A 1941 Sailor Girl Dress: Darla's Day Out

Today in The United States Of America we celebrate Independence Day.

Our family will be visiting with friends on the beach in beautiful Malibu, attending a cookout in the afternoon, and then watching the fireworks from the pier!

I though I would share one of my all time favorite patriotic sewing projects from my archives.

The 1941 Sailor Dress from April 2012....

Let's pretend.

It's 1941 and this little girl's daddy is a soldier coming home on leave today.

Her name is Darla.

Mommy and Darla came to the station early and Darla wants to look at the train tracks!

Darla is wearing her best dress made by mommy especially for today.

It is so patriotic, isn't it!

Mommy and Darla took a special trip to the city to buy her new leather shoes as well.

The man in the shoe shop gave Darla a pinwheel and she loves it.

Darla also loves to go to the train station because it's fun to explore there. Mommy often takes her out for an ice cream on days like this too.

She has such a nice mommy, doesn't she?

This is an old farming town and only one train comes a day so Mommy lets Darla play around the tracks.

Things were a lot different back then!

Children Darla's age played unsupervised outside for hours and no one called Child Protective Services!

Darla loves to find pretty rocks.

Darla also loves to play with her pinwheel. Lucky for Darla there is a nice breeze so her pinwheel affords her endless amusement!

Darla is starting to get weary of waiting....

There is the train off in the distance...

Daddy will be here soon!

Hip, hip, hooray!!!

Back to reality....

I used this pattern from 1941.

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Simplicity 1787 from 1956 in red gingham and the dreaded term TWEEN

My daughter is at a new school this year.

They do wear uniforms but being Halloween today, they let the kids come in free dress.

But not their Halloween costumes.

Boo!

Here is what Lily chose to wear for her day of freedom dressing:

Simplicity 1787 from 1956

Sewn in a vintage red gingham.

Trimmed with white crochet.
Worn without a petticoat.
I love that Lily is at an age where kids want to fit in by dressing like their peers, yet she still has her own style.
 She is becoming what the media now calls a tween, a new demographic between 9 and 13 and the target of a lot of age inappropriate advertising. Lame shops at the mall with clothing full of sparkles, dumb sayings on the butt of pants, and peace signs all over them cater to this age group.

I don't know about you, but instead of calling my 9 year old a tween, I like to refer to her as a little girl.

Yes, she might decide it's dorky to wear her mom's handmade clothing at some point, but I hope not.
Peer pressure is hard to deal with though, especially in middle school.

The pattern I used for this dress was part of a collection of vintage patterns, and a 1948 Kenmore I call Mabel, I bought through Craigslist.

Mabel, my 1948 Kenmore.
Runs like a tank.
But very noisy.

I have an extensive collection of vintage patterns from estate sales and flea markets.

I should probably sell a few I can't bear to part with them!

 Fully lined, with bodice darts and a separate midriff piece.

This dress buttons up the back, so she needs help putting it on.

I also love the view with the 3/4 cuffed sleeves and the Peter Pan collar.
These dresses were made to be worn with petticoats but that is a bit much for most little girls to deal with nowadays.

The Brady Bunch Dress

The Sew Country Chick Bunch! 

At least, those three on the right are part of it! We are missing a couple!

If you have more than a couple of kids then you know how hard it is to get photos together.

I'll take what I can get....

Growing up I used to come home from school , grab a snack, and flip the TV to channel 11 to watch reruns of my my favorite TV family.

THE BRADY BUNCH !

They were the perfect 70's family!

 They lived the San Fernando Valley, a comfortable suburb of Los Angeles, with six kids, a stay at home mom, a housekeeper, and a wise father who was always giving good counsel.
Their mom was always in a good mood and never a grouch, thanks to Alice the dedicated full time housekeeper.

The fact that Carol and Mike Brady were both widows who had three kids each and were actually a blended family never really tampered with my vision of them being the perfect family. How on earth had both of their spouses died in their thirties? I mean, what are the chances? I smell a conspiracy....

Somehow my own very real and slightly dysfunctional family never could measure up when compared to the Brady Bunch. 

Funny enough, my husband grew up in the same neighborhood the Brady's supposedly lived, and he looked amazingly like Peter Brady! He even had a blonde mom with one of those perfect blonde seventies hairdos ....

 To complete my six degrees of separation with the Brady Bunch, I was once at a nightclub in Hollywood with my husband and some friends when the real actor who played Peter Brady introduced himself to me. He was a slightly overweight middle aged guy at that point, but there was no mistaking it was Peter Brady, my childhood crush! Of course, his name was Mike, but that didn't matter!

Cindy loved her great big collars and so do I!

I dug out one of my vintage patterns to make this dress.

 It is a super simple pattern but attaching the one piece facing with a Peter Pan collar was a head scratching time, especially since my three year old conveniently lost the directions. 

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Madeleine Vionnet and Learning Bias Cut sewing

Below is my post about Madame Vionnet and my experiences with making dresses cut on the bias over the past two years, since I got into dressmaking.
 I posted this over at Cation Designs earlier this week.
Actually this is also an old post and one of my faves that I rewrote and added to, hence the old comments!

Madeleine Vionnet (June 22, 1876 – March 2, 1975) 

I am so inspired by the French designer, Madeleine Vionnet and would love to share her with those who might not be familiar with this legendary French designer. I am also going to explain some of the things I have learned from my pursuit of learning to sew bias cut garments!

