A quick fabric trip and some more circle skirts

I enjoyed wearing my new Night Vale circle skirt so much, I decided I needed to make a few more of those right away. Without the decorations, this time!

Instead of my usual trip downtown to the fabric district I tried going to Orfus Road to check out one of the few remaining Fabriclands in the city. I was mostly disappointed with the Fabricland. Not a great selection, no patterns, and higher prices than I'd find downtown. Luckily Len's Mill is also up that neck of the woods, a fabricstore I'd seen at craft shows a few times. The store is a real weird space. The front is discount department store, and you have to sneak past isles of underwear and discount detergent to find the fabric in the back. But once I got there I found a nice selection of fabrics at good prices.

And some of their fabrics are fancy!

Mostly quilting prints, but a few nice apparel fabrics as well. I picked up a lovely dotted swiss and a black eyelet cotton for some blouses.

I was really hoping to get some cotton twill in grey and red for two new circle skirts. Alas, the red twill eluded me. But I got a lovely grey twill for a skirt. I decided to go a little fancier and add pockets with a cute little pointed flap on this one. I also cut out more black twill bias strips to make the contrast band I added to the Night Vale skirt, since it gave it such a nice weight and swing.

And while I'm off to work on this some more, I leave you with the song I can't stop listening to this week, sung out of the British Museum.

The Night Vale skirt is done!

I'm so damn happy with how it turned out. The applique all looks great, it fits perfectly, and the zippered pocket is more than enough room to step into it or slip it over my head.

You'll notice my hair is all artfully cropped out of these photos. What, I just woke up.

One thing I really adore about this skirt is the contrast band around the bottom. It gives the skirt a great weight and swing to it. I feel like flouncing around all day in this thing. I definitely need to try this trick with another circle skirt -  a basic one, this time!

I'm wearing this on top of a crinoline I got yesterday at the Toronto Vintage Clothing Show. I had a great time there, and also picked up a 1924 Ladies' Home Journal and some vintage lipsticks.

 It's a nice basic crinoline. But look at the bow! The bow is what had me smitten. It's a nice size for me, too. Because I'm a mere 5'1", a super-full crinoline completely engulfs me. My natural child-bearing hips also help make a petticoat stand out on it's own. This one is just two layers of gathered net over a built-in nylon slip, so it's plenty enough fulness for me.

In other news, I quit one of my three jobs this week. Working every day was proving too much for me, and I had to let one of them go. Luckily the costume designer I've been working for was happy to give me more hours so it ended up all shaking out. I do have one week off, though, which I must say I'm pretty grateful for. After working seven day weeks for the last couple of months a few days off is going to feel luxurious. I've been marathoning How Clean is Your House, so today I'm all ready to give the apartment a scrub from top to bottom. My schedule for this week is:

Tuesday: Focus on the home. Do my laundry, donate old clothes, return all my empties, give everything a good clean.
Wednesday: Focus on me. Get my eyebrows done, maybe a manicure. Have a lovely bath, do my hair, wax my legs. Listen to music with a glass of wine and have a lovely dinner in my clean apartment.
Thursday: Focus on my hobbies. I bought McCalls 6696 which I'm going to whip up in a red plaid. I'm super excited for it.

More Night Vale skirt and the never ending winter...

The last two weeks have been March Break camp at the sewing studio, so I've been running off my feet teaching kids how not to stab themselves with pins. Always a good time! I do enjoy teaching sewing camps a lot, but man they are exhausting. I did manage to get some more work done on the night vale skirt, though.

The water tower, barn, and giant eye are done. I've decided to buy some black yarn to make the power lines, which I'm going to hand whip-stitch on.

Toronto continues to exist in the winter that never ends. First day of Spring this week, and I woke up to a full coating of snow over the city. KSJDHFBGAKFJBG! It's not unusual to be getting snow this far into March, but most winters we've at least had a few warm days in between. March is generally yo-yos in temperature a lot. The snow melts, we all get out shorts out, and then a few days later we get a new sprinkling. But this has just been uninterrupted snow and cold since December. It can make any girl stare whistfully at all her cute Spring dresses projects and dispair.

In a little ray of hope, tomorrow is the Toronto Vintage Clothing Show down at the convention centre. I hope to scope some cute stuff and take lots of pictures!

