elegant musings

Its taken me a bit longer than I anticipated to finish this dress, mostly because I couldn’t decide whether I wanted a ruffle at the hem or not! And then I had to figure out what kind of trim? Sheer cotton voile, lace, or eyelet? *sigh* I can be such a picky-picky gal sometimes! hehe! In the end, I didn’t like the cotton ruffle, and haven’t really found any lace in my stash that goes well with the dress, so I left the hem bare (for now...). Instead my trusty, vintage petticoat will suffice to add some frill!

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What started out as a rather dowdy, vintage Lanz dress I plucked from the rack a few weeks ago at a thrift store, had to be reworked! I fell in love with the whimsical sailor collar and bright polka dots (I have quite a collection of red polka dot frocks; I think this is my third or fourth!). But not the length, or the sleeves that hit at the wrong point of my arms (who ever thought it was a good idea to have sleeves that stopped right above the elbow?!), or the very high neckline (even for me).



Out came my trusty Gingher scissors and quick as lighting the hem was shortened, the sleeves removed, and neckline lowered! I rebound the armholes with pieces leftover from the hem reduction (lol!), and added a piece of vintage eyelet salvaged (from the ever-trusty 60’s lace dress) to the neckline. I love how fun and happy the dress looks!! Now that the weather is (finally) starting to cooperate and act springish, it quite matches my mood!



I admit, the whole look was somewhat inspired by the lovely lithograph posters of 19th century artist Jules Cherét. Th brightness and exuberance really struck a cord with me and this dress!



So, let’s see, this is my fourth refashion this year, I believe? (I’ve lost count... bad me!) As part of my “year without mass-retail” experiment, I’m quite delighted with how these restraints on what I can and can’t purchase is pushing the creativity envelope! Somehow, I don’t feel as... encumbered by the offerings of the stores and what the going “look” is. I’m much more excited to strike out on my own--so abstaining from purchases of a clothing-nature (at least at the mall--no one said anything about thrifting! hehe!) has been a bit easier. I even find that because I’m not allowed to go to the mall to shop, I actually shop less; its no longer quite the recreational activity it used to be. So in turn I’m consuming less, and spending less. Even with my thrifting I’ve become pickier: if I can’t foresee using a garment as-is, or being able to easily refashion it, then I put it back on the rack!



Anyway, I’m off to do some work and homework! I’ve been busy work on websites and logos, and all manner of fun graphic designs lately! (As well as some top-secret personal projects... look for a debut in a month or so!) Oh yes, and enjoying this sunny day! I want to thank you so much for your sweet comments and emails of late--I’m so tickled that you enjoy my silly ramblings! hehe!

I hope you all are having a lovely day wherever you are!

Cheers!

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Aw... Thank you for your sweet comments about my wee posting that my Sweetheart was home for the weekend! It was really so lovely to find those in my inbox this morning; softened the feeling of loneliness a bit. Thank you.

Onto sweater-reveal goodness! Its a cardigan that originally looked quite drab, unfitted and well... basic. (Somewhat like this one, although this is a different sweater. I forgot to take a “before” shot! Ack!!) I picked it up at one of the local thrift shop’s dollar days, and since it was a lovely silk/cashmere blend, I thought it would be worth refashioning into something a little more... me!!

I used this book, The Yestermorrow Clothes Book as a reference point for starting the refashion. It details how to take apart a sweater, adjust the fit, and put it back together again! I figured out how much I wanted to take the sides in (‘cause the fit was too boxy for me), cut the side seams apart, removed the bottom ribbing band, cut the sleeves off, and shortened the body of the cardigan by about 4”.

Despite the fact that it is a sweater knit, it wasn’t really that hard to sew the pieces! I just used a very narrow zig-zag (almost a straight stitch... but not quite) on all the seams, trimmed them down and then did a larger zig-zag over the edges. The sleeves I shortened by cutting off the original sleeve cap, and cutting a new one (I was bad... I just eyeballed it, although the book does recommend using a pattern!), and then reattaching to the new armhole (which I narrowed at the shoulder seam).

The reconstruction work was a breeze; deciding on trim and buttons was the hard part! hehe! I hunted through my stash of vintage textiles and pulled out two sleeves I had chopped off an old, eyelet and lace dress. I knew the salvaged eyelet would come in handy one day!! I just enclosed the front edges with the eyelet, topstitching everything down. The buttons were just from my stash; and I decided to go with the white and red because I didn’t have enough red buttons of the right size.

