My vintage wearing process & giveaway winner

I want to announce the winner of the vintage pattern giveaway and I would like to update everyone on my wardrobe progress. I did start this blog to document my progress of sewing a wardrobe that fit and felt good to wear.

While I haven't had very many sewing adventures (and even less successful), I have been obtaining vintage clothing that does fit and flatter ( in my opinion). So much so that I now wear vintage everyday (well everyday I leave the house).

So how did I go from owning no vintage and vintage inspired clothes to now wearing vintage everyday?
(And I have no pictures of me at all. Which is why i have been reluctant to write blog posts. I am so sorry for this long and picture lacking post)

Well, I bought a nice vintage dress for my company's Christmas party while I was in Florida on business (there were quite a few vintage shops in St.Petersburg were I was at). It was on sale and was more of a splurge than I had expected, but I was happy with it.

At the Christmas party I met the wife of a then coworker and she runs estate sales. I went to one even though I knew I didn't have very much money and didn't expect that much because the pictures didn't show that much clothing.
However, my money went really far because the clothing was really inexpensive (some as low at $.50) and on the last day everything was half price.
The clothes were not perfectly my style. They were mostly 70s (the older stuff I did get was too large for me, but I hope to alter), but the skirts had a 40s kind of style to them even though they are a-line and have elastic in the back. I did get some pussybow blouses, though I don't get to wear them very often because I have to wear company logo shirts to work.
I started wearing these to work and them the transformation began. I really liked wearing skirts and though they were not perfect (wearing a belt, even without belt loops, takes away from the elastic look), I started feeling a lot better not having to force myself into jeans every morning.
Then I started to slowly add vintage pieces to my wardrobe that were actual 40s-50s pieces. Some from another estate sale, but most from eBay. I couldn't afford to do it all at once, but a low priced skirt every once in a while wasn't too bad.

I am now at the point where I have started to phase the 70s skirts out of my wardrobe and am beginning to only wear the older stuff.
My wardrobe is still lacking in some areas though.

Belts: I attempted buying a belt off eBay and while it is cute and labeled vintage (though it was vintage inspired), I am not digging that it is made in the Far East. I am currently looking for American made belts at thrift shops and things, but haven't had much luck yet. Two of my skirts came with belts, but I accidentally have ruined one by wearing it too tight (apparently I am smaller in the morning and grow throughout the day).

Shoes. I have bought a few pair of shoes on etsy and eBay, but none of them have fit very well (though I do still wear them occasionally).

(I just got these so crossing fingers)

For me, I think I am just going to have to buy shoes in person. I screwed that up once too though. I was at that same vintage shop where I bought my first dress and I saw a lovely pair of crocodile shoes in a case and asked to try them on. The lady handed me one, I looked at it (it was a little worn, but in mostly good shape). It had a dry rotted insole piece added, but it fit pretty well. I spent more than I have ever spent for anything vintage, but was feeling good because I sold a bunch of vintage pieces I wasn't interested in (at extremely low profit to a vintage store).
I got home and was showing them to hubby when I realized that the other shoe, not the one she handed me in the store, was in pretty sad shape. It had been repaired several times and the skin was starting to break off ;(
I have been pleased with some modern shoes that I have, but again I would prefer some nice American made shoes.

Dresses, well dresses tend to be more expensive then just skirts and blouses, so I haven't committed to many of those. Actually I have only bought one vintage dress and while it is lovely, it doesn't fit. I am trying to decide if I should alter it.

 I do have quite a few dress patterns, so I am hoping to make a few.

Loungewear: I have some nightgowns, but I need something to fill the gap from when I get home till I get ready for bed. I can't wear my day stuff because I will be cooking and cleaning. I just can't see getting my vintage stuff dirty like that even house dresses are expensive most of the time. I do have one "old lady dress" as my father in law calls it. It is more of a smock than a true dress, but I think it would protect my clothing a bit more than one of those cute aprons.

