the dog days of summer

Ok, I know it's the end of August. Most people have returned from their summer  holidays, schools are starting again and soon, it will be autumn. But here in the Netherlands, it certainly doesn't feel like summer is over yet. We've had some of the hottest days of the year in this past week. 
So, when I thought about showing you a vintage magazine today, I knew I couldn't go for a late August or a September issue (I usually try to kind of match the date). Those are always about autumn fashion and I'm wearing my hot-weather-clothes today... 

So, instead, I chose De Gracieuse no. 14 (two magazines a month, so that's the second one for July) from 1931. The cover may not look very summer-y but this is sort of the holiday edition.

The headlines of each page suggest the sort of lifestyle the sophisticated lady who subscribed to this magazine might enjoy (De Gracieuse is mostly a magazine for well-to-do ladies and those who sew for them).

Like these coats and suits: "For travel" 

"For a trip abroad"

"For trips to the mountains" (this is a Dutch magazine so a trip to the mountains is always a trip to a foreign country). And there on the right: Culottes!

"Outfits for early and late afternoon"

"The thin summer dress for the seaside resort"

"The latest novelties for the trip"

"Cotton for summer dresses"

"Plain, striped and checked fabrics for water sports". Based on the images here and in other issues of the magazine, water sports for ladies in the 1930's basically meant being near the water and sailing, but look! Three pairs of beach pyjama's!

Such lovely outfits and such an intriguing peek into the lives of the happy few.

1929!

Once upon a time, Easter was considered the perfect moment to wear one's new spring suit, hat or dress. And it makes sense too. A holiday which coincides so perfectly with the beginning of spring (in the northern hemisphere, that is. I don't know if there was a similar tradition about new clothes for autumn in, say, Australia...)

I have never really made anything especially for Easter but it just so happened that today, I did finally finish my new 1929 dress (I also made a dress from a pattern from 1929 back in 2014 but that was a different one, from a different issue of the same magazine).
This new dress was the first thing I started on in January of this year. A first entry for the Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge before the new pledge had even been announced. 
Although I have a fairly considerable collection of 1920's Gracieuse magazines, no dress seemed quite so right as this one, if it weren't a wedding dress...

However, work on it slowed down almost as soon as it had started. I had thought I had a suitable fabric for it but started second-guessing myself. I made a toile which showed the familiar 1920's sack shape. Maybe period-accurate but really a bit too sack-shaped for my taste. I played around with it but ultimately moved on to other projects. 
In the mean time, I kept thinking about a fabric for this dress. And then, a few weeks ago, I found something. This flame-coloured (possibly) viscose/rayon. It seemed to have the right kind of hand for a dress like this and colour which might work for me and it was on sale. I bought it and decided the dress would have to be made now. For a while, I kept looking for some kind of trim to use with it but in the end I just went ahead.

Before I cut the dress pieces from the new fabric, I went back to the muslin and tried to take some decisions about the fit. Initially, I had thought about making a pleat on the horizontal seam to make it sit on my hips. Now, trying it on again, I thought it would be better to just narrow the all the pieces at that point. And then there was the neckline. The cowl-neck had been one of my reasons to choose this pattern but just didn't work. It was drafted like no other cowl-neck I have ever seen (except some in other 1920's and 30's designs from Gracieuse magazine): Basically just a scoop neckline with a lot of extra room in the entire front bodice. It also made the armscyes sit in a rather awkward way. If I pulled those in the right position, the neckline looked sort of like a cowl-neck. 
I toyed with the idea of retro-fitting a more fitted inner bodice layer but I finally came to a much simpler solution: I took out about 10 cm at center front. This meant sacrificing the cowl-neck but fixing the armscye and overall ease issues in one go. The original front bodice was so wide that even with all that width taken out, it is still a bit wider than the back bodice. I narrowed the front skirt pieces by 5 and 7.5 cm (they overlap at the front anyway so that was not really a fitting issue).

Sewing the dress wasn't difficult. I did sin against period accuracy by using my serger, not just to finish the seam allowances but even to make tiny rolled hems on those flouncy skirt pieces and on the decorative sash on the skirt. The very short instructions for this pattern also suggest narrowly hemming the neckline and sleeves but I made facings instead. 

