1940's Bra Sew-Along: Where to get your supplies...

Alright then, my dears, it's time to collect our bra-making materials!
Since this is a vintage-inspired bra pattern, the materials won't be quite too hard to find. No need to hunt down underwires or anything like that.

So, here is a list of what you'll need:

1. The pattern. 
2. 1/2 yard of 35" or wider muslin fabric for testing the fit.
3. 1/2 yard of 35" or wider light to medium weight woven (non-stretch) fabric for the outer. I recommend soft cotton or lawn, satin, silk or rayon crepe, or even charmeuse.
4. 1/2 yard of lining fabric (if you choose to line, that is.) I recommend lightweight woven (non-stretch) cotton lawn but the general rule of thumb is, if you don't want it touching your girls, don't line a bra with it.
5. Purchased bra straps. You can use medium to heavy weight ribbon, but adjustable straps are so easy to just sew in.
6. 1/4 yard of plush-backed hook and eye tape, preferably adjustable with at least 2 sets of eyes.
7. Matching thread.

The kit includes enough fabric to test, sew and line your bra, straps, closures, thread, and the pattern.

But if you're not up for white satin, here are a few places I recommend:
Bra Maker's Supply (great for straps and closures).
Sew Sassy Fabrics (great for fabrics and notions).
Etsy.com (great for fabrics and notions).


Once you've got your materials, just leave a comment on this post to let me know you're ready to get started. Keep in mind that sew-alongs don't need to have deadlines, and if you're busy now, or if you need at 2 week break in the middle, the posts will ALWAYS be here on A Few Threads Loose and you can follow along to sew your bra any time that works for your schedule!
Don't forget that you can always leave comments if you have a question about anything - materials, tips, tricks, posts etc. - I'm here to help and there is no such thing as a stupid question here!

This Sew Along is now complete. Click below for each post.

1940's Bra Sew-Along - Sewing Your Muslin

1940's Bra Sew-Along - Adjusting Bra Cups

1940's Bra Sew-Along - How to face pattern pieces and lining options.

1940's Bra Sew-Along - Sewing the real thing.

1940's Bra Sew-Along - Finishing edges and adding straps.

1940' Bra Sew-Along - Finishing with a closure.

Happy sewing,

A Fabric Encyclopedia

In my long experience working with vintage sewing books and patterns, I have come across quite a few fabric terms that have been a mystery to me. Many of the terms included below might not often be seen outside of a 1920s hat pattern, or a 1930s dressmaking book.

For this post I have consulted several resources including websites and many of my antique sewing books to help you make sense of some of the fabric terms you might see in your sewing adventures. This includes fibers as well as weaves. To make it a bit more clear, they are color coded as follows: Weaving Processes, Fibers, Fabrics and Finishes.

If you have a mystery fabric in your possession, check out this amazing burn test chart to help you discover which fibers you might be dealing with!

If you have any terms to add, just leave a comment. I'll try to update this post regularly to make it as helpful as possible!

And the winner is...

Hello lovely readers. Today is Monday, and you know what that means. It's time to announce the winner of the giveaway for my new sewing pattern!

And the lucky winner is: JacieKakes! You can email me afewthreadsloose@gmail.com and I'll send you your pattern! Jacie also happens to have started writing a blog recently and I found myself giggling at the clever way she describes things. You should really check it out! Jacie also commented that the next pattern she would like to see from Mrs. Depew Vintage would be a Geisha style robe like the one in this picture:

And I have to say, you're totally right! This is gorgeous and I've been wanting to do a robe pattern for the longest time! Wow, Lana turner... what a babe.

On my last visit home I recently acquired a beautiful cream silk charmeuse robe almost exactly like this. The lovely thing was coming apart at the seams and I spent most of the last two days carefully hand stitching it back together. Now it's soaking in my laundry room sink and I'm hoping some old stains will work their way out (any tips?)