Another activity I don't have vintage clothes for... Working out. Admittedly I haven't done much of that lately, but I'd like to get back into it. I don't generally leave the house in workout clothes, but I'd still like to look cute and I'd like to feel like I could go to a gym in the clothes if I wanted to. I have some ideas (and a Pinterest board) for making some, but am unsure of working with those types of materials. I figure I will get there eventually.

Well there you go, that's my story.

Now for what you have been waiting for, the winner of the vintage patterns of her choice....
Gia of One Perfect Day. I have already shipped out her selections.

The other patterns I said I would do on ebay, but I am considering opening an etsy shop to get rid of some of my vintage things because I won't have to keep relisting each week and such. I don't know anything about running an etsy shop, but I am going to look into it. I will keep you updated.

Giveaway Day (vintage patterns) now closed

So, I am late to the party, but I wanted to participate in Sew Mama Sew's Giveaway day

The giveaway starts right now and ends December 7 at 8pm Eastern.

I am giving away some of the vintage patterns that I picked up recently and am not planning on using (I really hope some of you will have a use for them and love them).

So, up for grabs are your choice of up to 5 of the following vintage patterns (the rest will be put up for auction on ebay).

yeah sorry this one is upside down and I can't fix it right now.

The first of the transfers I have in D, J, H, G, and M (each comes with all the letters, but extras & different sizes of the one it is for)

The second transfer I have in J, A, and M (each comes with all the letters, but extras & different sizes of the one it is for)

Now, for how to enter... Giveaway now closed
I am giving each of you 7 ways to enter!n (leave a separate comment below for each way)

1 (the easy entry) - comment on this post which patterns you would like if you win
2 - tweet or retweet about this giveaway
3 - facebook about this giveaway
4 - blog about this giveaway
5 - check out my pinterest boards or pin this giveaway
6 - create a saved search for my auctions on ebay (email notification optional)
7 - check out some of my old posts and see if you might like to subscribe (subscription not required) comment what you would be interested in me blogging about

Make sure  your account links your email address or leave a valid email address.
Thanks!
Hope you enjoy. hopefully more ebay listings and blog posts soon.

Giveaway now closed!

A coat of a different color

I actually listed one of my ebay items (others should start being listed more quickly now).
I am going back on what I said (not to post about any of them), but only because this one has to do with my next big sewing adventure.


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180979274573

See I bought this coat off of ebay and it is indeed very lovely. It is heavy warm and i love how the mink gives it a feminine elegance. But alas, it doesn't even close to fit. I have been keeping it for years now thinking that I would get profecient enough at sewing one day that I would be comfortable taking it in. I also thought of just taking it to the talor and having them take it in. However, the coat just seems so well made and lovely the way it is. Plus I keep reading about people not being able to find larger vintage clothes. so I have decided to part with it and free up the space that it claims in my closet.

In that reclaimed space, I would like to replace it with just as lovely a coat because I don't have a vintage coat or even a coat that goes at all with my vintage wardrobe. So, in an effort to be able to wear vintage everyday I will need a coat in order to be prepared for the colder winter my collegies tell me is coming this year.

In comes Gertie's coat sew-along. It only calls for medium weight fabric, but I think it will fill the void nicely. I am worried that I don't have all of the sewing skills needed to make it, but I love learning and Gertie seems to be a really good teacher. I have already purchased her craftsy class on the starlet suit and am hoping that I can use some of those videos for extra places I need help. I know it covers bound buttonholes for example. If anyone has taken the class and knows what sections would be helpful, i am up for suggestions since I haven't looked at the class at all yet (oops).
So, I am going to do the sew-along, but at my own pace (as I do everything) and hope to come out of it with a nice winter coat and perhaps a wearable muslin.

