Giveaway: Butterick 4790, The Walkaway Dress From 1952

Butterick 4790

Originally Butterick 6015 from 1952

Hi Readers!

Today I'm giving away this Butterick Retro pattern 4790 based on Butterick 6015 from 1952. It's a very simple one piece, ingeniously designed wrap dress. It's also a cult classic among vintage stitchers and a great project for beginners. A quick Google Image search will find you dozens of interesting variations of this pattern. This is a Retro re-issue modern pattern so it is sized in modern sizes. Also, this pattern has a lot of added ease so you may want to cut it one size smaller.

Here is a small history on this classic pattern:

During the 1950's, Butterick experienced a phenomenon it had not known since the 'Garibaldi Suit' of the late 1860's. It was pattern 6015, and it was dubbed the 'walk-away' dress, because it was so easy you could "Start it after breakfast... walk-away in it for luncheon!".

It's simple yet flattering wrap design and easy construction were what made it so popular. Sales of the pattern were so great, that at one point manufacturing of all other patterns ceased, and only the 'walk-away' dress was produced until all back-orders for this dress could be filled.

Here are some past issues of the Walkaway Dress which has been in circulation in some form since it was originally issued in 1952:

As you can see you can shorten the pattern also to give it a more modern look.

This pattern is sized 8 to 14 in modern sewing pattern sizes.

This Giveaway is International. 

Rules to enter my Giveaway:

1. Leave a comment below with your e-mail included and formatted like this:

Suesmith(at)gmail(dotcom)

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Good luck!

This Giveaway will be open until Sunday night.

Projects in The Works for July

Do you ever have one of those weeks were you have so many things to accomplish, it feels like you are working non stop, but not finishing anything ? My life in nutshell this week. Here are a few of the projects I am working on:

 Obviously, I've overburdened myself !

1. Refinishing my dining room table and some chairs found at a thrift shop last week. The top of the table will be a dark walnut and the legs will be painted Sherwin Williams Creamy, then antiqued and glazed. There is a tutorial for how to do it on the Miss Mustard Seed blog .

2. Recovering the beat up cushions for the patio table and chairs which I finished spray painting. But now I have to sand the bricks around the table because they turned sort of whitish from the spray paint although there was a drop cloth under the table. Can you see the whitish ring?

3. Fitting this sixties dress pattern which I used some of my flea market fabric on. Something tells me this is going to end up in the unfinished pile for the time being.

4. Making several batches of jam to put up. Unfortunately, the fruit won't wait for a quieter week.

5. Working on ideas for a vintage sewing fashion I am creating for a Catholic pregnancy resource center's charity luncheon in September. I'll be sewing at least two styles of dresses from each decade from the thirties through the seventies as well as using some vintage and refashioned dresses to complete the show. I'm planning on using some old unused yellow gingham, yellow eyelet, pink fifties fabrics, and vintage bedsheets, some of which were donated to me by Mabels's former owner's son. I hope I can pull it off. Eeek!

Here is my first project for the collection. A yellow gingham fifties style housedress cut out on my table.

6. I will be blogging about this project for the next couple of months so stay tuned to see what I come up with!

 I also have to announce that I won Debis pattern giveaway over at My Happy Sewing Place. It's a gorgeous draped 1940 pattern and I will be making it for the show with the 3/4 sleeved version since it will still be so hot here in Southern California in September. Debi blogs from Scotland and makes beautiful vintage creations. She is a super talented lass, she is! To see her blog click here.

Thanks Debi!

Meet Mabel, My 1948 Kenmore 117.959

I found her on Craigslist. I wasn't looking for her but ended up taking her home anyway. My new, old sewing machine!  

My 1982 thrift shop Bernina had just sputtered her last breath. She just COMPLETELY conked out. The poor old girl could only take so much abuse, I guess. Well, I haven't given up on her but it will be a little while before I can get her to the shop. I have a feeling it might be a dead motor. I got a lot out of her for my twenty five dollars, poor thing. I made the wedding dress on her without a snag and for that I will be forever grateful.

In the meanwhile, I had been reading on various blogs, particularly, Male Pattern Boldness, about how beautiful the straight stitch of some of the old machines are. No, they don't have the zig zag stitch, but I could always make a clean finished seam which is a lot neater looking.

I found my 1948 Kenmore when I was hunting down vintage patterns on Craigslist. Yes, I am one of those wierdos who doesn't bat an eyelid to drive thirty miles to get some old patterns at a dollar a piece. I once had my mom meet a guy at a gas station in Long Beach to pick up a stash of forties and fifties patterns. Gotta love you mom, and you drove a hard bargain too!