It is finished now and I love it so much more than I had expected! (which is exactly what happened last time...). The alterations I made actually make it fit much more like the illustration suggests. The dress has a fairly loose fit but certainly not so loose that you cannot even see that there is a body in it. 

In fact, at some angles, I think I can really see what this 1920's fashion ideal is all about: Long, elegant, vertical lines...

This feels like a proper start to this year's Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge, even though it technically is my second finished item. After this, I'll start on a casual 1950's capri suit. The pattern has been tested out, it will work with fabric in my stash so it is all ready to go. 

The first project of 2016

Last week, I spent some time putting together my end-of-year post and pinning my Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge pictures to the special competition Pinterest board. Both activities made me think more about the pledge than I had done in a few months. And looking forward to this year's (there will be a Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge this year, Marie has promised as much, but it has not been officially announced yet).

So, I have decided to hit the ground running and start this year with a vintage pattern project. You can see here that I've been tracing...
Yes, it is another make from one of my vintage sewing magazines. As I have mentioned before, the vast majority of vintage patterns I own are on tracing sheets in magazines or in miniature form, like Lutterloh. I think I only own five "regular" vintage patterns in envelopes. And four reproduction ones.

I am making a dress from Gracieuse magazine nr. 16 from 1929 (the magazine was published twice a month so this was second one for August). This dress to be precise:

I'm using the wedding gown pattern. Of course, I will shorten the back of the skirt to un-wedding gown it and I won't be adding lace or making it in white. Other than that, the design of 1920's (or 30's, 40's or 50's) wedding gowns was often not hugely different from that of formal afternoon dresses (it was usually different from evening dresses which tended to show more skin. A proper bridal dress, maybe up to as recent as 1980, was more covered-up). 
You could argue that, with a whole stack of 1920's and 30's Gracieuse magazines at my disposal, I am silly to go for a wedding dress pattern. I suppose I am but it just combines so many features that appeal to me. 

Just look at it. A lot of 1920's dresses have very plain bodices and necklines or rely heavily on separate scarves or surface decoration. This one has a lovely cowl-like neckline. A style which would become much more common in the following years. It has sleek, simple sleeves, asymmetry and an interesting skirt. The overall silhouette is a bit like a robe de style, but without the puffy-ness. 
I would very much like the dress to fit like it is suggested in the drawing: Free and easy but just clinging to the upper hip. Still a real 1920's look, but showing a feminine shape... We shall see.

The pattern pieces look like this. Like all of Gracieuse's cowl necklines, this one is not cut the way you would expect. Instead, it looks like a scoop neck with some extra room. This is also another example of a pattern on which the side seams seem to be set further to the back than we would expect (I noticed the same on the 1929 party dress I made back in 2014. It wasn't there in the 1922 top but that was a kimono sleeve design so it would have been technically tricky to move the side seams. Last year's 1933 gown also had the side seams in the normal place, which you can see here). Here, you can really see the effect in the sleeve pattern piece.  

I'm all set to cut the fabric now. I have some very cheap fabric which should have the right hand for this design so I am considering to just dive straight in. 

Party like it's nineteen twenty-....

Hi everyone! I hadn't planned to leave for the holidays without notice but it just sort of happened. If you celebrate at this time of year, I hope you had a lovely time. 
I spend Christmas with family but, as I mentioned before, we don't really dress up. I wore my recently completed 1950's suit-like thing and was easily the most dressed-up person there. 
As I have mentioned before, Dutch people today are just not that into dressing up. People who wear jeans to a wedding don't even really stand out...
Of course, this is as much a good thing as a bad thing. However, I have plenty of proof in my magazine collection that it wasn't always this way.

So today, I thought I would share some December party looks from the 1920's. All from the pages of sewing magazine Gracieuse.

1920 itself is still pretty tame. There are no real party looks in this issue but it does open with a bridal party (which is a bit unusual in itself. Usually, they concentrate on bridal wear somewhere in late spring or early summer). So, if you don't look at the bride herself, you can get an idea of what formal and festive clothes would have looked like at the time.

The magazine does have this amazing evening cloak on the cover though. Now, it is not really something you could still wear but it sure is glamorous.

