I want to make one of those...

Last year we went to Twinwood Festival in Bedfordshire. It is a few days of pure nostelga. Twinwood is the airfield Glen Miller took off from on his last fight.

Anyway we could only go for one day however we had a most fantasic time. They have a great website www.twinwoodevents.com/  and are on facebook, if you wish to take a look.

While there we window shopped though the most fabulous vinatage stalls, for us seamstresses a lot of the stalls had boxes and boxes of vintage patterns however I can not say how complete the patterns were. I had to stay away unless I came away with a box load myself. And then it called to me a most beautiful and fantasic piece of work. In the most wonderful condiction was a black wool coat very similar to the Dior New Look style.

(source) 
 I tried it on and it fit purfectly, even on my tiny, short body. I enquired about the coats price and prompty wandered off saying "I will think about", which we all know is a polite way of saying "HOW MUCH?"  The above picture is the closest image I can find to show how beatuiful this coat was. So we wandered and I kept dreaming, S.H. and the girls all bought coats and in the end I decided this is why we have the invention of the credit card and it truely would be a shame not to put this great piece of plastic to work. Headed back to the stall wishing the coat would still be there and it was. I was about to purchase the coat when, oh no, they did not accept credit cards.

Still fate was to show me how good this was, as I am now still short but not as tiny. So all in all I am really glad I missed out on such an expensive item. For the past few weeks I have been thinking about that coat and could I find a pattern to make one. After all I did well on S.H. victorian/steampunk coat, which was made from a lovely soft wool fabric.

S.H. acting up for the camera.

And then I find it. I have found the pattern I have been looking for. Strangely enough my daugther had showed me these coats a few weeks ago, saying they made her think of me and I think that is what reminded of the large wrap around Dior style coat in the first place.

A few days ago In my emails I opened The Sew Weekly and saw this

And In reading the artical I saw Katwise had made a tutorial on how to make your own verson which can be found in her Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/katwise 

I have purchased the tutorial and search though a fantasic amount of colour and these are my two favourites

(both images curisty of Katwise )



How does this conect to the classic coat, I am not sure. But I love the swirl they both have, I for me I think this is the over all winner, fun, fun, fun. Do you adore the extra long hood as much as I do?

Love to all Vala x


Since writing this post I have finally seen a pattern for the coat I was orignally after designed by Gertie for Butterick, I am sure lots of you have as well. So now I want both coats.

A story of two waistcoats and a little bit of Morris dancing.

Hello dear friends,

Sorry I have been away for so long. It feels as though in our little part of the world we have had every season during what usually is known as summer here in Wiltshire.

The holidays have been spent travelling back and forth to Bedfordshire, where my lovely S.H. resides.
We have been to another wedding, and on the creative front I have been sewing, knitting, then giving up on the knitting and starting again.

Meanwhile I am slowly begining to change the face of my little blog. My daughter has offered help to bring more life and colour into it too.

 Now for the first of the makes. These were for two very special little girls. My neices daugthers.

The girls dance in a Morris dance troup,

Now I am a Northerner living 'down South' and when I told people I was going to make my great-neices wasitcoats to hold their Morris dancing medals, everyone thought I meant this

(source)

Now what I did not realise was, the kind of Morris dancing I used to do and the girls do is actually very regional to Lanashire/Yorkshire and North Wales. I only found this out while looking for these pictures.

What the girls do is more like this

(source)
It can be seen as a cross between cheerleading and Irish dancing. Although I had never heard of cheerleading all those years ago but when I tried to descibe it that is the only way I could think of.
If you wish to learn more about Morris dancing it can be found here.

And so to the waistcoats. Using this pattern

I used McCall's M6229. For the fabric I used black cordroy for the outer layer (to support all those medals they are going to win.) and for the lining I dyed a lovely firm white cotton sheet black. I would guess it was egyptian cotton by the feel of it but as it came from a charity shop, I will never know.

( my son this evening walked up to me asked if I knew what the word cordroy meant, then proceeded to inform me it is because it is the fabric of kings, and then walked off. He does that sometimes. I do not know if it is true, I would have said that was velvet but hey I am not going to go searching it out. )

The cutting in progess.

And then along came sleepy Javaise, or as he is known Java baby bear (I have no idea why we call him that)

My wonky hand sewn lining edge, really not good. Out came the unpicker, time to redo

Wow, much better. And finally...

The only extra tweak I did was to top stitch all edges. The pattern did not ask for it but I think it gives a much better finish. (Yes the bottom edging is level, it is my model betsy who has developed a wonky side to her personality)

And the back view.

The only tricky bit was the top stitching I used a jeans needle but even so it did not like all those bumps. Even though I cut the seams down to minium so they were inside the top stitch seam.

Now my machine is truely in need of a service and has been for a while. The machine I use is one of those computertized sewing/embroiadary all signing all dancing ones. For some time I have been thinking about getting a more solid and dedicated sewing machine and leaving the other just for machine embroidary and now I am glad I have. The nearest service to me is over an hours drive away, so until I have a day when I can spare the time to take it, leave it and then go back to pick it up. It will be cool to have another machine to use and not lose sewing time while one is away being serviced.

How about you do you have certain machines for certain jobs?
Have you sewn with cordroy, how did you manage the bumps, any tips would be great.

 Love to all Vala x

P.S. I really must remember to do those little tags at the end of each post. Oh dear.

My second item of clothing, finally.

Well here it is ladies (and gentlemen) finally i have made a piece of clothing. Well sort of, it is more of a re-fashion perhaps.

From this a charity shop buy, I loved the bottom half of the dress, it has a net underskirt attached to help keep the fullness of the skirt but I personally am not comfortable wearing strappless tops.

And this a much loved Monsoon dress that no longer can be zipped over my hips.

However the top part of the dress still fits.

I wanted to revamp the colour as I thought the pale blue did not quite go with the black. I used dylon burlesque red to create purple

As you may remember from yesterday's blog, which can be found here,  I also dyed my hand in the process. Yep its still purple, I am begining to think its perminant.

Ok, so I cut off the top of the black dress. I then sewed it to the inside of the purple dress. Unpicked the bottom section of the zip on the purple dress and cut off all the fabric below the now attached
black dress. I added a satin ribbon to cover where the two dresses meet and then sewed the lower section of the zip to the black skirt.

It wasn't all plain sailing I had to unpick and sew the satin ribbon twice as I had missed a section of about 4cm right at the front. And the zip I also sewed twice first by hand but I have never used an invisible zip before and I stitched to close so that when the zip was pulled it caught on the stitches. So I then machine sewed the zip into place and unpicked the handstitching.

It's still not perfect but I don't know how to recify this problem. My first thought was to make a detachable bow to cover but then I figured when I sat down it would come off. So my second guess is make a sash that fastens in a bow at the back. But as the dress has a slight drop waist would this just add bulk over the hips. Mmmmm, sugestions please.

Anyway here is the finished project

 I am really happy in how this turned out. I hope you lovely people like it too.

Happy sewing Vala.