Now comes the part where I might lose you. I found this drawing

and am a big Doctor Who fan. I think that it would be really cool. not to go over the top this time, but just to do a lining like that. But how would I get fabric like that? I know you can do custom printed fabric at spoonflower and I might go that route.  they have an inside the TARDIS print already, but it isn't quite what I am looking for. it is just too, clean, rigid, I don't know (and it won't let me post a picture of it here).
Here is the inside of the TARDIS  (from when david Tennant was the Doctor)

What about painting fabric? I don't have any experience with that. Do they make paint that doesn't make the fabric stiff? Markers, dye, I have no clue. I probably wouldn't bee any good at drawing it, but I might be ok with a bit abstract.
Any ideas on something that might work for the lining?

So, are any of you planning on doing Gertie's sew-along? What are your plans?
Have you done any of Gertie's craftsy classes?
What about her book, have any of you gotten your copy yet? i have been pining for one, but haven't been able to get it yet. (Hint hint that would be a great gift if any of my family members are reading this).


And I will finish off this post with some other lovely coats I have found on pinterest

Yeah, I finally post and it is mostly off topic.

As you may have noticed, I have taken kind of a break from blogging (not that I was ever very regular at it). It is not that I don't have things that I want to share with you (because I most definitely do). It is just that I am still working on my priorities and way of life as I mentioned in my new years resolution post.

It is very important that I take care of myself and my family and I have been striving to do that better each day. I have been struggling with it and haven't gotten things perfect, but I am working with God to walk closer with him and his plan for me each day.

I have not given up on my blog or posting to it. It has just taken a backseat until I get some other really important things worked out and until I get a good schedule going where I have the time and energy to get the necessary things done in a day that need done.

Honestly I don't know how some people do it. Take working out for example. How does one who works full time, takes care of children (before and after school until bedtime), takes care of home (which is part of blessing my family), makes time for husband, etc. find the time in her day to workout. I know that working out is important and not just for weight loss or make myself not only feel good about myself, but it actually physically makes me feel better throughout the day, I have more energy and am more relaxed.

Marilyn Monroe

If any of you have any insider tricks on how to fit this into a schedule that starts at 5:15am (with getting kids ready for school) and doesn't end until at least after 9pm (with putting children to bed) mostly later with preparing food for next day and cleaning up, I would love suggestions. I have tried getting up earlier and that is currently what I am thinking the only option is, but I am not very diligent at it. I have thought about doing something during my lunch hour, but I don't know how I would be able to workout, clean up, eat and make it back to work in 1 hour, does anyone do that?

I have done better (not perfect, but better) at some things on my resolution.

For one, I caved and have gotten a blue tooth so that I am hands free while driving. Now, that is not being off the phone completely while driving (though I try to do that when the children are in the car), but it is a move in the right direction and I think that is enough for now. I will determine at a later date if this habit needs modified more.

I have been making healthier meals for my family. Okay, they haven't all been healthy, but I have pretty much stopped doing the fast food thing. I have come up with a menu planning system (which I am still perfecting) which allows up to 2 nights a month of fast food/going out to dinner. The only exceptions I have made is for when my husband meets me for a lunch date. We do not get to go on "dates" much so I let the fast food/restaurant rule slide when he comes to my work. I feel that our relationship is more important.

I hate that all my weekend time has been/is spent cleaning, so I have been working on getting a good cleaning routine down. The house isn't spotless but I am making strides everyday (and my cleaning pinterest board is overflowing with ideas to try). Which brings me to a tiny portion of this post that is actually slightly relevant to the blog....

In cleaning the house, I have determined that I need to purge a lot of things that I do not love, have room for, use, etc. Most of these things I have sent to Goodwill (though a lady at work is going to help me deliver some of the items to a women's and children's shelter in the future). There are some things though that I am not going to donate (vintage clothing, collectibles, etc). I was told that Goodwill does not accept vintage(retro was the word I think was used) clothing and such. I am not exactly sure what they do with it, but I was worried that they might dispose of it and I felt that was terrible. These items deserve homes that appreciate them. I thought of opening an etsy shop, but that requires me putting a value on these objects and I feel very reluctant to do that and it doesn't put a time frame of getting these items out of my home. So I have decided that I am going to put these items on ebay.