The Night Vale skirt

So yes, I promised the vintage wardrobe revamp thing and that post is still in the works, but this little project crept up on me and took over slightly and I just had to share.

Some of you may be familiar with a little podcast known as Welcome to Night Vale. If you aren't, it's a 100% free podcast and you have no excuse go check it out immediately.

I won't go over too much the plot or premise too much as a little light googling will do that for you. But suffice to say it has just the blend of weird and silly and dark that I tend to love in one place and I'm a little head over heels.

What Night Vale also has going for it is a super cool logo.

And because this is me and even I don't understand the reason my brain comes up with things, I decided this design just HAD to become an appliqued circle skirt. 

Who knows. 

I started with a simple circle skirt in this poly/cotton blend twill I got at Fabric by Designers in the garment district. (A FANTASTIC fabric store btw for people in the Toronto area). The black contrast band around the bottom is a four inch wide bias strip I shaped into a curve with steam. Getting the shapes the right size was pure trial and error of cutting them out in paper and adjusting until I was happy with the spacing. I then cut them out in the correct fabric colours and pinned them on. I didn't bother with seam allowance, as I'm going to use a machine satin stitch to cover the raw edges and sew it down.

For the weathervane on the barn, and the legs of the water tower I'm going to purchased some 1/4" black grosgran ribbon. The powerline will be a 1/2" grosgrain, and for the wires themselves a lightweight black cotton cord.

My goal is to get this done for Costume Con at the end of April. I'm pretty damn exciting just to be wearing it around town, too!

A vintage wardrobe revamp pt 1

Much has been said on the interwebs about how to build up a vintage wardrobe from nothing. (May I refer you over to Brittany from Va-Voom Vintage's excellent series on the subject) But this is the journey I am embarking on now, so you'll have to forgive me being a little repetitive.

A lot of articles I've read have had lots of good ideas. Be brutal with your wardrobe. Give away everything you don't LOVE AND ADORE, have a more curated wardrobe of pieces you'd wear every day, start with the basic building blocks of a vintage wardrobe and work from there. And these are all great tips, ones I take into account!

My method is going to differ just slightly. While going through my wardrobe to do a clothes purge (I'm a regular purger - nothing ever feels better to me than getting rid of something I don't use any more) I noticed the few items that have survived years in my closet. A good chunk of them were second hand or rummage sale finds way back in high school - often over ten years ago. What have made these items last in my wardrobe while other, newer items have been sent to the GoodWill long ago?

So with pen and paper I have decided to make a list of my own personal wardrobe basics, the things that I can't seem to live without. Because if I can replicate the success of these few items - buy more of them in different colours and in better quality - I'm going to have a wardrobe that will last me through fickle style changes and trends.


So stay tuned for vintage wardrobe basics - a rambling and hopefully useful project. The first one up - shoes!

Longs days and winter blues

I'm down to one week left of my eighteen-day work stretch and I'm doing better than I suspected I would. I enjoy all three of my jobs, so the work days themselves are not all that grueling. The hardest part is not having that time for myself.

I'm a homebody, deep down inside. Nothing makes me happier than a day home alone with nowhere to be, puttering about the kitchen and listening to the radio. So the hardest part of working every day has definitely been just not having that day off to do some cleaning, or work on my own projects, or just curl up with my coffee in my pajamas and watch Kitchen Nightmares on the tv.

It is one of the major downsides of working in the arts - you have to take contracts as they come up, and often times they over-lap. It yo-yos between seven day weeks one month and nothing at all the next. But things are looking up in my life. This contract is really going to open doors for me, and my extra crammed schedule only lasts until the end of April!


That little bit of whining aside, I have had time for one or two of my own projects.

My knit top is coming together a breeze. Just need to hem it! It's so adorable I feel I may have to make two more.

And I've even worked on my jeans a little - no, I haven't forgotten them! They just need to be taken in a little around the knee, hemmed, and the waistband added.

And I borrowed these two fabulous patterns from a friend of mine - for tracing off and lovingly returning, obviously.

Very usefully, both copies I own were stamped when they were purchased with the date, so I know that 1930 is from May 1957, and 1510 from December 1958.

