The Beach Bra Sewing Pattern

Ooooh boy do I have something cool to show you! I paid a fortune to get my hands on this little pattern and it was totally worth it. Readers, may I introduce you to the other love of my life, the beach bra pattern:

This little lovely bit of 1950's heaven came from a supplement, instead of an actual pattern. It was a breeze to make up and only took me about 4 hours.

I have all sorts of plans for this little baby including adding a skirt to make a dress out of it, sewing it with a contrast collar, and hopefully finding another vintage pattern to make matching bathing suit bottoms as well. The options are endless.
And I just couldn't keep it to myself. So I made it into a PDF (8 hours of hell on earth working with photoshop: not in my repertoire of talents) and it's for sale in my etsy shop. All proceeds will go towards the purchase of an excellent wig to replace all the hair I pulled out whilst trying to make a multi-page pdf.
All that aside, I'm really happy with how this little gem turned out:

The pattern has 3 very well placed darts that actually didn't pucker when placed over my meager bosom (darts always pucker on me).

This makes me want to go swimming, and also makes me sad that I live in a country where summer is all of five minutes long.

Here's a little peak at the layout. Instead of pinning everything twice, I just traced copies of my pattern pieces so I could pin and cut them all at once.

For the long pattern piece that you draft per the pattern instructions, I just made two and taped them together, as opposed to more complicated cutting instructions.

The collar looks more complicated than it is, and the pattern came with great illustrations drawn right on the pattern pieces to help you puzzle out placement.

Naturally, it doesn't fit my dress form as well as it fits me, because Slut Jane II has bigger boobs than me.

I will be making this again, and again, and again.............

Have you heard about Pattern Rescue?

For today's post I would love to share with all of you a great resource for home sewers, vintage pattern collectors, aficionados, and sellers.
It's an organization called Pattern Rescue run by a small network of volunteers who have dedicated their time to restoring and preserving vintage sewing patterns. They do it for no profit and really just want great sewing patterns to be preserved for the enjoyment and education of future generations.
Their web site features many options for the collector, and for the volunteer.

Photo from patternrescue.com

Restore: Once you've registered with the site, you can take advantage of their help in restoring your vintage pattern. Is your favorite pattern incomplete? Are you missing pieces or instructions? You can fill out a request form and the word goes out to all of the members. Hopefully, a volunteer has that pattern and can send you a copy of what you're missing, or there are random extra pieces just like the one you need filed away in the Pattern Rescue archives that will be sent to you.

Photo from patternrescue.com

Preserve: On this page there are pictures of patterns that need to be restored, that are missing pieces or instructions etc. This is where volunteers can send a copy or an original of what's missing to complete the restoration process. By doing this you can earn points that can be used towards free patterns! For example, I just saw that the pattern below needs some missing pieces, and I just happen to have this one in my collection. So I'll be sending an email in to let them know that I'm willing to copy whatever the pattern needs and send it in. They'll get back to me with what the pattern needs and voila! There's one less incomplete, sad little pattern out there in the world. It gives me warm fuzzies thinking about it.

Photo from patternrescue.com

You can also trade points for patterns on the Trade page, post information about a pattern that you're desperately trying to get your hands on, or donate just about anything pattern related to Pattern Rescue for restoration and completion. I'm going to be sending a package to them with patterns that I have no need for, don't wish to sell, some need to be completed, some are just extra pattern pieces with no envelope and no home.

I hope that you'll join and volunteer or take advantage of some of the wonderful help that they offer to us pattern people.

Mail Call

Living at a faraway post here in Norway as military can make getting your mail a complicated task to say the least. The military does whatever they can to save us money and difficulty when we're overseas and APO boxes are one of those many boons I could not do without. Our mail goes to New York where the cost of shipping it overseas is picked up by the Air Force, then our mail jumps through a series of hoops before finally ending up at our base post office.

Photo from http://ozebook.com/wordpress/?p=69

So naturally Mike picks up the mail every day while he's at work and brings it home every evening. This is my favorite time of day. Not only does my handsome husband come home, he comes bringing packages of loot!
I get the greatest stuff in the mail. Between my endless hunt for the perfect pattern online, my many purchases of fabric from various sources, and the EPIC care packages my mom sends full of vintage buttons, trims, silks, dresses, and accessories, Mail Call, as I like to think of it, is fan-freaking-tastic at our house.
So today I'll share what I got in the mail.

Today's loot was great. From ebay I acquired "Art of Dressmaking" published by Butterick in 1927.

Without further ado...

I give you the lovely slip that I finally got pictures of. It's really hard to take quality blog photos when your current country of residence has some sort of sunshine deficiency. Hurrah for one day of sun!
Mike went out of town for the weekend  and while he as gone I took advantage of the fact that I can't sleep when he's gone and whipped this baby up over night. It took about 5 or 6 hours maybe.

I made this using the most divine satin I've ever had my hands on. It's 100% rayon crepe back and feels like heaven.
Wrinkles like the devil, though.

I had fun doing the gathers at the bust which I find rather advantageous with a figure that has a boob deficiency. For this little beauty I used Simplicity 1144. From the envelope: "Misses' and Women's Slip and Panties: A top-stitched inset joins the softly gathered upper front to the bias-cut lower front. The upper back, shaped in a V at the lower edge, is top-stitched to the bias-cut lower back."

Simplicity 1144.

Vintage Find of the Week

Or something to that effect. Today we have the lovely wool plaid skirt that I scorned twice, returned to try on weeks later, and fell in love with.

With a t-shirt that has cupcakes on it, of course. It's a wee bit too tight and I already moved the hook and eye in the back over a bit, but still... I limit myself to only 6 hours of wearing it or my ribs hurt too much the next day. That tells you a bit about the extent to which I will suffer for fashion.

 

As  you admire this shot of my bum looking so full and fantastic, what is the best thrift shop find that you can remember finding?

Skirt: Fretex (Norwegian Salvation Army) 30 Nok, ($5).

T-Shirt: Fantastic gift from a  fantastic friend.

Cable Knit tights: H&M

Vintage Patent Black Belt: $1 thrift-ed in the States.

Bathing Suit Roundup.

I recently got into a bidding war on ebay over the most gorgeous 1950's bathing suit pattern.

But can you blame me? This baby is gorgeous! The auction went up to $57 and I just couldn't justify it for one pattern. Why? Because I live in Norway where in the summer, we have 'bathing suit weather' for about 2 days but the water always remains ice cold.
So instead, I dream of moving to Florida and wearing gorgeous suits like these.

Simplicity 1607

Vintage Find of the Week

Well, not find of the week, really, since I seldom make it into town and the thrift shops are run by a bunch of vintage Nazis with a price gouging habit. More like vintage find of never.
But anyways, don't you just love that feeling of seeing a rack full of clothing, and your eye just seems to zoom directly to the perfect 1/4" of a divine vintage print peeking through the god-awful 1980's metallic turquoise and black velvet ranks.

That's what this print did for me, and my heart did a little flutter as I pulled it off the rack, just knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that it would fit perfectly. I love that smug feeling of pulling it on, not because you were worried it wouldn't fit, but just because you couldn't wait to see how good it would look on you, and knowing you were right.
Who cares if it's over priced Nazi vintage? It's meant for my smug vintage closet regardless.

 

What's up for next time? A vintage pattern make up in gorgeous rose colored rayon satin:

Stay tuned.