Saturday, February 15, 2014

Challenge three; Pink

I had some problems with this challenge, for starters I love pink but never wear it. I also have lots of pink fabrics, that are all too small to make a garment from. First I wanted to use this lovely vintage seersucker:


I bought it on Etsy and sadly it was quite stained, I couldn't get all of the stains out either. I won't be naming the seller here for obvious reasons. But it was just too small to make something from, I only had 32"x64". I tried many other fabrics and patterns but nothing spoke to me!

In spite of this though, I actually sewed three pink things this fortnight! Sadly the best was not an historical garment; I made my daughter a coat! She selected the fabrics (lovely pink coating and pink, black and white lining from Fashion Fabrics Club) and pattern (Marmalade from Tamanegi-Kobo). It came out quite nicely, though the pattern matching and hand stitching made it a rather intense project! In fact it took up over half of the fortnight to complete. If anyone is interested let me know and I will post some pictures of it!

For this challenge I originally intended to make something like this blouse:


which is currently for sale at Ode to June on Etsy. I don't own the pattern (but someone should buy it because it's beautiful! And um, make me a copy, please?) so I used one of my basic bodice blocks to cut it out and then I sewed it up without trying it on (because I am foolish). Unfortunatly I used my unaltered block (foolish) which does not account for my square shoulders at all! Big mistake, there were large puffs on the tops of my shoulders which took a lot of work to fix. But fix it I did.

I hand sewed the sleeve hems and the tie belt at the hip with a blanket stitch but sewed the rest by machine. In all I really like how the blouse turned out, though it is a bit large in the hips. I may take some small tucks in the hem to snug it up a bit.


The Challenge: Pink

Fabric: 1 yard apricot cotton voile

Pattern: My own

Year: 1928

Notions: Pink thread, embroidery floss in colors 842 and 3779

How historically accurate is it? 95%, I did some decorative machine zig-zaging on the ties.

Hours to complete: Three-ish

First worn: Today! Photos forthcoming!

Total cost: All from stash so, free!

After that I hand sewed a pair of pink garters with some lovely pink striped ribbon I had on hand, I used lace as a backing and added three mother of pearl buttons to each. I had made some vintage style ribbon rosettes but I found them unsatisfactory, probably due to the cheap polyesteryness of the ribbon. The beads look much better! To make them I simply measured my thigh and added half of that measure to get my length then sewed ribbon to lace with a running back stitch and threaded through the elastic. Sewing on the beads was the most time consuming part (and bent my needle into a nice curve!).


The Challenge: Pink

Fabric: 2 yards pink ribbon, 2 yards white lace, 28" elastic

Pattern: none

Year: 1923

Notions: 6 Mother of pearl beads, thread

How historically accurate is it? Let's say 95%, my fabric is definitely synthetic, regardless of what JoAnns says.

Hours to complete: Under an hour

First worn: Today, for photographs!

Total cost: Beads-$2.00, the rest was from stash.


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