40's & 50's fashionista: July 2013

Monday, July 22, 2013

Vintage sewing: fabric frenzies

Well instead of showing one of my finished garments here, I can only post a new blog about some new fabrics I bought over the last weeks. Simple because there are no finished things to show you! Sewing and summer weather don't go together. How much I want to, I always find other, mostly outside things, to do than sewing.

But for some reason I do find the time to buy more and more new fabrics :-) So here is a selection of the things that I have bought and my plans what to make with them.

These are some of my new fabrics. From top to bottom:

a thick woven yellow and purple tartan
a thin cotton printed fabric with blue and purple flowers
a dark blue and coral striped cotton
a thick cotton fabric with printed leaves in all kinds of greens, browns and yellows

And the best is, the most expensive fabric was only 3 euros per metre!!

So, what am I planning to make with these fabrics. Well for the tartan I already have a purpose:

I want to make this dress, the wintertime jumper from Gertie's new book for betting sewing. I even have a complete outfit in my head to combine with this dress. I thought of a pale yellow sweater and grey heels or a grey sweater and purple heels. Lots to combine! Pictures will follow.

For the other fabrics I don't really have a set pattern in mind but I have been searching the web and came across to many gorgeous vintage patterns, that it will be very difficult to decide. First some close ups from the other fabrics.

I'm leaning towards this apron dress for the striped fabric, maybe a shirtwaist dress for the blue fabric with the flowers and a dirndl skirt from the fabric with the leave print (it probably is to thick for any other pattern).

Other lovely patterns I came across:

So, hopefully the weather will become a bit colder (can't believe I'm saying this, haha) and I can go back to my sewing!

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Vintage hair: pin up curls

Last week I had the idea to make some pin curls. But because my hair normally never holds any curl, I bought some setting spray to see if it would make any difference.

First my idea to make the curls was to use a method described in my book about 1940's hairstyles and it uses cotton rags to wind your hair around. But for some reason my hair woudn't wind around it and it kept slipping down. Really annoying! But I decided to use another method, a little more time consuming, but much more period accurate.

What you need is this:

Not a lot ;-) But you need time and a steady arm. Because you have to roll little sections of hair into pin curl rolls and secure them with bobby pins on your head. So that the end result will look something like this:

After this I tied a scarf around my head and went to bed, hoping that my curls would survive. And they did, because when I took all the pins out, this was the result:

It was the first time I tried the pin curls and I realised only afterwards that my rolls were going up in all directions, instead of one. So therefore the result looks a bit messy. More luck next time, because the setting spray did a good job. Instead of my curls being gone within two hours, they lasted the whole day. So I definitely am going to give it another try.

But I would not go out the door with my hair looking like this, so I had to adjust and vintify it (I know, not a word, but it means to make more vintage in my dictionary, haha)

So this was my final end result (and I was quite happy with the way it turned out!!) (oh, and don't mind the weird clothes. I did this in the morning and I had to work that afternoon, wearing that t-shirt, but I was afraid to damage my lovely hairstyle by putting the shirt on afterwards.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

New in: Bargain day at the local thrift shop

Oops, it has been a while.... but I have been working loads and the times I had a day off, I went to the beach or to free festivals. So much for great summer weather and writing blogs. But I promise there will be more posts coming in the near future. Starting with this one!!

One of the thriftshops I visit from time to time in the town were my parents live, has a great deal for bargains. Every first saturday of the month, all their clothes are just 1 euro each! And for some reason I always plan my visit to my parents corresponding to these dates (and yes, most of the time this is really a coincidence ;-).

So two weeks ago I went for another trip and I found some lovely things. Here are some pictures of my treasures.

These hats come from another thriftshop, but there a so lovely, I just wanted to show them to you! The small straw one is actually a hat for a doll. Both straw hats will be adorned with some things, maybe a ribbon or some felt flowers.

These three pairs of shoes are all real leather and were a mere 2,50 euros a pair! I'm not really sure about the brown ones, maybe their eighties feel supresses the somewhat forties feel. Just have to combine and see.

The yellow checked skirt is a wrap-around, which I altered a bit, because it was to big and I changed the buttons. The blouse is way to big, but tying it like this helps that (and done so without sewing, because I'm really bad at altering blouses and dresses).

Same goes for the grey and blue blouse. But again tying it up at the midriff is the solution. After some browsing through my closet I came across this belt which goes very well with it. I also have some pumps in the same colour blue. So that makes a lovely outfit.

Both the blouse and the skirt were only 1 euro each. So this a very cheap outfit (and more ways than one, because although I love any sort of leopard/tiger print, it might look a bit cheap sometimes ;-).

My 101 dalmations skirt!! The blouse is not thrifted but I bought at the C&A, because I was looking for something black and short-sleeved that wasn't made form t-shirt material. And this blouse also has a great peter pan collar.

These two brooches I found for 10 cents each and the little red life boat goes great with my other sailor inspired items. The blue and yellow one looks to me like a little V for Victory themed brooch (although on this photo it is upside down .... :-)

Monday, July 1, 2013

Outfit of the day: Roman holiday

I just came back from a ten day holiday in Rome and surroundings, so it was a little quiet on the new post front, but off course I took some lovely vintage outfits with me to Rome. So here is a compilation of my holiday outfits!