And the answer is...

Wow, I should have known you guys would be good at this sort of thing. I should have asked for the exact year, just to make it a bit of a sport.

Marie-Noelle, Jenny Wren, redsilvia, Tanit-Isis, Readythreadsew and AlisonMM, you are all absolutely right: this picture is from the 1930's. From 1935, to be precise.

And indeed, I put it on the blog as a guess-the-decade topic because the outfits on their own could easily be mistaken for 1970's styles. You know: flares, funky decoration, bare skin and no bras...

But all of you were too smart to fall for that.

Congratulations, everyone!

P.S. Thank you all for your kind comments to yesterday's post.

A good deed

In the past few months, I've made no less than four pairs of these:

I know the photograph is horribly over-lit which makes this pair of trousers look a bit nasty, but bear with me please.

These are for my mother. (And I haven't posted about this before out of respect for her privacy. However she insisted I'd get the word about these trousers, as a good option for anyone dealing with similar issues, out on the internet.)

She's had hip replacement surgery about three years ago. A style of implant which can handle more activity than the more usual style. Perfect for the active fifty-something lady she is.

That was then. Unfortunately, this is a 'metal in metal' implant which, through use, sort of grinds itself down, releasing cobalt metal in the host's bloodstream. This causes swelling around the implant.

Obviously, she is seeing all the appropriate medical professionals and she's already booked for another round of surgery. However, that still left her having to walk around with swolen hips, abdomen and lower back for several months. Which happened to be the only department where a loving daughter could be of any real help. She asked me for trouser which could be adapted to the swelling. She was thinking about buttonhole elastic at first, but I talked her out of that. Elastic waistbands still create a pressure line which has to be unpleasant with swelling on one's lower back. Instead, I made trousers with a wide waistband made out of jersey.

What I did is very simple indeed and could work well or be adapted for anyone with any kind of size and shape issues (in fact, I've made this kind of waistband once before: for a pregnant friend. only then, I used a much higher piece of rib knit).

I drafted a pair of straight legged trousers to her current hip measurement. Of course, you could also use an existing pattern. Summer issues of Burda often include wide legged styles like this.

Take off all detail like the fly extention and pockets.

Then, take a bit off the top. The trousers I drafted were fitted to the natural waist and I took off 10 cm. Extend the legline upwards, making what is now the top of the pattern piece as wide as the hipline. Do this at front and back.

For the waistband, use the subject's current waist measurement and cut a waistband out of solid but stretchy jersey which is 10% smaller than that and 20 cm high, plus seam allowances. If you're using rib knit, go for about 20% smaller to compensate for the greater stretch of the material.

For the legs, I bought woven fabric with stretch. In fact, with so much stretch that I would never by it for anything for myself. That was a good choice, because the swelling actually keeps increasing slowly.

To sew the trousers, assemble the legs as usual, and sew the short end of the waistband together. Then you fold the waistband in half wrong sides together and pin it to the trousers, equaly distributing the excess fabric. Sew it on while stretching the waistband to fit the top of the trousers.

My mother is quite pleased with these. In fact, they're the only bottoms she is wearing at the moment and as long as she wears them with long-ish tops, a lot of people don't even notice anything wrong.

I'm posting this in the hope that it might help anyone struggling with different-but-similar issues (and I guess this method would also make very comfortable trousers for lounging about). So please, feel free to spread the word and if anything isn't clear, just ask.

Guess the decade

I've never done a post like this before, but I usually love them at other blogs (most notably at Couture Allure).

This week I bought this book:

That is 'Fashion Photography' in Dutch. It's basically one of those 'fashion photography through the ages collections' (I was going to write 'through the decades' but it actually starts before 1900. Other than that, it is pretty much all of the 20th century).

Although it misses some of the usual suspects (in fact, it misses pictures of creations from the biggest names altogether), like Dovima wearing Dior's 'Bar' suit, it includes other, lesser known and equally fascinating pieces of fashion history. Some of which are interesting and might be difficult to date without the strict 'by the decade' order of the book and the information with each picture.

Case in point:

Can you tell me from which decade this picture comes (apologies for the crease down the middle. it's a thick book)? I'll reveal the answer on Monday. Winners get the right to boast about their superior knowledge of fashion ;)

Tangerine Tango?

Last month, Peter wrote a series of posts about the weird world of forecasting and whether or not that effects us who make our own clothes. From that first post, I learned that the trend-colour for this spring was Tangerine Tango (I have in fact seen this colour appear in displays in shop windows since).

Now, it just so happened that I scored 4 meters of this fabric on, again, sale for 1 or 0.50 euro a meter back in, about, October. I had first planned to use some of it for my draft-along dress, but we all remember what became of that... (hangs head in shame...). By the time I read the colour forecast post I wanted to make a circle skirt from it, preferable with flap pockets.

Last week, I finally made something from it.