So... I have a very cute (in my opinion! lol!) cardigan for only nickels and dimes, as my dad would say! Now that I have made you endure the long, drawn-out details of how I did this, here is the fun, belated, Friday links roundup!!! Oh, and now you can reference the older posts of Friday links just by clicking the “inspiration” image. Hurrah!!

♥ make a no-pattern, no-zipper skirt!
♥ sweet ideas for accessorizing with vintage doilies
♥ beautiful, inspiring fashion and outfit ideas
♥ a great interview with Polaroid artist Jen Gotch [ via ]
♥ Jenny’s meditation on creativity and developing a collection
♥ knit a very cute, stripy hat!
♥ breathtakingly beautiful photographs and illustrations
♥ how to take a pattern from a favorite garment!!!*
♥ I so want to live in this space...

*I am dying to try this! I mean... wouldn’t it be great to finally take some patterns from my vintage collection?! *sigh*

Enjoy all the linking-goodness and inspiration! I shall post the Vintage Monday image a wee bit later today...

Cheers!

[ email me ]

A sneaky-preview of another refashion to be revealed in tomorrow’s post! Or, how I spent an hour last night. hehe!

Oh, and I had to show you these singularly odd Peeps that my sister picked up yesterday! We've dubbed them the "X-Peeps", 'cause they're all kind of mutant! lol. Seriously; not one in this string has their eyes in the proper place (and one is missing his altogether!). We got such a laugh out of them! hehe!

Cheers!

[ email me ]

p.s. I have been getting no emails on my Gmail account the past several days. So if you've been trying to contact me, please try again! Sometimes technology just is more of a muddle than a help! *giggle*

I have so much to show and tell you--it is just practically jumping about in my head dying to get out! But I won’t reveal it all at once; don’t want to subject you all to The Post of the Century, do I? hehe!!!

Before we delve into this week’s super-special Double Vintage Monday feature (I know!! So exciting!), I wanted to show a little something I whipped up on Saturday:

The top is modified from the Burda Style Lydia pattern. I found some gorgeous, black jersey recently; and it was a very tiny length (a little over ½ yard). My original top idea had to be modified quite a bit to get all the pieces to fit on the material, but I did it! *jumps up and down* I left the body of the pattern pretty much as-is, just scooping out hte neckline a bit more. The sleeves is where all the action is: I shortened the piece, slashed and spread from cap to hem, added about 5” and reshaped the bottom edge a bit. The cap was shirred to its original width, and I gathered the bottom onto a wide band. Voila!! Pretty, fun sleeves!

The skirt was originally a rummage sale find from last autumn; I think I spent $1 on it. Although I loved the waistband, the rest of it was kinda blah and a bit frumpy. So I chopped off the old hem (a good 11”!!), rehemmed it and replaced the back buttons. The pockets I made from the leftover pieces of the old hem; just eyeballing the size and proportion, and topstitching them to the front of the skirt. I added a couple vintage buttons for the cute factor and now I have a new skirt! Hurrah!!!

I tell you: this recycling/refashioning and sewing-from-scratch experiment is proving to be the little kick I needed to really get back into sewing for myself. I’m having a ball!!

Anyway, now to compose myself and move on to the Double Vintage Monday! Here is the “official” image for today; a series of four, lovely shirtwaists from 1906. Aren’t they so pretty? I can think of at least half a dozen ways you could reinterpret any one of them into something very modern and cute. For instance, that large, Bertha collar on the middle left blouse? You could reuse that idea (possibly scaled down a bit) on a light, sleeveless summer dress. </b>What ideas do you see</b>?

  

The bonus feature today is a series of photo-excerpts from a 1964 Vogue pattern catalog!! I inherited this years ago from my grandmother, and paging through for ideas and inspiration is something I do frequently. Unfortunately, its a bit of a chore scanning this behemoth, so pictures are the only solution! I do hope you’ll enjoy these! Click on the image above to be taken to my Flickr album, or view the whole set here!!! Feel free to comment on the photos with your ideas and inspirations!

I hope you all are having a simply lovely and inspired Monday!!!

Cheers!

[ email me ]

p.s. Did you see that the new Poppytalk Handmade Market is up? And this month it’s got an eco-friendly theme!