Tom was a retired fireman whose beloved mother had recently died. He was cleaning out his mother's condo for an estate sale. I could tell he was bereft at the loss of his mother, or maybe he was a serial killer waiting for his next victim? He told me about the machine, but I passed on trying it out because  my baby was sleeping in the car. I had him bring the patterns outside to the curb so I could look through them. Of course, it turned out he was as nice as could be but you never can be too careful when buying things off Craigslist!

Well, he called back the next week and said he and his wife were still organizing the sale and would I like to try the machine out before the estate sale ? 

I said yes, I would try it out, being curious about these old machines. After about a half hour of reading the manual and trying to figure out how to load the bobbin and thread the machine, I got it running. Tom's mother had been very neat and tidy, the drawers of the desk were well organized, and the notions looked as if they had been just placed there recently, and hadn't been there for years. It was a bit like a time capsule to me. I pressed against the knee pedal. The stitches were beautiful and well aligned. My late model Viking Husqvarna Freesia stitches are not nearly this straight and even. I can finally topstitch!

It came with a big desk loaded with accesories and fancy presser feet. The drawers were chock full of vintage trims, zippers, and other sewing accoutrements. It even came with a nifty buttonholing attachment, which I have yet to figure out. To be honest, I  have yet to figure out any of the attachments.

But the machine and the table were maybe a little utilitarian for my taste? It doesn't quite go with my French Country decor. I was hoping for something more streamlined, and perhaps a less clunky sewing table.

Well ,Tom told me he would  cut the price in half and knew his mom's machine would be going to a good home if I bought it. That line works every time! Being the softie I am, and sensing a good deal, I was won over and brought it home.

My kids think she's rather plain, not sensing her inherent beauty yet. There she sits in my dining room. I think I'll call her Mabel..

1960's Bikini: Advance 3169

I have a hard time finding bathing suits that fit properly. I wanted a two piece but something more modest. Vintage bathing suits have a lot of style plus they give good coverage. I found the top to my bathing suit at a little shop in town that's almost never open. It's from the forties or fifties and made of a woven hawaiian fabric. I wanted to make some bottoms to go with the top so I used some black cotton broadcloth for the outside and yellow shirting for the lining I had bought at the thrift shop next door. The pattern I chose to use for my bottoms was Advance 3169 from the sixties. Why not mix up the decades?

These bottoms were almost as complicated as an evening dress! There are 4 darts in the front, 8 darts in the back, elastic on the back of the legs, and elastic also in an enclosed waist casing sandwiched between the lining and the black outer fabric. The bikini bottom is entirely lined and closes with a center back zip and a hook and eye. One I learned about working with this vintage pattern is that woven bikinis of yesteryear were often cut on the bias giving them more stretch. It uses up more fabric but makes the fit subtly more comfortable. If the bottoms were cut on the straight of grain they would feel a lot more constricted.

I really enjoyed wearing this bathing suit to the beach yesterday because it felt substantial, and it held in my mommy tummy!  I would have liked to do a photoshoot there but couldn't risk having my toddler get sand in my lens. My last camera unfortunately was ruined at the beach.

I'm loving this higher waistline.

I do plan on making the matching top still. But I will have to adjust the fit by doing a FBA.

Here is a photo of the pattern used for the bottoms

I'm showing the directions because I think old pattern directions are neat and to show many how many steps are involved for a relatively small garment!

European Grain Sacks Pillows

Home sewing isn't really my thing for some reason. It's a lot easier than making clothes but it does seem to be something I am always putting off for another day. My pillows were actually getting threadbare so I decided to make some new ones.

I realize I'm not breaking any new ground here with these pillows so bear with me.

I actually had the idea a few years ago when it was still a new trend  and bought this grain sack then for about ten dollars but I never got around to the project till now. This grain sack has probably been around over a hundred years so what was a few more, right? In my opinion the look is rustic, elegant,and timeless. European grain sacks have gone way up in price recently, as many of you probably already know, going from upwards of fifty dollars online. 

I felt a bit guilty for cutting up something so old and that is why I think I took so long to make this project!

It's such a simple style to make. I just made a plain square out of the grain sack and sewed two pieces of leftover linen overlapping for the back, adding some thrifted wooden buttons from my stash. I got three pillows out of this grain sack. It was a smaller one, just a bit bigger than a king size pillowcase. By covering only the front with the sack and the back with the linen you can spread the sack farther.

