1950s week! How amazing were those vintage Singer machines?
I’d love to have a go with one, but I don’t think I could use it all the time;
I’m too used to my electronic multi-stitch modern machine now.
Anyway, this week’s three challenges were to make a
‘Walkaway’ dress in four hours, make a new garment out of some vintage curtains
in 90 minutes, and finally to make a sheer blouse based on a 1950s pattern in
six hours. Some tricky things for the sewers to get their teeth into, and on
the whole they all did really well with the difficulty of the old sewing
machines and slippery fabrics.
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| www.butterick.mccall.com |
The Walkaway dress pattern was a huge trend in the 1950s,
apparently easy enough to be cut out after breakfast and made up ready to wear
out for lunch the same day. The dress is sort of like a big front and back
apron style – it goes on over your head then the front part fastens behind the
waist, then the back with the full skirt piece wraps round to button up at the
front. So there are no zips or major fastenings, but there is miles and miles
of bias binding around all the edges. The sewers were given a binding foot to
fit on their sewing machines as the merest hint of a gadget, although not
everyone decided to use it, preferring to sew their binding in two stages.
Everyone’s dresses turned out pretty well, Amanda had some
binding that wasn’t properly attached, Matt hadn’t had time to finish his hem,
Lorna’s buttons and loops were a bit big out of proportion, Deborah’s had some
untidy loose threads, Neil had managed to snip a hole in his at the last
minute, but Ryan came first, although some of his bound edges had been
stretched a tiny bit out of shape. Paul’s dress was my favourite though, the
big bright floral fabric he chose was gorgeous, and he bound the edges with the
most incredible rainbow bias binding that I intend to hunt down, buy miles of
and use on everything! On a side note, Deborah was wearing a top this week made
of map print fabric which looked really cool!
The alteration challenge this week was accompanied by a
soundtrack of The Sound of Music while the sewers tried to make new garments
out of vintage curtain material. In some ways I think this was an easier
challenge than others have been as the curtains are basically enormous sheets of
flat fabric so you don’t have to re-structure an existing garment, but on the
other hand the lack of a starting point for inspiration could prove tricky.
There were several gathered and circle skirts making use of the voluminous
fabric, Ryan did amazingly well to make a collared shirt, Matt made a little
girl’s dress and Neil a halter-neck maxi dress. Neela came last in this
challenge with a simple bandeau top, and Lorna was top with a deep waisted
circle skirt.
On to the made to measure challenge and the horrors of silky
slippery runaway sheer fabrics. There were a variety of patterns chosen, I
liked Amanda’s long sleeved tie-neck blouse (not sure about the lime green
colour though), and Deborah’s button-back shell top, this was beautiful fabric
too. Ryan also had an amazing fabric with images of Japanese women and geisha’s
all over it, Matt struggled to finish his zip neatly at the last minute, and
Neil’s pale blue chiffon was so fine he might as well have been trying to sew
thin air! Lorna got garment of the week with her black and white wrap fronted
blouse which was beautifully done, but sadly it was Neela’s turn to leave as
she didn’t manage to finish her blouse (no buttons, buttonholes or hem) despite
tackling some very fiddly pintucking. It’s horrible seeing people go each week,
even though we’ve only seen them on screen for an hour a week, although the
wonders of social media means I’ve been in conversation with several of them
over the past few weeks, and reading their blogs.
I love the sneaky peeks at next week’s episode – I can’t
believe they’ve got to tackle corsetry!
I ordered my copy of the new book last night (let’s hope
Amazon’s delivery is nice and quick!) and found out via Twitter that it
includes the pattern for the Walkaway dress which I’m really happy about – I
love 1950s shapes and find they tend to suit me, so I can see myself making
some cotton dresses for the summer. I’m building up quite a shopping list of
fabrics to look out for that the sewers have used on the show (Fiona at The SewingDirectory posts a list of links to the patterns and fabrics used every week) so
my trip to the Knitting & Stitching Show in a couple of weeks could end up
being quite expensive!
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| www.amazon.co.uk |
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| www.amazon.co.uk |
Still working on my knitting this week, and also planning to
sew some presents for a few birthdays coming up – I’m thinking scented hanging
hearts and decorative cushions, I’ll keep you posted with what I decide. I also managed to snap a couple of photos in the garden this morning now that things are starting to come back to life again.
What
are you all making at the moment? Is anyone else going to the Knitting &
Stitching Show?
Have a good weekend everyone!
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