She used it to store threads in. I thought it would make a good travel jewelry pouch.

This would be a good project for a beginning seamstress. I think kids would enjoy making it because you can use some of those fancy stitches on your sewing machine. I used a couple of daisy stitches on mine. You could make this elegant or simple just by changing the fabric. I used quilting cottons for mine. I could see it made up in silk or velvet. It would also make a nice travel sewing kit or even a first aid kit. I think this is a great little bag.

Butterfly Apron

Today I finished my Butterfly Apron from Crochet Adorned . I crocheted the butterfly pocket and the trim yesterday and sewed up the apron today. The directions for the apron are included in the book. It is really a basic gathered half apron so it was a quick project to sew.

I had picked out the main fabric from my stash because I liked it with the pink thread I used for the crochet. So after making the butterfly and the trim I needed to find something in my stash to use for the contrast waistband and lower band. Even though I have a huge stash it proved to be difficult to find anything that looked good with this fabric and trim.

You may ask why didn't I just go out and buy something. Well I joined





Stashbusting September at T-Shirt Diaries.




So I am not allowed to buy any new fabric or craft supplies. After rooting through several bins of unorganized fabric nothing was really looking even remotely right with what I had picked out so far. Finally I found this black and ivory gingham and I thought it gave the apron just the right vintage feel and contrast. I was thinking about giving this as a gift but once it is finished I want to keep it for myself. Maybe I will just make another one for a gift.

I am going to enter this project in the Craft Book Month Linky

Party. I might win some more goodies to add to my stash. I think that is allowed since winning isn't buying anything.

Ruffle Apron

I have been hearing about Hobby Lobby for a long time now. There has never been one near me. Well about a month ago they opened one in a town about an hours drive from me. So my friend and I went to check out the grand opening. This is my kind of store. I picked up a few things that I didn't know I needed until I saw it.

One thing I purchased was the book Crochet Adorned. I have been eyeing this book for quite some time. It is full of crocheted embellishment for clothing accessories and household item. I have already started a project from the book the Butterfly Apron.

Maybe you can tell I like aprons because one of the other things I picked up was a kit for making an apron. It was a fabric panel for a ruffled apron. It was very easy to sew up. All I had to do was cut out the pieces, hem the edges and attach the waistband and ties. A quick and easy project. This apron has another thing in common with the project from the book. Another favorite of mine butterflies. The very top fabric on this ruffled apron has butterflies on it. And the project from the book is an apron with a crocheted butterfly for a pocket. Both are fun projects. And I think this little ruffled apron will become a gift.

Vintage Potholders With Pattern

I picked up this vintage crochet book from Out Of The Ashes. She sells all kinds of vintage sewing pattern and a few vintage knitting and crochet books. Mine is The Magic Of Crochet (Gifts). It is copyright 1941 by the Spool Cotton Company. The price was 10 cents originally and it looks like it was resold at some point for 99 cents. I paid $4.00 for it and I thought that was a bargain. It has all kinds of cute accessories for the home and some fashion items too. There are several things I want to make. The instructions are easy to follow but you must convert the thread and needle size to a modern equivalent. This is not critical with things like place mats or pot holders as they don't need to fit anything they just need to be close. There are no gauges in the book so I just tried to find a thread that worked with the size needle suggested. Most of the patterns use a very tiny needle and thread size.

The pattern I tried first was these potholders called Ship Shape in the book. I had everything I needed around the house. I even had some tiny steel crochet hooks. I had just bought a set of vintage steel crochet hooks in a little plastic case at a flea market. This pattern used one of the medium sized hooks in the set. So I thought it was doable. I even found a couple of bone rings in my stash. I think these probably came from my grandmother's stash. I don't really think they are bone but some sort of plastic. They are quite old though. The thread was leftover from another project and it is new crochet thread. I like these a lot. They turned out bigger than I thought they would. Most of the vintage potholder patterns I have tried are a bit to small for my taste. I don't know if woman had tiny hands in the 40's or they were just trying to conserve on thread. They are a bit thin for a pot holder too but I think they would work for a stove top pot handle or a microwave dish. If nothing else they are cute decorations.

I think the copyright has expired by now so I am going to share the pattern. The pattern is for six potholders three in each color combination. I only made two of them.