One thing I love about using sewing patterns as fashion history research, is you get a much more accurate picture of what people wore outside of the high fashions. Simplicity 1930 for example features a very gently flared skirt - not the yards of material we picture in a late fifties style. I can imagine from the styling of the envelope (look at her demure little gloves and neat hairstyle) that this pattern was meant to appeal to a more conservative lady, one who didn't want to waltz around in a crinoline. In contrast, the drawings on 1510 are young and flirty - I love the headband on Flowered Dress, and the cute Audrey Hepburn bangs on Pink Dress.  The styles with the giant skirts or daring slim pencil styles were definitely made to appeal to a younger, more fashionable lady, while the gently flared skirt I see in abundance in late 50s patterns was definitely an older or more conservative audience.

Despite being -20 here still (/shakes fist at the sky), they're giving me lovely visions of floaty flower printed summer dresses. Simplicity 1930 I want to see so badly in a dreamy liberty print (if I can find one I can afford), and 1510 will be adorable with a vintage print I already have in the stash.

While I ADORE that late fifties style with an under-bust seam and dart fitted throughout the torso, I know on my body type it would be a dress I'd 100% always have to wear with a girdle. I carry weight on my upper torso, it's annoying, and I like my vintage dresses to be girdle-optional. Also both these patterns are nowhere near my size and I'll be grading them up another four inches around the bust. I took one look at the flared skirt pieces and knew they'd be a royal pain in the butt to grade. SO I'm going to cheat. I'm using the upper bodice from the pattern, but drafting a separate midriff piece and circle skirt. Midriff dresses are a perennial favourite of mine. They almost always flattering on me, as they highlight that steep curve I have between my large bust and tiny ribcage. And you can load the midriff part up with fusing, interlining, and boning to smooth out the bumpy bits. A miracle!


When I get to grading these up I may do a photo tutorial, as I know I never really understood grading until I went to design school, and it can be quick and easy. I know as a busty lady it can be so damn hard to find vintage patterns in my size, and the one I do find all seem to have a distinctive matronly bent to them.

Alright lovelies, enough rambling for now. Have a fabulous week, and pray for spring to come soon!

Vintage hair for VERY thick, short hair

In what may perhaps be a fit of insanity, I've decided to take on a contract on top of my two current jobs. Which means for the next two weeks and a half, I'm going to be working every day. Wish me luck!

While I'm excited about the extra money coming in and the great experience, this isn't going to give me much time to sew, alas.

So to tide me over, I'm going to show a few of my favourite hairstyles for quick and easy mornings.

In preparation - I'm in no way a great hairdresser. But I like to play around and have fun and experiment. I also do not have a haircut that is particularly conducive to vintage hairstyles. My hair is VERY thick. Insanely thick. When it was long by ponytail would have about a 1.5 inch diameter. And since I'm not yet willing to sacrifice and wash-and-wear style, I get a lot of layering and thinning put in my hair when I get it cut. If I don't, it's a big puffy mess every day.

That does mean that pin-curls don't stay in particularly well in my hair (too many layers) although I am still trying. What my hair does take well are foam rollers overnight, and a good curling iron. So here's a great style that works on my super thick, layered hair.

The easiest hairstyle for me - two french braids on either side. It's off my face, it looks cute. A total win. I just centre part my hair (my hair has a natural centre part, so this works best for me) and start with a small section at the crown, braiding and adding in new strands until the hair tapers off. Bind with a clear eleastic, cover with some ribbon, and pin flat with a bobby pin.

You may notice my little short wispy bits in the front - that's because until this summer I had the side of my hair over my ears shaved off. They're just long enough now to curl, so I use my hot iron to curl it away from the face in small sections. Then curl under my bangs, spray, and go! Takes me about 10 minutes in all.

My lipstick today is Rimmel Colour Rush Intense Colour Balm in The Redder the Better. Which I am LOVING. Very moisturizing, but not too shiny.

I hope you enjoy. and see you on the other side!

A wild incoming knit project...

So here's a confession: I have been sewing for over ten years. I have not worked with knits very often.

I made a few items as a teenagers (completely incorrectly, looking back on it), but it never entirely jazzed with me. When I was studying fashion at college, we did have a knit garment section, but by that point I was in a full industrial sewing studio kitted out with all the fanciest equipment. Four thread industrial sergers! Cover stitch machines! Cover stitch machines with binding attachments!