I haven't sold much on ebay (back in college I tried and it was a disaster -I was just too naive). I haven't actually started selling these things and I can't tell you how fast they will come out or what not. I am also not going to post every little thing on my blog and make this a selling tool, I don't like that and that is not the purpose for this blog nor will it ever be. But, I wanted to let my readers know about the things that I am selling (I figure they will go for very reasonable prices), so what I did was set up a pinterest board where I will post pictures of the things I am selling with links back to the ebay postings when I get them up. (Nothing is up yet, I am just preparing now, but expect the selling to start this weekend *crossing fingers*).

Things to look for me to sell...
- original vintage purses/handbags
- original vintage clothing (dresses, skirts, shirts, sweaters, etc)
- original vintage scarves, jewlery, other accessories
- original vintage sewing patterns (mostly women's but a few childrens)
- original vintage shoes (& a couple of rockabilly/pinup new pairs)
- collector barbie dolls ( not vintage - unless the 90s is now vintage- I know not really related, but I need to get rid of them too)
- plus random pinup/rockabilly/vintage inspired pieces that are repros (or 80s does 50s)

So that is about all the vintage stuff that I have to post at the moment, I do hope to get back to being able to blog more regularly soon, but until then, I do keep my vintage pinterest boards really active. Now I do pin lots of other things, so if you only want to watch my vintage boards I suggest going to my main page and then just following the boards individually with whatever your interests are. If you would like to follow new boards that I might create, but don't want to follow some of the boards in particular, what you do is select follow all on my main page and then unfollow the boards that you are not interested in.

Finished Sorbetto and starting next project of ...

As you know, my sorbetto has some serious issues with the darts. I found online a tutorial on how to move the darts from the muslin (instead of from the pattern like most tutorials I have seen).

So, I started to use my trusty seam ripper and take out the darts and seams. I found this to be very difficult due to the material and because like a dummy I had the threads as tight as they go on the sewing machine. So after fussing with it for a few days and losing my seam ripper, I decided to give up on it. Don't look at me like that, the shirt had tons of very visible holes and things in it from the stitches and it was much too tight anyway.

I decided that I would just cut up this "muslin" and would place it on the cut out pattern to figure out where I would need to move the bust to.

Because the original pattern I printed got ruined (i don't even remember what happened to it). I decided to print a new one. Yeah I love that part of pdf patterns :)

Once I printed, measured the check size square, and pieced it all together, i decided that I should remeasure myself since I had obviously grown since I measured last or the muslin would not have fit like spandex. Curiously I did not measure any different. I then looked at the pattern directions again to make sure which size I needed to cut. It was indeed the same as before (which by the way is kind of scary seeing that number which is way bigger than the number I would buy at the store and to think it was so tight).

Anyway, i cut out the pattern and placed my muslin cut out on it. Now I was expecting it to be smaller, since i did cut off the seams, but it wasn't even close. It was several inches smaller all the way around!

I have come to the conclusion that perhaps I might have printed it wrong the first time. Oops. And I did screw up the french seams width when i checked after Annabelle mentioned it in a comment to a previous post. Together it was way off.

I didn't have anymore of the polyester fabric that I originally used, so i decided that I was going to just go ahead and make the shirt out of a plain white vintage sheet. There was enough fabric that I could use more if I screwed up badly.

So, I pretty much started over. Cut the fabric, followed the directions for the most part. I did not sew up the darts first, I waited until after I had sewn the shoulders that way i could try it on in a way and move the darts where they needed to be. Funny thing though, the darts were in the correct position. I did still think that the darts were a little long according to . “Paternmaking..” by Joseph-Armstrong says to move the point 3/4 in to 1 1/2 in. which I found on this blog.

