Vintage Chic

As I've mentioned before my parents' house is full of all sorts of exciting stashes. One, which I have frequently raided, is the combined sewing pattern collection of my mum, aunt and grandmother. This weekend I finally got round to making up one of the patterns I swiped, which I suspect has been lying unused since my mum/aunt was my age.

The pattern is for a full circle skirt, with two versions one made in three pieces and the other with 10 gores (pieces which are wider at the bottom than the top). There is no date on the pattern but I'm guessing its maybe 1950s or '60s. I was quite glad that the pattern had been used before or I might have felt a bit bad about cutting it. Which is, I know, silly as it was made to be used, but still ...!

Unlike which ever member of my family had made this in the past, I went for the full circle skirt in 3 pieces, using some blue and black spotted fabric, which I brought back from Dubai a couple of years ago. The only slight problem I had was the missing pattern piece for the waist band but from the construction it looked to be just a straight band and this seems to have worked OK.

 

I finished it off with a old button from the stash the boyfriend's granny gave to me. The only slight drawback is that I need to finish the hem by hand, and as it is a full circle skirt there is about five meters of hemming to do, sigh! But, I think I might treat myself to a net petticoat to go under the skirt when its all done, so that is something to work towards.

And for my next project, I have these rather snazzy hats lined up. I quite fancy tacking up millinery, and think these might be a nice introductory step.