Monday, November 2, 2015

Cass - The twin dress

Why hello there long time readers and those of you who have wandered over from Allie J!

Not too long ago (ok it was ages ago I'm really bad at writing back to emails in a timely fashion) Allie contacted me and suggested we do a little sew a long. As fellow 60's lovers we often don't get the chance to sew along to many things lest we step outside our "time zones" so we decided to make up our own!

So with an opportunity to sew something cute for summer and also share something from my vintage fabric stash, I sent Allie half of my stock of this fabulous vintage cotton and we set ourselves a challenge end date of November 1st



Now it is actually November 2nd so I'm late for posting too, but I felt terribly feverish last night and had to go to bed. In fact I was already feeling icky while taking these photos. 


After sending off half of my fabric I was left with two metres to sew with, so with summer coming it was obvious that I could only really make a sleeveless dress. For my version I picked Simplicity 7952 from 1968.


I really liked this fabric for the interesting pocket detail along the princess seams.

Allie's version uses Simplicity 7194 which I also used for my Sally dress so we both have dresses that feature princess seams, which can be a real trick to sew sometimes but hey, no risk of pointy bust darts!


I cut this dress at the normal size 14 and it ended up huge! Like a size 18 which was so wack! So I put it on inside out and pinned out the sides and the front middle seam until it fit right at the front


Unfortunately this means that the back has a wide scoop neck which is lower then normal, which is fine, but its just not something I normally like, but it works just fine!


Cause of the fabric limit I didn't have enough to cut the armhole facings and being a summer dress there was no way I was going to line this and make it a sweat-fest every time I wore it, so I left it unlined and just finished the arm holes with bias 



I think both our dresses turned our pretty gosh darn sweet don't you? We both have some cute striped fabric lined up from Miss Matatabi. I'd love to have that sewn up before our weekend away in Palm Beach (If your from Sydney and have seen the series Avalon now, you might find that funny)
And just like Allie I have a bruise too (on my knee), but mine is from making an epic goal save in soccer! hehe

I believe there may have been mentions of possible further twin dresses soon, perhaps a wintery one cause I basically made poor Allie make a summer dress in Autumn!

Be sure to check out Allie's Lilly dress and also her whole blog! Its a 60s dream!

Cat xo 

13 comments:

  1. What a cool idea. This is the perfect little summer dress and the fabric is great. I'd definitely be up for a vintage sewing challenge in the future as well! x

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's such a beautiful fabric and the dress looks such a perfect fit! I've had the same issue before where a dress has turned out WAY bigger than labelled. You really wouldn't guess you had trouble with it though, it looks perfect!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Aren't we cute?? I love the way your dress turned out, despite the wacky sizing! It's lucky it had that center front seam already and you didn't have to mess with the pockets--they're so great!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is adorable- a perfect summer dress. I love the idea of the fabric share!

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a lovely thing to do! Sharing that fabulous fabric is a great idea, and both dresses are great. I fancy making a frock with princess seams, I've never tried that before. I love how your dress turned out, the scooped back looks really good even if it wasn't intentional! xxx

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great pockets! Love the style lines of this dress so much :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. fabulous, amazing fabric and brilliant idea...... great pattern, it has lovely shaping, simplicity 60s and 70s patterns are so especially effective

    ReplyDelete
  8. Love the pocket detail and the fabric. It's a really cute dress, and having twin dresses seems really funny

    ReplyDelete
  9. Love the fabric. And the shaping of those pockets is amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  10. That's a great idea and a wonderful dress. I love the fabric so much.
    Hope you feel loads better! xxx

    ReplyDelete
  11. I've really enjoyed reading your blog this year. All the best for 2016!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Marvelous print - and the pockets add a very attractive element to the garment.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for your comment! Please do not comment anonymously - feel free to use the Name/URL option instead as I’d still love to hear from you xo

*Spam comments will be swiftly deleted, so please do not bother

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.