So you can say when I was learning how to sew with knits I was a little spoiled.

Now that I'm back to reality, and back to working on my own one little sewing machine and no serger, it's time for me to learn knits the home sewing way. It's funny to work backwards in that respect, actually.

I came across this very cute lavender polka-dot knit in my stash, and was hit with thoughts of sweet little Peter Pan collar tops. Oh, how delicate and dreamy I will look!

The inspiration:

T-Shirt With Peter Pan Collar (see more peter pan tops)

 Everything I like in a top: kimono sleeves, polka-dots, nice and roomy, good for wearing out or tucking in...

I do get worried about high-necked shirts in conjunction with my huuuuuge... tracks of land. But when tops are kept roomy enough it's usually alright.

I did hunt around the internet to see if I could find a pattern but unfortunately I am hella picky, and kept running into road blocks. Even though it's a knit, I still wanted bust darts. And a keyhole back! And a slightly flared bottom! Oh hell, I'll draft it myself.

I traced off one of my favourite blouse patterns that I know fits well (Burda 7226 specifically) And added a wack of changes - eliminating the waist darts, straightening out the side seams, adding an extra inch of width at the hip... I've made this blouse enough times I knew what tweaks I needed to get the fit right. I then drafted the collar from scratch off the blouse neckline.

I've had a few bad instanced recently of not making a proper muslin and regretting it, so before I dipped into my polka-dots, I cut out a sample in a bit of baby rib-knit that was luxuriating in the stash.

It's more coral and less traffic cone in person. I'm not sure if it's really my colour, which is why I didn't feel bad using it for a mock-up. If it works out well and I still don't like the colour on me, I'll gift it to my sister.

So I was all ready to start sewing when I remembered I don't have any ballpoint needles. Foiled! I'll pick some up at work on Thursday and then we're full steam ahead into knit land.

A fabo thrift store find

I just scored this amazing vintage dress at Exile in Kensington Market. It was even half-off due to a few easily fixable repairs.

I know, more grainy photos. I downloaded the gorillacam app for my phone because it takes delayed photos, but they're all coming back pretty poor quality. Must look into a different one. But in the meantime, look how cute!

I'm wearing it over my Pennyworth longline bra and it's giving me a totally fabulous 1950s lift here. The dress feels made for me. It has gorgeous construction with doloman sleeves that have an underarm gusset. The side seams have belt carriers, but if there ever was a matching belt it's long gone. Over-all, though. Comfy, adorable, totally becoming a wardrobe staple.

A 1920s garden party dress

Well, this has been one hell of a week!

I picked up some extra work assisting a costume designer for a school production of The Little Mermaid. It's been a whole ton of fun, but seeing as this is job #3 by now, it hasn't left me a lot of my own sewing time. I hope to rectify that on my day off tomorrow, but in the mean time I figured I share a cute project from last summer.

Spadina House museum in Toronto has been having  Gatsby Picnic in June for the past few years, and last spring I was finally able to get an outfit ready in time to go. It was an absolutely stunning day - warm and sunny and perfect. I played croquet and drank lemonade and did a tour of the house (Which is GORGEOUS and well worth the trip, if you're in Southern Ontario) and solved a mystery of who stole the booze.

 My friend Leah accompanied me in a dress I made for her the night before (yes, I am a speed demon when it comes to costuming.) It's a pretty basic shape with no waist seam and kimono sleeves, but I jazzed it up with a sailor collar and a tucked inset in the front.

The dress I based on this design from Past Patterns, which is a recreated 1926 McCalls pattern. I would have saved myself the time and effort of drafting and ordered myself the damn thing, but I was working on a tight schedule for this thing and didn't think the pattern would arrive in time. So instead I pretty much draped the whole project on my dress form. I started trying to draft it, but this style of dress works a lot better being draped.

A progress pic of a draping process. I went for short, flutter sleeves instead of the long ones on the pattern, since I knew it was going to be a hot day.

The contrast fabric is plain old pink quilting-weight cotton, and I made matching bias to trim the neckline and cross-over. I went back and forth on making the contrast pink a sort of attached slip with straps that would sit inside the wrap dress, but finally just made my life easy and cut out one piece of cotton the same size as the gap and just sewed it in. The underskirt is just two rectangles, very slightly gathered into the waistband.

