Adventures in Sewing... Part 5

Some of you might remember that I have a rather large collection of vintage sewing pattern flyers from companies like Butterick, Simplicity, McCall's and Vogue. They are great sources of information, good for researching patterns and styles from all sorts of eras.
Among my collection are several McCall Style News Booklets, some of which I have digitized in my Etsy shop. My favorite part about these is that in the late 1940's, many of them included little snippet articles with great sewing tips.

These little articles were usually a one page feature called "Adventures in Sewing" by Marian Corey, author of the 1951 "McCall's Complete Book of Dressmaking".

When I first started A Few Threads Loose, I shared a few of these in a series of posts and today I have finally found another to share!

 Today's Adventures in Dressmaking lesson comes from McCall Style News from June, 1948.

The lesson in question shows you how to face and stabilize scallops. This is a handy thing to know how to do and can be used for scallop hems, scallop trim closures, and other uniquely shaped facings.
Here is a close-up:

The dress being mentioned is McCall 7294, worn by the lovely lady in the middle of the picture below. Should you ever be lucky enough to find this pattern, you'll have a hand tutorial for the hardest part!

Adventures in Sewing... Part 4

Today I have for you another edition of Adventures in Sewing By Marian Corey!

This time the lesson comes to us from McCall Style News November 1946 flyer.

The topic is saddle stitching which we see so much of in vintage sewing patterns. Here's the blown up text.

And here's another lovely image from the 24 page flyer, the drop-dead gorgeous McCall 6686.

Also something you might be interested in is Short Cuts to Sewing Success - 1944 -  By DuBarry Patterns.

I have a copy and it's fantastic, and there's one for sale on etsy right now for a good price.

Adventures in Sewing... Part 3

Today fro your reading pleasure, I have another Adventures in Sewing article from McCall's Style News from September 1947!

This one is all about making pattern markings on your fabric, and the many different ways of doing it. I showed this article once before, but I think it's valid to what I wanted to mention about dart making.

Although the illustration has a creepy girl with her head backwards on her body, the article has some great ideas. Here's a blow up of the text:

Have you ever tried chalking your markings before? I have a little Dritz chalk wheel that I find indispensable on dark fabric.

This is great, but for making darts, I use pins as that article suggested. First I mark the two outer legs of the darts with pins, and then I stick a pin through the bottom so it sticks out of the top of my pattern piece at the point of the dart.

Remove the pattern paper and you have this:

I then flip it over so it looks like this:

And then fold it so that the pins are the outside edge:

And pin it, with the pins facing the wide end of the dart, so that I can sew, tapering to a point for a smoother dart.

What's your favorite method of marking your fabric?

Update: Here's a really great video from Threads on making a very nice looking dart: http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/9496/mark-a-dart-and-learn-a-no-tie-finish

Adventures in Sewing... Part 2

Today for your sewing educational pleasure, here's another Adventures in Sewing by Marian Corey. This one was featured in McCall's Style News of July 1953.

He're a close-up of the text in case you're as blind as I am!

This is super helpful if you're a larger bust size than your original pattern. In my case, I'm often a size or two smaller but luckily you can employ the exact same method for taking your pattern in at the bust too!