Before and After Hit Parade: 1940s Princess Frock Swings in Blue

The Seamstress: Jax

The Pattern: 1940s Mail Order 1674 Vintage Sewing Pattern Junior Misses Princess Dress
 

The Result: Jax sewed this lovely summer dress using vintage fabric in a beautiful shade of blue with small print floral details. She shortened it for swing dancing. You can see the flattering sweetheart neckline, fine fit through the waist, and the lovely bias flare of the skirt. Kudos on a wonderful dress!

Seamstress Notes: "This pattern was for a very petite lady, so I had to shorten it quite a lot. I made it up in some 1940s rayon I got on Esty from the states. (Jax is in the UK.) The dress is for my daughter who has taken up swing dancing and will be wearing it to Twinwood vintage festival...I did add some little tie belts from the front panel to help define the waist and added security when dancing with a partner as side seam could pop open...I have a facebook page and posted about this pattern." Be sure to visit her own Etsy shop, Mrs Bee Vintage, and you can follow her on Facebook at Mrs Bee Vintage Dressmaker.

In Search of Style: Looking for 80s Fashion in 40s Pattern

This is a first for me - an elegant 1940s Vogue Couturier Design pattern with a clipping from what looks like a 1980s dress advertisement!

The clipping shows draping at the shoulders, short French sleeves, a high V-neckline, and a gathered flared skirt.

Here is Vogue Couturier Design 791, the envelope this clipping was tucked into. The dress has draping across the bust, short French sleeves, stiletto neckline, flared skirt with soft pleats at front waistline. Hmm. What do you think? Is this a match or a mistake?

Beating the Heat

While the rest of the United States is positively roasting with temperatures in triple digits, we here on the western fringe of the continent are having a very cool, damp summer. Today I am wearing a sweater. :p

I have noticed on the weather maps for the past week or two that even the interior of Alaska has warmer weather than Seattle. It was with a sigh of envy and irony that I shipped off the following pattern for sleeveless pullover knit tops (Simplicity 9035) to a customer in Alaska today. It's cute, timeless, fun-in-the-sun fashion from the 1970s!

I hope you all are keeping comfortable in style, no matter the weather!

Before and After Hit Parade - From Old to "New" Vintage 60s A-line Shift

The Seamstress: Elisabeth

The Pattern: 1964 Butterick 3079 Vintage Sewing Pattern Misses' Shift Dresses

The Result: This pattern for summer shift dresses caters to border print fabrics, displaying them to great effect. Inspired by this, Elisabeth turned this sewing project into a re-purposing project as well by using a vintage sheet as her fabric. The resulting delightful dress captures the colors of the 60s perfectly and also creates a charming summer dress with sunny, casual style!

Elisabeth's comments:
"For this dress I used a vintage pattern from the 60s. The fabric is an old bedsheet I got at ebay. The sewing was easy except the zipper. I somehow had a little trouble with it. Overall I really like this dress. I wore it already two times and think this could be a great everyday dress."

You can follow Elisabeth's sewing adventures on her blog: Sewing Fairytales.

Scraps from the Past - 1940s Dress in Cool Summer Seersucker

If you had this fine dress pattern, what fabric would you choose to sew it in? Can you imagine the dress in a sunny, blue and white seersucker? :D
 

This scrap of seersucker, cut and sewn into a strip of self-fabric bias binding, was tucked into this pattern from 1947, Simplicity 2009. So imagine view 2, for example, only with pinstripes of cornflower blue and white. It's a lovely picture, isn't it?

 A perfect dress and fabric for summer!

The Summer of Vintage Stitchy Love Contest!

While away your quiet summer hours with a relaxing and fun vintage embroidery project! You’re invited to participate in a summer stitching contest with three categories:

• Stitch this design provided by doe-c-doe
• Stitch a vintage image with a summer theme
• Modify a vintage pattern

Lots of vintage stitchy fun, lots of prizes (including one from yours truly)! There will be a total of 3 category winners and all 3 will receive prizes from the awesome and generous prize sponsors. And there will be door prizes too, so everyone who participates has a chance to win something terrific!

The contest runs from June 20 to July 20. You can get all the details from Beth of Bookworm Bethie.

The contest is sponsored by the wonderful Flickr group, New Embroidery with Vintage Patterns.

In Search of Style - 60s Mod A-Line Wrap Dress

Here is a clipping of the style a seamstress in the late 1960s was looking for - front wrap style with A-line flare. I love the details!

The clipping was taped to this pattern, the one she felt came closest to the design:

This super-cute A-line mini dress is a wrap-around with front closing. While I find view 1 the cutest, I think she was probably going for the long-sleeved version in view 3. Any way you look at it, it is fab Mod style!