1960s Repro Work Blouse

So another addition to the "things I've made but haven't gotten around to posting yet." This piece also stems forth from my recent binge shopping trip for vintage patterns. The pattern I used for this project was Simplicity's Jiffy 1364, a reproduction from the 1960s.

Simplicity Jiffy 1364

I opted for View B, since I wanted something comfortable for summer. For the fabric, I opted for black and white polka dot charmeuse purchased from Denver Fabrics, since I wanted to be able to wear it work with one of my retro skirts. I reviewed the pattern and it was fairly simple in terms of execution. The real challenge came in the material I selected. I have never worked with charmeuse before, but figured this was a good pattern to test it out on since it would be easy to put together.

It definitely proved to be a little tricky since the material is very slippery and silky. I've worked with dupioni and shantung silks before, but those are a little stiffer. Perhaps the hardest part was sewing two bust darts along the bias of the material. It took a lot of pins to make sure nothing moved while I put the darts in.

Measure Thrice and Cut Twice

So a couple months ago I went on a 1950s bender and bought a bunch of vintage and vintage-inspired patterns. The first project I decided to work on was a Hawaiian print, pleated skirt.

McCall's M6706 Pleated Skirt

I have not used McCall's before so I did a lot of measuring before hand to pick out the size that would work best for me, since nothing ever runs true to the given measurements it seems.

So I picked my size and starting  putting everything together. The first problem I ran into before I could even cut out my pattern pieces though is my fabric was too narrow for the pieces.