I'm thinking about starting with a pattern from one of my old German pattern magazines and working my way out from there. What do you think of this one? (robe/ nightgown on the left)

Which leads me to a very important question that I would really like your input on. A robe pattern would be a great deal larger to print out as a digital pattern than what I've done thus far. To save paper and ink for the seamstress using it, I could overlap pattern pieces onto the same sheet (much like a Burda pattern sheet, only with one pattern). My question is, if you've already gone to the trouble of printing it out, is too inconvenient to also have to trace a few pattern pieces off? Or is the right pattern worth all the trouble?

And in other news, here's a quick sneak peak at what I'm working on right now:

If you didn't win the bathing suit pattern and would still like a copy, you can download it directly from my Craftsy shop, (yay instant download!) or you can find it in my Artfire shop, and my Etsy shop.

And don't forget to stop by Ohhh Lulu... to enter the giveaway to win her beautiful new Betty High Waist Panties pattern (yay Sarah!). I've already got my pattern and I'm off to the fabric shop (I've nickname the place, 'the mess') tomorrow to get supplies!

How about you? What are you working on this week?

Looking for a little color!

As much as I love my new sewing studio, I can't help but feel that it's just TOO white.

I have decided to decorate the hell out of it much in the same manner as these beautiful sewing rooms:

Photo from Allsorts.

Image from AllPeopleQuilt

My Sewing Space

We have been blessed that every assignment we get sent to, my sewing room just get's better and better. I was lucky enough to have a dedicated sewing room in our last two homes but our new home just takes the cake. Here I started out with a somewhat small second bedroom to work in (lucky thing about being so far away in Norway, I seldom have to make room for guests in my sewing space.)

My sweet husband noticed that I had spent less time sewing than usual in my new space and he suggested that it was too cramped, and that I should spread out. We have a large upstairs landing and he helped me turn my studio from a one dark room to a large open bright space, plus a room for the overflow!

 

 I'm so happy to have a big open space with plenty of light to work. And at my back I have a great big sewing table with adjustable length, my birthday gift for this year.

I plan on filling the walls with sewing pattern and vintage fashion memorabilia.

A 1950's Anne Adams catalog, the first of many to be hung in this room.

 The art is a collection of vintage lingerie magazine ads from Vogue that I acquired from this great shop on etsy.

This one is my absolute favorite.

The bolt of fabric in the background of this one is just idea for a sewing room!

UPDATE: You ask, where do I stash my fabric and sewing pattern collection? In the adjoining room! That's right, when he said spread out, he meant I should use the landing and the second bedroom. The fabric and pattern mess is neatly stowed away in the next room! I asked him why he didn't mind me practically taking over our second floor and he said, "Why would I mind? You love this stuff, and I only go upstairs to shower and sleep."
What a guy. :)

How about you? Do you have your dream sewing space? Or are you creative within a limited space?
I know what I'm doing with my space today. I just got some amazing quilted silk velvet fabric in the mail from fabric.com

and I'll be making slippers today from it using this great vintage slipper pattern pdf I finished recently.

More about the sew along, and some lingerie fabric choices.

Hello everyone,
I'm a bit behind on the sew along (seems to happen to everyone, I've noticed). I sometimes moonlight as the world's greatest substitute teacher and I've had a full week of 6th graders on my hands. But enough about my distractions. I was just given a blog award by the lovely and rather talented Nabby of This Old Life: Confessions of a Creative Dresser. It's a fantastic vintage blog and if you like mine, you'll love hers. Thanks so much, Nabby, you're a gem!
As per the rules of the award, I have to list 7 random facts about myself. Here they are:

1. I really enjoy gangster rap. I don't know why, I'm just a pasty white girl, but the beat just gives me goosebumps in such a good way.

2. Listening to people speak Norwegian makes my head hurt, sort of like fingernails on a chalkboard. It even makes my head hurt when I speak it.

3. I can use nun-chucks. Really, I can. I wouldn't want to meet me in a dark alley, either.

4. My guilty pleasure is mac and cheese, preferably the cheapest kind from a box.

5. I'm flying home for a visit to the US in a week and all I can think about is blueberry flavored frosted mini-wheats. And I've never been that big on cereal.

6. I saw one episode of "I was pregnant and didn't know it" and promptly got online and ordered a dozen pregnancy tests just to have on hand. Babies seriously cut into one's sewing time.

