The Faux Button Dress

Yay! I finished the faux button dress just in time for warm(er) weather! This is the last of my winter sewing projects so I'll be moving on to spring sewing soon! Anyways, here it is.

Dress: McCalls 5438 made by me
Shoes: DSW

I love that the buttons on this dress are purely decorative. It actually closes with snaps! So no pesky button holes to do.

I made these darling little buttons using Casey's tutorial. They were super easy and really cute. I did have a bit of difficultly with the small inside, but that's because I was using felt and it's pretty bulky. I also used Casey's tutorial for fixing sleeve ease, which was great! I have nice smooth sleeves instead of awkwardly poofy sleeves.

Pretty Baby: Fashion and Film

Twice a year, for Valentine's Day and Sweetest Day, my church has a dinner and a movie date night. It always features a black and white film and lots of yummy food. Now, I'm not usually a girl who gets into b&w films. Usually, I give up after just a few minutes, but who ever picks out the movies for our date nights always does a great job. This year we watched the hilarious Pretty Baby (1950) starring Dennis Morgan and Betsy Drake.


A lowly worker at a marketing company, Patsy Douglas (Drake) dreams of writing her own slogans and her hunky boss, Sam Morley (Morgan). One evening, she adopts a doll from a demolished baby display at work. The display was to impress Cyrus Baxter, a grouchy baby food giant, but had failed. Patsy wraps the doll up and uses it to get a seat on the subway as she'd seen a man give up his seat on the subway to a lady with a baby only that morning. On the way home, she explains to her neighbor that she named her "baby" Cyrus Baxter Douglas, after the baby food giant. Mr. Baxter, through his own series of mishaps, happens to be on the subway and over hears the conversation. Touched, he sets out to improve her station in life and give his advertising contract to Patsy's marketing company. But baby Cyrus is, after all, a doll. What ensues is a comic series of events that attempts to keep Mr. Baxter in the dark until the all important advertising contract is signed.

Besides being terribly funny, there are tons of hats in this film, particularly in the subway scenes. It's not in color, but that means you get to use your imagination.

The wardrobe has some jewels too. Patsy has lovely work wear and even gets to wear a nice evening dress, which I picture to be pink. I wasn't able to find a picture of it though.

Check out these darling promotion posters. See the second one from the bottom on the left? There's a peak of the elusive pink dress.

Anyways, I adored this film. It's full of great clean humor. Usually, I'm the only one in the room laugh at vintage humor, but this film had the whole room roaring through out. This is one I really have to track down somewhere.

Pants!

Yay! I finished the Wearing History Smooth Sailing pants! I did most of the fixes on Saturday and finished up the hem and add the hook and eye. And I wore them today. So, here they are:

Shirt: Ann Taylor Loft
Pants: Wearing History Smooth Sailing made by me!
Shoes: bought them at Macy's
Hair flower: Belle Blossoms

I was pleasantly surprised how good they made my butt look.

I'm also putting this as my first Hepburn Hepburn Project project. I feel like these are very Katherine.

I haven't made the belt, as I don't have a belt buckle yet, but I plan on it.

So I bought some shoes....

....but not the $300 pair! I got a $50 gift card to Macy's for Christmas, but with the Wardrobe Refashion, clothes were out. Shoes were a go though! I found these adorable ones on sale, too. And I still have some money left on my card!

Spring Sewing Ideas

I've been trying to organize my plans for spring sewing projects as a trip to the fabric store is in my near future and I need to think through the Spring Palette Challenge some more. So here are my options. Comments are, of course, appreciated.

1. 1940s Swing Dress

This is a no brainer as I'm doing the sew along.

2. Sew Serendipity Skirts

I got the book Sew Serendipity for Christmas and I've been dying to make something from it, but it is definitely a Spring/Summer sewing book!

Option a)

I bought some fabric for this skirt already. I just have to hunt down some contrast and ruffle material. This is going to be a Spring Palette Challenge item.

Option b)

I love love love the skirt on the front of the book! I will make it eventually.

PS Just found Kay Whitt's blog!

3. Shirtwaist dress a la The Notebook

I want to make this dress:


by adapting this pattern:

Pros: Just need to add cuffs and do a different collar.
Cons: Not in the color palette of my Spring Palette Challenge.

4. Simplicity Blouse 2501 View C

I want to add more separates to my wardrobe and I'm particularly smitten with view c (although view b is nice too).

5. Simplicity Blouse 4978

I like views D, E and F for spring.

6. Wrap dress with bow

I like the dress in the bottom right corner, view a. Love the little bow detail.

7. Sew Serendipity Coat

Option a)

Love the idea of a fun spring trench! I've never made a coat before though...

Option b)

This one would work great for a less busy print.

8. Bags!

Remember when I made this?

Well, I'm planning on making this vintage style bag and an evening vintage style bag to sell on etsy. But first I have to make some! Any thoughts on prints or fabrics you think would be nice?

Hmmmm.... That's an awfully long list..... Maybe I'm a bit crazy.... Plus I still have to take in my Wearing History pants (on my to do list for this weekend!)... and do the faux button dress (which is on hold until I get tracing paper, as it is an uncut vintage pattern and I'm sure someone would kill me if it became un-uncut. Not to mention I'm sure I'll have to add more to the hip area.).

So, yeah, any help in the prioritizing are would be most appreciated! I get terrible decision anxiety over such things.

Outfit Post: Red and Navy Plaid

This is what I wore today. It's day number two of being iced/snowed in. Yesterday I had a frump day but not today! (Though I did not bother with shoes as I shan't be venturing out of the house.)

Dress: Bad Girl Vintage
Belt: Handmade by me using Tilly's tutorial

I made this bow belt yesterday (so I was at least a bit productive!) from leftover fabric from the Wearing History pants. I've been looking for a belt for this dress for a while. I bought a white one a while ago, but I found I didn't like them together when I got home. Since I wasn't going to find a self-fabric belt lying around anytime soon, I thought I'd make one. And I had the perfect amount of leftover fabric too!

My day today was spent working on this youtube video. Our cable is out due to the ice, so Netflix has been my friend today while editing and uploading.

Downton Abby

Yesterday, I spent several hours watching the entire first season of Downton Abby. (I did laundry too!) It was great! The costumes were fabulous. The house and grounds are gorgeous. There is a lot of plot too.

I love love love the mom's coat (second on the left). There is a wide variety of fashion in this film. Mostly, it involves the wardrobes of the wealthy titled upper class, but you do get to see the servants in leisure clothes occasionally.
Here we get to see both the upper class (left) and the lower class (right). I love how the lives of the servants are a big part of the plot. There is an entire other world going on "behind the scenes" so to speak of the house.

There are hats galore in this film! This was one of my favorites. I do have to say that there is a lot about this period, fashion wise, that does not appeal to me. It's kind of a love it or hate it thing for me.

I did really love the girls' dinner wardrobe. Wish I could get dressed up like this for dinner every night!

Something that they did that I loved was make it feel like the characters had real wardrobes and not some magic closet that kept throwing out new frocks. The same garments appeared over the course of the season. Real people wear clothes more than once! (Though this may have just been obvious to me since I watched them back to back.)

There was one awkward scene with men kissing....... :( I felt that it was completely unnecessary, particularly for the period and that the rest of the season was so clean!

Season two is supposedly in the works. I hope it's available in the US!