Unfortunately, there are lots of years from which I have just a few magazines, and often no December or January ones. So, the next pages of winter party wear come from 1927:

And they are pretty good. These are no gowns for formal occasions. These are flapper dresses! Loose fits which show off the wearer's slim lines, daringly short skirts, stunning decoration and flirty floating panels. This is the kind of 1920's party wear we like to think about.

December 1928 starts with something completely different:

Don't be alarmed. This is not some crazy hype which did not make it into the fashion history books. It's for a fancy dress party. Gracieuse usually offers lots of fancy dress patterns in early February, in time of your carnival balls, but occasionally, they throw some in at other times in the year. 
I guess this is 1920's-does-18th century...

Inside, we get some serious party looks though. First, there are these dresses which can be made from now-unfashionable dresses from previous years (I don't know if you can see it but some of those are depicted in the little drawings). The alterations mostly seem to be about raising waistlines and creating wider skirts which hang longer in parts.

And then, there is a page with all-new festive dresses. Here, the text even mentions that for the new evening gown, bodices fit more closely and skirts are longer. Maybe less quintessentially 1920's but very likely more flattering to more ladies...

And just in case you were wondering what any of these dresses might look like in real life, the late January issue of 1929 shows us two lovely ladies in evening gowns, photographed and printed in colour on the front cover.

I won't be going to a big party for New Year and I will not need a party dress but it is nice to imagine an occasion to dress up like this, and to party like it is nineteen twenty... seven?

Warm dresses for chilly October days

That is the title on this issue of Gracieuse magazine. It's magazine nr. 19 from 1933, to be precise (it was published twice a month).
I has been ages since I last showed you any vintage pattern magazine goodness here so I thought it was high time.

I've photographed whole pages this time so you can get an idea of the lay-out of the magazine. I just love the art deco design of the title here on the first page:

The first page always has a short article about the current trends in fashion. This one is about the new suits for autumn. The outfits in the drawing are the magazine's own designs though, and the reader could order the patterns for them.

Then, we get "new elegant dresses for tea and cinema visits". Such an interesting concept. I wouldn't have guessed that those activities would call for the same kind of outfit. Maybe it is just because both are informal public outings.

The next page is dedicated to "the evening gown". The second one from the right, the black dress, is the design I sewed up (with lots of trouble) earlier this year.

"Suits from new wool fabrics for autumn"

"The short fur coat"

"The new blouses"

"Simple wool dresses with wide shoulder decorations". These are 1930's silhouettes the way we all recognize them!

The last page with sewing patterns always has a lot of back views and some simplified versions of the designs which have already been shown. 
After that, there are the craft pages with embroidery designs and other craft projects and one or two other articles. And somewhere on a separate sheet of paper is the supplement with the patterns... Usually on both sides but every once in a while, one side is full of embroidery patterns instead. This magazine is one of those so I was actually quite lucky that it included a design I liked in my size...

1933!

Here it is! My dress from a pattern from 1933...

I've had plenty of trouble with it, probably largely down to the fabric I chose. And I was nervous about trying a 1930's design right from the start. The illustrations are always very lovely but the silhouette seems so different from mine... And my previous efforts were less than successful (one was awful, the other one not a real success).

This is the pattern I used: An evening gown from Gracieuse magazine from October 1933. The one on the left. It is one of very few patterns in my collection (from 1930 to the beginning of 1934) which uses bias cut skirt pieces. Of course I knew working with fabric on the bias is tricky but I hoped it would be worth it. 

I used fabric from my stash, a striped cotton blend, for the skirt and bought soft black tule for the bodice (it is worn over a camisole). Of course, using stripes made things a lot more difficult. I would have to try and match them, at least at center front and back. At first, I also tried to match the stripes at the side seams but that caused to many issues with the fabric. And I didn't need more issues with that... This turned out to be the kind of material that just keeps on growing. In the end, I've had to unpick and re-sew them twice, the second time after letting the loose panels hang for a week. And even now, the side seams are not entirely free from pulling.

The bodice wasn't easy either. So many angles. Soft tule is a kind of material which gets gathered up by even loose stitches so I had to stitch it on tissue paper for all those little seams. And then pull the stuff away again, obviously. 
There's a double layer of it in the bodice and a single one in the sleeves. Unfortunately, the cut outer edges of the wide, fluttering sleeves have a tendency to get stuck to each other. 