The gowns that follow were designed by Madame Vionnet in the 1930's and are courtesy of the Metropoliatan Museum of Art.

Madeleine Vionnet was a revolutionary designer of her time: not as universally well known as Coco Chanel but just as influential to the world  of fashion, especially the fluid looks of the 1930's

 She basically developed the bias cut gown, a technique of cutting fabric on the diagonal grain of the fabric which creates a sinuous and slightly clingy silhouette. She had fabric custom made for her as wide as 180 inches to have her gowns cut out of. Bias cut dresses use up a lot more fabric so they are more expensive to produce. 

 It seems like a simple enough process but there is an art to it. For instance, a bias skirt can cling and tug in odd ways if it isn't cut right or pressed properly during construction. The seams can stretch out of shape easily and it's not unusual to have a garment stretch by as much as four inches after letting it hang on the hanger for a few days. There are many techniques  for working with bias to be learned.  I learned on one website that it's easier to make a bias skirt with a center seam so it hangs evenly on both sides. 

Madame Vionnet was influenced by ancient Greek statues and wanted clothing to move and flow with the wearer. It's not surprising she made dresses for  Isadora Duncan, the avant- garde modern dancer of the twenties and thirties . 

In todays world with all of our stretch fabrics it's easy to overlook how revolutionary it must have been to wear something that draped to your body the way her dresses did after the boxy and loose fashions of the 1920's.

 The seaming on this gown is so amazing.
Masterful.

A 1930's Vionnet gown being worn in our times. Good design is never out of fashion!

Unfortunately Mme. Vionnet had to close her couture house in 1939 with the beginning of World War Two. Fashion was put on the back burner to concentrate on the war effort and the country's resources were reallocated. She never did reopen.

Above is a dress pattern from the thirties from the Customized Pattern Company. Vionnets' widespread influence on fashion is evident here.

I have had my own small obsession with working with dresses cut on the bias and have my share of triumphs and failures.

 This velvet dress looks OK, but it was cut in a thick woven velvet which tugged uncomfortably while wearing!

Perhaps it wasn't cut on the true bias. it's so important to make sure the garment is laying perfectly on the bias. the tiniest bit off grain can result in tugging and pulling.

If you would like to try your hand at bias cut dresses Collette Oolong above is  good pattern to start with.

I would recommend letting bias hems hang on the dress form or hanger for a day or two. Above is how much my skirt stretched out on the dress form after hanging for two days !

This wedding dress above I made for a friend is my piece de resistance when it comes to bias dress making. It was lined with china silk, sewn of silk charmeuse and had an Alencon lace overlay.

It was all cut on the bias, thus using several more yards of fabric than if it had been cut on the straight grain. There was a center seam under the lace overlay, making the dress lie more smoothly.

A linen bias cut dress above I designed with godets, which add a nice flare.

Both of the dresses above were made from the same pattern, but I raised the waistline on the second pattern and cut the second skirt with a center seam.

You can see how different choices in fabric can really influence how a bias cut dress lies!

I hope you have enjoyed my little report here and just so you know, I am a little biased about sewing on the bias! 

haha...

Vintage early 1900's circus clown costume pictures

I finished my 1910's era circus costume. Well....almost.  I haven't done the hat yet.

Below are the two photos I used for inspiration for this costume.

source not available
 Don't these clowns look a little scary? This photo captures the bohemian lifestyle of the old circus so well. You can only imagine how fascinating it must have been when the circus would come to town in the days before television, films, or other modern inventions.

From RETRONAUT. Visit the link to see more beautiful vintage circus photographs. 

I love the winsome expression on this clown's face. I think he is quite handsome. 

If I lived during those days I would have run away to join the circus.

 I got the idea to applique the polka dots on my costume from this photograph.

In researching vintage circus costumes from the early 1900's I learned that the costumes weren't nearly as colorful as they are today. They were made from natural fabrics and the hats were much smaller. I haven't finished the hat and I will post another picture on the actor it was made for  when we have our dress rehearsal in late June. He will have some big shoes and a hat and a white skullcap. Clowns didn't wear wigs in the old days. They covered their heads with white skullcaps.

Thank you to my mom for being such a good sport to pose in this outfit!

I used an old sheet from the thrift shop to make the costume and I backed it with muslin to give the costume a weightier feeling. Most professional costumes for the theatre are backed with muslin. It makes them more durable and long lasting and gives body to vintage styles which often had a lot of layers.

The buttons are some vintage velvet ones I bought at the flea market last week.

I appliqued the polka dots to the fabric.

I used up the commercial pattern below for this costume . 

Simplicity 2849

I cut the jumpsuit in two creating a pant and jacket. I added an extension for the top to make button plackets.

If you live in another coutry have you ever been to the circus?

Do they still have small circuses where you live and how do you feel about them?

Here in the US we have a big, mega circus called Ringling Brothers. They perform in giant arenas and I feel the charm of the old circus is lost in such a huge venue.

And of course we can't forget, Cirque De Soleil which is amazing but far too expensive to take the average family.

And many people are against the circus now because of animal cruelty issues that have been discovered in some circuses.

 The circus seems almost like a relic from long ago.

However, there is a smaller one called Circus Vargas . It doesn't have any animals and passes through our town every year. We like to go to it because it's small, inexpensive, and we can get good seats.

The acrobats are fantastic.

Our visit to Circus Vargas last summer....

Political issues aside, children will always love the circus !

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