7. I can play the Ukulele.

So another stipulation of the award is that I pass it on to another deserving blog or two:
New Vintage Lady (a fantastic, witty and thoughtful vintage sewing and lifestyle blog.)
Kalandra Jane: Milinery and Musings (Simply fantastic millinery, fashion, and playfulness.)

On another note, my fabric got here the other day and I've been having fun fiddling with combinations and lace and whatnot. I also got some swatches of the perfect lingerie fabric. I ordered several different swatches of varying jersey, cotton, rayon and bamboo to try and decide on which ones to sew my basic lingereie bits with and here are the two I liked best:

My Very First Giveaway!

My dear lovely readers, for the next week you have the chance to win a lovely prize package very generously offered by an Etsy friend of mine, and a fellow "born in the wrong era" girl,  ErikawithaK.

A Couple of questions I asked Erika showed me that she and I have a lot more in common than I thought!

Me: How did you get started sewing?

Erika: "I started sewing in high school but really got into it in college at Salisbury University in Maryland when I worked as a Costumer's Assistant for our theatre department. That's where I really learned how to construct clothing and anything that I do know about tailoring, fitting, and pattern alterations. Since then I have also taken up with quilting and embroidery."

Me: *Sigh* That's my dream job. How did you get started selling vintage on Etsy?

Erika: I wanted to start an Etsy shop to supplement my low wage income working at a bookstore. I chose vintage because I didn't think I had the stamina to open a handmade shop, at least not yet, and also because I LOVE going to thrift shops, yard sales and auctions and have been doing it all my life. I can remember being a really little kid and how hard it was to resist the urge to throw my hand up and bid! Something, I definitely failed at a few times... Anyway, I have always found way more cool stuff then I had room for or could ever possibly sew up and so I wanted to share the treasures I found with other people.

Me: I too spent most of my childhood trailing behind my mom at thrift shops, garage and estate sales, antique stores and flea markets. Vintage is in my blood. And that's exactly why I started selling on Etsy too. My stash got to big, and I started to feel like a hoarder (only the good stuff, of course!)

Erika is clearly just the sort of kindred sewer and vintage enthusiast we can all relate too. And by all, I mean me.

And she's offering this lovely gift package to one lucky reader:

The giveaway includes a lovely vintage pattern, a vintage edition of Work Basket Magazine from 1960, some great retro fabric, and some cute buttons to top it all off.
The pattern is really cool.  It's called a "Scoop Neck Skimmer" and it's printed by McCall's for mail order.  It's a size 10-12, Bust 31-32 and is uncut and in factory folds. (Don't you just love being the first person to use a pattern?)

To enter the giveaway, simply click on this link to Erika's shop, and tell me which item you like best (she has some of the BEST patterns from many different decades.
For an extra entry, you can become a follower of this blog, if you aren't already. (Just leave another comment to let me know.)
I'll announce the winner (who will be drawn by a random number generator) on Saturday the 23rd.
Good luck!

My design wall.

Do you have a particular spot in your sewing space for inspiration? Before I made my design wall, that space was my computer, but like I don't already spend enough time online.
Using a bulletin board that I covered in fabric and painted, I strung some ribbon and used some mini clothes pins to line up and display my fabric stash catalog.

The stash catalog was a freebie I got to download long ago from Quilting Arts. Here's the link to the free pdf download for these cute little cards.

Where do you get your design inspiration from? Do you have a fabric story board? What is your sewing room like? Soon I'll be posting pictures of my own space but first I have to clean up the various piles of sewing detritus all over the place.

I was bad... I bought fabric.

Today I went to a thrift shop and stumbled on a great stash of recently donated fabric. Bad Anna. I think someone was cleaning out their stash, or liquidating the estate of an older relative because these were pieces I would never have gotten rid of willingly. Of course I payed more for it here in Norway than I ever would have in the U.S. because the Norwegian-run Fretex (a.k.a. Red Cross) is corrupt and overpriced.
But never mind that, lookit what I got!

What am I going to do with over 4 1/2 yards of vintage rayon jersey?

What can't I do with 4 1/2 yards of rayon jersey!