The hat, shoes, and rose quartz bead necklace are all very lucky thrift store finds, and the gloves were my great-grandmothers.

I had a LOT of fun in this dress. Twenties styles are so comfy and breezy! I was worried about what such an unfitted dress was going to look like on my very hippy figure, but I think the trick with the 20s is just to embrace it. You're not going to look like the svelt boyish figures of the illustrations, so don't worry about it! If you look up photographs of real people from the time, they seemed completely unconcerned with a little belly poking out, or how wide their hips look with low-slung sashes. The 1920s was all about rolling your stockings down and not caring what people thought!

This article on Reconstructing History has some great things to say about the perceived ideal figure of the 1920s. I recommend reading it if you're nervous about trying out the 20s in your wardrobe.

I will say the dress became INFINITELY more flattering when I added the proper lingerie with it. (a post about which should be coming soon.) You can see the difference when I wore the dress again at Costume College over my recreated 1920s brassiere and tap pants.

Excuse the fact that my fingerwaves were falling out by then.

Underthings pics coming soon!

New Look 6093 progress and some balcony shots

Last night my roommate threw season 2 of Full House on the DVD player and we had a great time basking in cheesy late 80s nostalgia as I worked some more on New Look 6093. This dress really does go together like a breeze, especially when I cut out adding a zipper.

The finished silhouette is more 50s than 30s (added too much fullness to the godets, I think. Also my childbearing hips just lend themselves to that silhouette whether I'm aiming for it or not.) But it turned out so cute, I can't complain about it much! I still need to finish the godet seams with bias, and I've decided I'm going to hand-roll the hem and sleeves. I also shortened the sleeves quite a bit from the pattern. Something about my body type, but sleeves that end add my mid-upper arm are just never flattering on me. I do much better with a cap sleeve. And they're so cute and fluttery like this!

Since I vowed to take some shots not in my mirror, I braved Toronto February weather to take some shots on my balcony. They turned out a little grainy, but dammit I stood outside in a short sleeved dress for my art, I'm using them.

It feels very garden party to me and I like it! Then I decided since I was freezing my buns off, I better get some of my zig-zag print halter dress, too!

Warming up between shoots!

The low scooped back is perfect for showing off back tats and new haircuts! 

This one isn't particularly good at showing off the dress, but I found it nice and artistic. It's the only one where you can see a little hint of the pretty spectacular view I have from my apartment of the city. 

Some construction shots coming up soon!

New Look 6093 and making a good dent in the fabric stash

One of the great things about teaching sewing classes is when a student picks a pattern I've been meaning to work out - I always get to joke that they're my guinea pig!

One of the kids in my summer sewing classes picked New Look 6093, a dress that's been sitting in my to-do list for a while. And since I got a twelve year old to work out the kinks for me first, I had no excuse not to get going!

The pattern website says it's a '1940s inspired' dress, but the bias godets and floaty sleeves always seemed much more 1930s to me. I wanted to nudge it a little further in that direction, so I made a few alterations before I cut it out.

I purposefully cut it a size up from what I'd normally do (I'd have even gone further, but it was the largest size in the pattern envelope. Oops?) I was aiming for a more floaty, unfitted early 30s silhouette, rather than the more fitted later style. So the first thing to do what to add more fullness to the godets, which seamed a little skimpy to me.

I also decided to cut the godets as one piece, which you see a lot more in period. The pattern obviously added a side seam to make sewing and fitting easier, but I like the look of the godets as once piece. So I overlapped the side seam by 5/8" and flared it out at the bottom. I then slashed and spread to add more fullness at the bottom.

You can see from the pattern pieces that there was originally supposed to be some shaping on that side seam, but like I said, I'm going for a more unfitted look so I didn't feel worried about taking that shaping out.

I also cut the centre back piece on the fold, removing the shaping on the back seam. With the extra room I can just slip the dress over my head and not worry about a zipper.

For another vintage touch, I decided to add tucks instead of gathers for the fullness over the bust and sleeve head. The bustline seam I then finished with self-fabric bias strips.

The same tucks and bias finish for the sleeve, with a french seam on the shoulder.

As always, mirror selfies and looking like a dork. Still, this dress is coming together quickly and I'm pretty happy with it! Tomorrow adding the godets and finishing the neckline!