Materials: J&P Coats Knit-Cro-Sheen 1 ball white or ecru (referred to in directions as "light color") and 2 balls of dark color.
Milward's Steel Crochet Hook No. 7 and 6 bone rings.

This amount is sufficient for entire set of six potholders.

With light color, work sc closely over ring. Join with a sl st to 1st sc made. 1st rnd: Ch 3 (to count as 1st dc), dc in front loop of 6 sc, ch 3, dc in front loop of next 6 sc. Turn, and working in remaining loop of same sc's, make dc in next 6 sc ch 3 dc in 5 sc. Join with sl st to top of first ch 3 made.

2nd Rnd: Ch 3 (dc in each dc across to ch 3 sp make 2 dc ch 3 and 2 dc) twice; dc in each remaining dc. Join.

Repeat last row 15 more times. Fasten off. Attach dark color and repeat 2nd row 2 more times. Fasten off. Attach light color and work 2nd row once again. Working through both thicknesses ( picking up only the center loops), make sc in each stitch and 4 sc over ch across, ch 5, turn, and make edging as follows: * Ch 4, 3 tr in base of ch 4, skip 3 sc, sc in next sc repeat from* across. Fasten off.

Make 2 more pot holders same as this. Make 3 more pot holders same as this only reversing colors.

Vintage Sewing Books

I love collecting vintage sewing books. I recently picked up two vintage sewing books. Gifts You Can Sew is from 1942 and Gift Bazaar Sewing Suggestions is from 1944.

Gifts You Can Sew has dozens of apron projects in it. They all look very straightforward and easy to make. I want to make them all but some of my favorites are the Pot Holder Apron that has button on pot holder pockets. Then there is a Gardening Apron that has a kneeling pad that snaps or buttons on the apron at the knee. I love the Baby Feeding apron to keep baby clean and safe in his high chair. This little apron has sleeves for baby's arms and ties that tie onto the high chair and the bottom of the apron covers the entire tray of the high chair. I think this would be a great idea for using in a restaurant highchair. Another one that was on the page labeled Presents for tots and children is a knitting apron that conveniently folds into a bag. The knitting apron has a gathered pocket on the front to hold your ball of yarn. There are many toys and accessories as well as a section of gifts for men in the service. As far as I can tell these gifts would be useful for anyone man or woman in or out of the service. Here you will find directions for making a scarf. a money belt and a book cover to name a few. Some knitting and crochet projects are scattered throughout the book too.

The Gift Bazaar Book has some sweet aprons in it too. My favorites in this book are the children's toys. There is a lamb, a Scottie dog and an adorable pig. I love the illustration with the gingham pig. he is standing in a pin made with straight pins and there are some trees made with clothespins and thimbles. There are four handbags that look right in style now, They all look very simple to make too. And I must try the cute pig pot holder and the sweet kitten potholder. They would be fun to make and I can always use a cute potholder. I love making up a quick small project. What shall I make first with so many cute ideas? The shaped patterns must be enlarged but I think I can do that on my scanner printer. I think I would make the potholder slightly larger than suggested because I think most vintage potholders are just a bit to small. I need to look through my stash for just the right fabric for some of these projects.

Lace Ruffle Backpack

A friend of a friend gave me a huge stash of ruffled lace trims a few months ago. There are yards and yards of all different styles and colors of lace trim mostly white and ecru. As soon as I acquired this stash I began thinking up ways to use it. My first idea was a ruffled apron, and then maybe a ruffled tote bag. But when I saw this Ruffled Backpack idea on Craft Goodies I decided a ruffled lace backpack would be so cute. She even has a mini tutorial.

I used her idea but did my own construction method. This is my trial project and I am going to try and write up a tutorial for it. There are a few things I want to change. So hope fully I can come up with a tutorial in the next couple of weeks. I think this would be perfect for a little girl to carry her treasures in. I do have a couple of little girls in mind to give these to. But I don't have any little girls around to model this for me. So I rigged it up on this chest of drawers.

This really was a quick project because all the lace was pre-ruffled. The other cool this about this project is the fabric I used as the base. It is a polyester gabardine with a nice heavy feel to it and I got it from a friend as part of a huge fabric stash she gave me. So basically this project is from free supplies. The only thing I did buy is the white twill ribbon I used for the drawcord strap. I used three ribbons braided together to give the strap more strength. I bought the ribbon at a salvage store and paid $2.99 for a spool of 500 yards. That is a lot of ribbon!! I have used it for a few other projects. I also used some lilac flowered cotton for the linning of the bag. That was a freebie too.