 After making these pillows I realized home sewing is so much simpler than clothes sewing, so I have more projects lined up. I had a bad experience making some heavy canvas slipcovers for my sofa a few years go. Several broken needles and a jammed up machine.

If you would like to make pillows like this but don't have your own grain sacks it's easy to fake them with drop cloths, or a thick rough looking linen and fabric paint. You use painters tape to plot the blue or red lines and paint the lines on. The drop cloth fabric or thick linen is similar to the grain sack fabric. I'm going to try it for some cushions I'm making on my outdoor patio set.

So readers, what types of sewing do YOU avoid?

Linking to:

Tea Rose Home
No Minimalist Here

RIP To My Slaughtered Hens

Happy fourth of July to all my American readers!

Today we are going to a block party in the town nearby. It's one of the only towns in California left where fireworks are still allowed. Rumor has it that some of the folks over there smuggle up illegal fireworks from Mexico. Last year at this same party a tree got burned down because someone shot a bottle rocket off and it landed in the poor tree.

Speaking of poor creatures today was a sad day around here. My husband had some business acquaintances meet him at our place so they could all go to a shooting range nearby.One of the fellows brought his dog and left him at our house. Apparently, I was going to be dog sitter . The dogs seemed to be getting along well, so I left them outside to go drop off Izzy at a music festival. On my way back I stopped at a church rummage sale. They gave me a trash bag and said I could fill it up for five dollars. As you can imagine, I stayed for awhile. I got some vintage dresses to add to a fashion show I am doing in September,some pretty gingham and cotton fabrics,and a 1969 Ken doll Lily found!

Well back to my story... Someone, and I'm not naming names, left the henhouse door ajar unbeknownst to me.The hens are usually locked up until the afternoon because if you let them out earlier they will go lay eggs in the bushes. On returning home I saw a dead hen in the driveway.I started to walk around the property and there were dead hens everywhere. It was a morbid sight so I made the girls go in the house. Poor Lily was in tears.I couldn't really blame the dog because he wasn't trained to be nice to chickens like my dogs are. But did he have to go and kill them all?

Actually we found the rooster and two hens later hiding, so at least they aren't all gone. They were good gals,and gave us some delicious eggs.

The dogs owner was sick with guilt as they walked around, putting the chickens in a bag. Well, it wasn't his fault but it was a pretty awkward situation since it was the first time I had met him. He is a business executive and lives an hour away in the city and thought he could bring his dog out to the country. Well, I guess he won't forget having to pick up dead chickens anytime soon!

Someone at church asked if I was going to eat them now that they are dead anyway. I couldn't bring myself to do it. Why can I not think twice about buying chickens at the market but I cant eat any of our chickens?

Hypocritical,isn't it?

Gigi's Circus Dress: Using Quilting Cottons

Last year when I got back into sewing I became crazy about quilting cottons. Since then I've realized that quilting cottons are really lousy to make clothing with. Although they come in great prints and I'm crazy about color and prints, they are stiff as cardboard and have terrible draping qualities. Unfortunately I bought a lot of it thinking I would grow a kids clothing empire and sell my creations on Etsy. As many of you know, selling on Etsy isn't as easy as it sounds. There my fabric sits, taking up a big plastic bin. So I have been trying to use it up by making aprons, headbands, and things for Gigi.

I call this dress Gigi's Circus Dress because I think she looks like a little clown in it. We went to Circus Vargas in Ventura last week and took some photos there. Gigi never stops moving and isn't much of a smiler but that's part of her charm. She is a tough little gal!  She turned two last month. I don't think she is a particularly small child but according to McCall's Pattern Company she wears a size 1 year. So I sewed up the size 1 according to her measurements and it was still HUGE on her. I had to safety pin the back  because the neckline was SO large. I think a size 9 months would have probably fit better. And I KNOW she is not the size of your average nine month old!

McCall's what is up with all your added ease? Do I have to make a muslin for a baby dress? I won't give you this pattern number because I can't find the envelope and I think it was a disaster, although anything looks cute on a toddler. Seriously! OK, enough with my rant.

Have a great sewing weekend!

I"m off to pick up some dining chairs I bought at a second hand shop. I'm planning on painting them with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. This month I will be doing lots of home DIY projects. Things have been getting a little worn around here and it's time to spruce things up. 

We also are going out back now to pick our first batch of nectarines to make some nectarine jam.

So I would love to hear how YOU feel about using quilting cottons for clothing you make. Do you enjoy working with it or not?

Linking to 

The Girl Creative

Be Different Act Normal
Making The World Cuter Monday