Vintage 911: Shrink My Dress

Vintage 911 before...and after.

Just recently a totally awesome coworker gave me this amazing vintage dress. I immediately fell in love with the print. I mean, it's got it all: umbrellas, toucans, starfish, a startled lady in a swim cap  -- it's just the most adorable thing ever. The prob? There was just a little too much fabric. Everywhere. A nip/tuck was in order.

Upon close examination, I found that this dress was entirely hand sewn. Can you imagine? In high school, when I was sewing-machine-less, I hand stitched the hem of a skirt. The process and the end result were equally painful.

 When thinking of how I would alter this dress, my first thought was to simply take in the sides and be done with it. However, that proved to be impossible for a couple of reasons. One, the dress only had a top button at the back of the neck. If the dress was altered to be form fitting, there would be no getting in and out of it. Two, the dress was pretty poorly crafted. I mean, it was hand sewn, the seamstress did what she could. But I wanted to do this dress up right. So, no short cuts. No slight modifications. This was gonna need to be a complete redo.

 I began by dissecting the dress. This was so hard to do as I wasn't sure exactly how this was going to end. I couldn't bear the thought of facing my work buddy knowing that I'd needlessly slaughtered her dress. Despite my sweaty palms and worry, I hacked away.

After cutting the back of the dress from top to bottom, I then took out the seam connecting the bodice to the skirt.

The original dress had a bodice that was gathered at the waist. I prefer a darted bodice, so I got out the dress pattern that I've used here, here, here and here. This cleaned up the bodice and created a more fitted look.

The sides were still wide, so I pinned and altered on my mannequin, as seen in the photo on the right.

 To be certain I took in an equal amount on both sides, I created a tissue pattern. I sewed along the line of the tissue paper, trimmed and ironed open.

 Once the bodice was complete, I was ready to add the skirt. Before I did, I took up 3 1/2" from the bottom. I then baste stitched two rows at the top of the skirt so that I could gather it.

I gathered the skirt to fit the bodice, pinned it like mad and stitched it to the bodice as seen on the right.

Gotta love a wind-created crinoline.

And, viola! Couple hours later and the dress was complete.

After adding even bigger darts on the second fitting, the dress fit much better.

Putting in the zipper was the last step. I used the zipper/tape trick again and it worked great. This dress has a beautiful pearl button at the top that I was able to keep in the dress.

Now, with the dress complete, I need your help: do I keep the parts of the dress that come off the shoulders (on left) or get rid of them (on right)? Hubs is leaning toward the look on the right...while I'm not sure if I want to take away from that wide collar.

So, what's your vote? You can cast your vote at the top of this page on the right. The last time we played this game, I was seriously out-voted (gee, thanks guys). After you vote, feel free to leave me a comment and lemme know what you think. Thanks for playing!

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What the Art Teacher Wore #33

Purple Tuesday: Can you find what's wrong in this picture? How about my dress...notice anything unusual? When I was getting dressed Tuesday morning, I foolishly tugged on a little loose string at the bottom of my dress. Once at school, someone pointed out that my hem was coming undone (after I'd snapped this photo). Geez, I wonder why.  A work buddy helped me tape that hem back into place. You get to know someone really well when you lift up the tail end of your skirt in front of 'em. dress: Anthropologie, new with tags, my favorite Goodwill score to date; shoes: John Fluevog

Well, Happy End of the Week to you, kids! I totally enjoyed having last Monday off in celebration of Labor Day. Did you notice there wasn't an outfit photo for Monday? Yeah, I bounced between four different looks that day: pajamas, exercise clothes, yard working clothes and back to pajamas. Thought I'd spare you.

So included in this short What I Wore this Week is one of my favorite fabric designers: Florence Broadhurst. Because I'm toying with the idea of creating my own fabric, I've been pouring over the designs of some of my faves. My bedside table currently has a stack of fabric design books and Florence is at the top of the pile. If you've not heard of her, I highly recommend Florence Broadhurst: Her Secret and Extraordinary Lives.

Florence Broadhurst in her Paddington (an eastern suburb of Sydney, Australia) wallpaper design studio, early 1970's. Her vibrant and outlandish designs were a complete reflection of her character. All images pulled from pinterest.

Florence lived more lives than a cat. Born in 1899, she grew into adulthood during the roaring '20's. In full flapper garb, she toured Southeast Asian and China in various singing and comedy troupes. In her later designs, the influence of Asian art is strong.

Brown Wednesday: That's right, we are still wearing colors this week with kindergarten. This totally helped me get dressed in the mornings...although I've missed wearing my Frenchy-themed garb. dress: vintage, picked up at an antique store in high school; shoes: Frye

Always the entrepreneur, Florence established The Broadhurst Academy where she taught voice and instrument lessons in Shanghai. From there she moved on to England where she married, divorced, remarried and had a son. When World War II hit, she volunteered to help.

One of my favorite Broadhurst designs. At her wallpaper design facility in the late 1960's and 70's, this print could have been purchased on metallic paper. This was completely revolutionary at the time.

Black and White (with a pop of color) Thursday: top: vintage, thrifted. I love it's Matisse-esque design; skirt: Target; shoes: Softee

When reading about Florence, I found that many of the 800 wallpaper designs were not actually created by her. Her eyesight was failing and the task of creating all of those designs would have been impossible.  So she hired graduates from local art schools to come work for her. Some of  their designs she would claim to be her own. For photo ops like the one above, the palette and the brushes where simply props.

That's not to say she didn't have a heavy hand in the direction of the designs. This is another one of my faves.

Wear Your Favorite Color Day: Turquoise! dress: vintage, thrifted; belt: gift from a friend (thank you, Anna!); shoes: Anthropologie

Florence with all of the designs created in her studio. I love her vibrant fashion sense (dyed bright red hair, oh yeah!), even well into her 70's. She was known among her friends for her flamboyant style. Sadly she was murdered outside of her studio in 1977. Her murderer was never found and the reason is still a mystery.

Regardless, her designs are such an inspiration. I find them to be so beautiful and modern looking. Have you heard of Florence Broadhurst? Do you have a fave fabric designer?

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy your upcoming week. Mine is going to be spook-tacular! More details soon.

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