All posts tagged: 1940s

Elise’s gift: the white cape-stole

Last week I showed you the most exciting of the garments that Elise gave me. This week I’m being mean and showing you the simplest, least-exciting garment. Well, it may be simple, but sometimes the simplest things are the best. I think this little cape-stole is adorable. The cape is very cleverly made. It’s made from two pieces of fabric, with part of the back extending further, and the other part curving up around the neck. The extension is gathered to the neck-part to add back fullness: The lining is cut in exactly the same shape as the outside, and also gathered at the upper back seam. I think it is late ’30s, but I’m not entirely sure. It’s such a classic style it could really be from any timeperiod. While it is charming and dressy, I suspect this would have been a very cheap garment when it was made. It’s made from a very short pile fabric which is somewhere between a faux fur and a synthetic velvet, and lined in an inexpensive synthetic …

Finished projects: the Lonely Heart wedding dress

Published by The Dreamstress

I’ve finished the late ’40s wedding dress for Lonely Heart, and the show is on, and the dress is on the actress, and I’m done! The dress however, I’m sorry to tell you, is just a trifle frumpy onstage. It’s partly because the bodice is so long – it really shortens and widens the body. I’d like to try the dress on a different body type: I think that would help a lot. I also really, really want to try the dress in better fabric. Extremely polyester tablecloth damask was a brilliant choice for the demands of stage, but it isn’t a flattering fabric, it’s a PAIN to gather, and it was very tricky to work with along the waist shaping and sweetheart neckline. Being a seamstress is a lot easier when you work with really high quality fabric! 😉 Oh, and Lonely Heart was fantastic – really brilliant music, great costumes by Mrs C, excellent reviews, even Mr D was entertained and impressed. Hopefully it will have a bigger staging soon!

Sweet & sour ‘Summer Berries’ shorts

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week I told you about the Sew Weekly and showed off my first offering: the Little Black Dress-Clip Dress. The Sew Weekly theme for this week was ‘buttons’. I thought about doing something fancy with bound buttonholes, but I end up doing that sort of thing all the time, so there was no reason, and I don’t particularly need anything fancy and tailored and fussy in my wardrobe right now. What I do need is simple summery things, and stuff I can do swing dancing in when it’s hot. Solution: make a pair of vintage-inspired button front shorts. I’m calling these the ‘Summer Berries’ shorts. I’d originally meant for them to be quite nautical with white buttons, but when I went through my fabric stash I didn’t have anything that really worked, and the only thing that stood out to me as exciting at the fabric store were some raspberry pink buttons. So now I have bright blueberry blue shorts with raspberry pink buttons. And I’m eating a blackberry real-fruit ice cream as I …