So i shorted it slightly.

I very carefully measured the seams when doing the french seams and was careful to make all seams straight and it was amazing how easy it was. The fabric just glided over the sewing machine going exactly where I wanted it to. It was like someone else was sewing it all together.

I was having such a pleasant time with it, I decided not to push my luck with the bias tape and did a cheat method of just sandwiching the seam int he middle of the folded over bias tape and sewing it up. Not perfect and it made the join of the bias a little off, but it saved my momentum and I am fine with it. I will save that battle for another day. I also noticed that I might have used the wrong size bias tape. i just bought a pack from Walmart in the right color, when I went they did not have any different sizes in stock. the directions called for a 1/4 inch seam allowance, but i had to sew at 1/8 in order to stay on the bias tape which was just shy of 1/4.

The only other issue I had was with the hem, the french seams did not want to press up, but I got it worked out.

I tried it on and it was easy to slip on. My husband thinks it is a little looser than it should be, but I am fine with it since I figure it will be tucked in most of the time.

i don't have many pictures, but here is what I have. Ignore the wrinkles and purple marker, supposedly it should disappear in 24 hours (it has been over 48 when the photos were taken). I am sure it will come out in the wash though.

Oh, one more thing before the photos, sorry. I stuffed my dress form (which i have named Mandy - which would have been my sister's name had I been a twin) and now she is just the right size :)

So now that I finished the first little project on my list I am moving to the next. I originally thought that I would be doing more blouses and then a playsuit and pants. But, after looking over the patterns that I have most of them are vague (or don't have directions at all). And the patterns that I owned were vintage and I am not sure I am ready to tackle that yet.

That is when I saw that A Fashionable Stitch is doing a shirt waist/ wrap dress duo sew-a-long. Which is great because a shirt waist dress was on my list and I don't have any. It uses a modern pattern, so the directions should be good and if I do it in a reasonable time frame there will be people to help answer some of my questions and problems.

So here it is...

I started a pinterest board (Pinterest Shirt Dress Board ) to come up with all of the ideas I had for the shirt waist dress (I actually started one for the wrap dress too if you are interested).

I found one particular image that I want to be my inspiration......

These girls look lovely. This is the look I want to basically go for, which will require getting the fit correct and adding those cute little pockets and maybe a belt.

I bought the pattern at Walmart which I had them price match to JoAnn's sale (which saved me over $8). I found it amusing that the cashier asked what it was and told me that he had never seen a sewing pattern before. Then I thought about it and wondered if much of today's youth was unaware of these type of things.

I then followed the sew-a-long in figuring out what size I was. Which really surprised me and I am glad that I bought the right size pattern because it was close. I will definitely check that first before buying the pattern in the future!!

That is as far as I have gotten so far, but hopefully i will have an update before too long. i don't want to get too far behind on the sew-a-long so i will be able to ask questions.

wish me luck!!

Mad Hatter part 2

After that last post with some of my hat collection (which I have yet to wear any of), I thought it would be good to show you some of the hats I have found online (etsy, photographs, etc) that I love.
I cant afford any of these hats, even if they were for sale.

I have considered trying to make some hats that would really suit me and go with my outfits. I have pinned several patterns/ tutorials. I think the first I would try would be the pillbox Love her style & blog. Here is a pic of what it could look like

Mad hatter part 1

So the blog has been a bit depressing with none of my projects turning out well. So, I thought I would lighten the mood and share with you one of my collections. Well, at least part of one of my collections, my phone battery died while taking photos, so I gave up after that. Now I like some of these better than others and I'm not even sure I know how to wear some of them LOL. But since my husband monopolizes the computer, I am having to post via iPhone which puts all the pictures at the bottom so I can't arrange them or talk about individual ones. :(
I know, maybe you could guess which is my favorite, tell me what is your favorite, tell me any hat advice you have etc.
So here are the pictures already...