Hemming the dress was a bit of an adventure in its own right. With patterns on tracing sheets, like this one, you usually get only a part of the skirt pieces with the measurement to which you should lengthen them. I had done that but it's didn't seem very precise in this case. I made sure the side seams matched in length but that was all I could really do on paper. And then the pieces were cut on the bias, in that ever-growing fabric and stitched, un-picked and stitched again. The bottom of the skirt was very uneven so I asked E to help me pin the hemline. The poor man didn't know what he was getting into... It took quite a while and he didn't like it but he did a good job. Pinning a hemline and then marking the positions of the pins with chalk so they wouldn't be lost if some of the pins fell out. The length of the skirt was determined by its shortest point at one of the side seams. As a result, it's ankle length now. I might have cut the pieces a little longer...

On its own, the dress's bodice is rather loose but, as you can see in the illustration, it was always meant to be worn with a belt. The silhouette is still unfamiliar to me but it is better than I expected. 

Making plans again

At the moment, I'm looking at things and making plans. I have two simple t-shirt-like tops and a pair of shorts which haven't made it to the blog yet but those are not particularly exciting. 
Oh and fortunately, that blue top for my grandmother turned out well, it looks very good on her and she really likes it.

I was all set to make that striped 1950's dress because it would be great for the not very warm summer weather we've had so far but this week, the weather is turning. 
I was also enjoying lingerie making again and I don't think I'm quite done with that yet. Oh, and I could actually use a practical, sort of sporty swimsuit or bikini...  

But right now, I am looking at other things. Vintage patterns. I am considering trying a 1930's look once more. Third time lucky maybe?
I've already brought this up in the We Sew Retro Facebook group and the ladies there gave me some very good advice. The thing is: Those fashion drawings look great but after two failed attempts, I keep asking myself "How would that dress look with hips?".
To make up my mind, I've made a Pinterest board with all those designs from Gracieuse magazine which I like and have a pattern for in a size sort of near mine. 

I already see I should pick the year carefully. In 1930, dresses are still quite loose and the waistline sort of wanders somewhere a bit below the natural waist (still on the way up after a decade lower down). By mid-1931 a waistline is forming. Those dresses often have a bodice which blouses over the skirt at from the waist up. I think that could be an option. Later, you start to see more wide belts. And then, by 1934 those shoulders are really starting show...

I've never been a fan of the giant shoulder look which is why I think I may go for a design from 1932 or 1933. Those dresses often have volume at the top of the body but it's soft, for example in the form of capelets or flounce sleeves.

Gracieuse stopped including a pattern sheet in 1934 and the original owner of that part of my collection didn't renew her subscription. After that year, she seems to have relied on occasionally buying other magazines. So, I have some magazines from later in the decade which still include patterns too. Maybe I should add those to my list of options as well...

Of the things I like so far, many day dresses seem a bit too warm for this time of year. 

I also can't stop loving jumpsuits but I kind of want a dress...

And today, I just realized this: So far, I thought a day dress would give me the best chance of making something which I could wear normally (which is what I want) but I might be wrong. Like in many summers, the maxi-dress is once more a fashionable warm weather option this year. 

So, I wouldn't stand out that much in what is actually a 1930's summer evening gown design... These were even meant to be made in printed fabrics and I think I mostly have printed cottons with the right kind of hand.

Summer sewing in 1932

Today, I thought I would share the designs from one of my vintage magazines. This is Gracieuse magazine nr. 11 from 1932. This magazine appeared twice a month which makes this the first of its issues for June. 
There is a pattern sheet with a few of the designs on it (about a third of them and each in one size only), the rest was available through a mail order service.

All those lovely clothes and then some embroidery designs, recipes and this, an article in the category "the care for our appearance". This week's topic is "sport and beauty" and seeks to answer the question "does the practice of sport make you ugly. Just in case you are wondering, the answer they come to is "No, on the contrary. At least, if sport is practiced in moderation and one steers away from un-feminine sports like boxing and football"

And my favorite design from this magazine? The black-and-white dress in the fourth picture. And the pattern is included, just one (or two) size too big for me. The miniature sketch on the pattern sheet reveals even more of its charm: Those raglan sleeves also form the entire back bodice of the dress. A back bodice which has a cut-out at center back. 
If only I had suitable fabric for it in my stash...