A high waisted A-line skirt. It's a bit shorter than most of my skirts, it's lined and has these nice curved patch pockets without topstitching.

Here's a close-up of those pockets. You have to apply them before sewing the side seam and I really like their clean look.

Well, I really like the skirt and like this, I have to say I love this colour. It doesn't even have to be worn with black. I would like it with brown, olive green and various blues and greys. Oh, and (cream) white.

I'm not sure this actually is Tangerine Tango and the weight of my fabric is more for autumn and winter but I am sure I still have more than 3 meters of it and it makes me smile...

Once more - the curve collar

Several people asked me for a close-up of the Pattern Magic curve collar. I should have thought about that. Not everyone reading this blog actually has those books...

Today, I took some pictures of the shirt on the dress form.

59 years ago today...

59 years ago, you might be flipping through this issue of Marion, and considering what to make.

This is the Februari issue from 1953. I'm not sure when this whole business of sending each month's magazine two week into previous month began, so I'm just assuming you would not yet have received the March issue by 16 Februari 1953...

Well, what does the world of fashion as translated by Marion bring this month?

The bouffant sleeves of the cover design are really only featured in that one blouse.

In patterns which come with the magazine, two-pieces with vest-like points on the tops/jackets are a big hit.

Slim skirts and gored A-line numbers still rule. And that short trench coat would not look out of place in 2012 (who would have thought that, when this magazine came of the printing press...)

Of course, there are lots more great patterns you can buy...

Even more interesting details with buttons, flaps and tucks...

Pockets galore...

Stripes and checks and patterns designed to work with them. How cool are those raglan/kimono crossbreed sleeves (counting from the left, they are on the second and on the last dress in the row)?

Like just about all of those I bought from 1952/1953, this issue of Marion appears to be completely untouched. How anyone could resist trying to make at least one of these charming things, I don't know. However, for all of these, things are about to change...

Pattern Magic - the curve collar shirt

Well, here it is. I made a shirt with the curved collar from Pattern Magic 1.

In fact, this is a fairly easy little project, but I'll try to show you a bit of the construction because, if you're used to sewing regular shirt collars, it is a bit counter-intuitive at times.

I tried to take pictures to clarify the steps but it is really hard to take clear pictures of sewing-in-progress by lamp-light. So please, let me know whether or not this actually helps.

First of all, it may not have been clearly on display in my previous post about this shirt, but this is the actual pattern piece for the collar.

This is my version, which includes a 1 cm seam allowance. I normally use 1.5 cm, but I really recommend going for less here because these seams will all end up inside the collar and it will be much easier to manipulate its curves and angles with a smaller seam allowance. Just remember to match this 1 cm seam allowance on the collar edges of the bodice and on the neckline of the facing. And, as I mentioned before, you really need a facing for the front and back.

I cut the collar with the larger piece, the actual collar, on the fold and used a light fusible interfacing.

When sewing the shirt, the first step is to sew and finish the shoulder seams on the bodice and facing and, if you make a shirt like mine, sew the back pleat.

Then, close the center back seam on the curve-bit of the collar and press open.

Then, pin and sew the 'gap' which exists now. To do this, you pin the center back seam to the center back of the collar piece and sew from point to point (I marked those points with a little hole on my pattern piece and with chalk on

the fabric) like a double ended dart.

After that, sew the front edges for the collar by folding it right sides together (I marked the middle of the collar piece, where you should fold it, with a notch) and sewing it down. Make sure not to sew down the seam allowance at the edge.

That's the prep work on the collar done. Now, it's time to start attaching it.

First step is to sew the point-bit of the collar pieces curve bit to the point at the front bodice. This is exactly where you took it out in the pattern making stage. Refer back to that and it can't go wrong. Just make sure not to sew down to far.

The next step is to sew the collar edge onto to bodice, beginning and ending at the ends of the seams you've made in the previous step. This should give you neat little corners on the front bodice.

Now, sew the facing to the collar neckline (the curvey bit) and along the front opening.

With that, the construction is basically done. Pattern Magic tells you to stitch parts of the collar to facing by hand. I opted for stitching in the ditch (not all the way round. Just a couple of cm at the front points and along the center back) instead, which so far seems to work just fine.

To add some details about my shirt, the fabric is a cream coloured, fairly soft cotton. I don't normally go for this kind of embroidery decoration but I bought it, once more, on crazy sale at the market, so I figured I could always use it for muslins. As it turned out, I actually like it.

As mentioned in my previous post, I made a center back pleat which I closed from the waist down so the shirt can be tucked in neatly. I added very simple plain three quarter length sleeves, on a natural shoulderline. After some consideration, I added one chest pocket. With that it's not just about the collar.

When I wore this outfit to take a picture, my boyfriend came in. He first said he liked the look. Only then, he asked: 'is the collar supposed to stand up like that?' Of course, I said yes and he said it was nice, but the point is this: it is both a very strange and a very subtle detail. Just how I like it.