Baby stuff

A coworker is having a baby girl

so it was the perfect opportunity to make up this baby quilt. I bought this simple quilt kit at Joann fabric several years ago. The kit had everything needed to make the quilt including the backing. I seem to be on a pink and orange kick lately. I do like that bright color combination. The quilt does not have batting between but I think it is just a nice weight for a simple quilt. The middle patch and the edge strips are orange dotted Minky with a soft cozy feel. The backing fabric is white flannel and the the rest is quilting cotton. This went together quickly and I am only a little happy with it. It will be an OK baby gift. The blanket is about 32" by 40".

There was a small piece of orange Minky leftover and a strip of the flannel backing too. I decided a little taggy blanket would be a nice additional gift. I have recently come across a few tutorial for taggy blankets on some blogs. I wanted to link to the most recent one I found but I can't seem to find it now. They are pretty self explanatory. They are just a tiny quilt with ribbon tags inserted all around the edge. I made mine about 10" by 14". I used various lengths of ribbon but all are small so there is no danger of a baby getting caught in one of the loops. I used what I had on hand with various textures from grosgrain to satin ribbons as well as some Ric-rack and woven brocade trims. I like the little taggy blanket made with scraps much better than the quilt. I think this is a cute little baby gift. I may make more of these when I have another baby gift to give.

Silk Top

I have had this pretty pink and orange silk chiffon fabric in my stash for a couple of years just waiting for the right project. I decided to sew up Simplicity 2599 view E. The fabric is shear so I wear a cami under it. It has a button and loop opening in the back with a faced neckline. The armhole are bound with a bias binding made out of the same fabric as the top. The ruffle at the neck edge is made with a 2" bias strip with a narrow hem on each side. Hemming the ruffle was probably the most challenging part of the project because of the delicate fabric. And then to top everything off there is a fabric bow added to the neckline.

I love the finished top and it fits great and feels very dressy when I wear it. I will definitely make this pattern again there are several different ruffled views included in the pattern. It sewed up quickly which is a real plus in my book. I think I could eliminate the button and loop closing at the back of the neck because I could easily pull the top on and off without unbuttoning. And I was having a hard time unbuttoning it while wearing it myself anyways. I have about a yard of this fabric leftover maybe I will make a little coordinating cami with it.

Damask Jacket

Several weeks ago I picked up this vintage damask tablecloth at my local Goodwill Store. I only paid $2.00 for it. It was in pretty good condition with only two tiny holes that were easy to avoid when cutting out my pattern.

The pattern I used is the Damask Jacket from Barb Originals. I bought this pattern several years ago at the Sewing Expo. For some reason I have never sewed it up before. It is a loose fitting swing jacket. As the name suggest it was designed to be made using a Damask Tablecloth. You can use any fabric that has a nice flow to it. Barb also sold some very lovely linen in her booth at the Expo. My tablecloth had a nice drape to it but I didn't want a white jacket. So I tried my first dying project. I followed the directions on the package of Rit Dye and dyed the fabric in my front loading High Efficiency Washing machine. I think it turned out great. The petal pink color shows off the damask pattern better too. It was quite a large tablecloth so I have some leftover. Not sure what I will use it for there is not enough for another jacket. This was a very easy pattern to sew.

Since I was using a vintage tablecloth for my fabric I thought this was a perfect place to use a few of my vintage hankies too. I used two of them, one was added to the peplum at the back and the other at the collar and cuffs. I had a tiny piece of hankie left over from my hankie tops. I decided to make it into a flower pin to add to the lapel. that added just the right finishing touch.

The buttons I used are some vintage buttons someone gave me. I really wanted to use three different large vintage buttons. I had in mind some gold toned buttons with pearly centers. But I could only find one that I liked in my stash. So these gold dome buttons are temporary until I find some better ones. I wanted to wear this jacket to work tomorrow so these buttons are OK for now. It is really hot around here right now but I go from hot to cold with the air conditioning. This is a very lightweight jacket and it will brighten my day. I just have to decide what to wear with it. I love my pretty pink jacket.

















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