Triplets sewing challenge - collars and cuffs

Well hello and happy 2016 to you! I hope you had a pleasant festive season and new year!

The boy and I just returned from our summer holiday in Port Stephens and are back to work tomorrow! Before we left I had finished up sewing a new dress for a new sewing challenge that Allie, Sarah and I came up with. We had planned initially to post our dresses before Christmas but of course life got the better of us and we had to delay. 

Much like our first challenge the dresses had to have a common theme or pattern. We invited Sarah from Style Sixties along this time and decided to make dresses that featured some kind of contrasting collar and cuff combo. We all decided to choose our fabrics as well so hopefully there will be 3 very different looks!

Cass - The twin dress

Why hello there long time readers and those of you who have wandered over from Allie J!

Not too long ago (ok it was ages ago I'm really bad at writing back to emails in a timely fashion) Allie contacted me and suggested we do a little sew a long. As fellow 60's lovers we often don't get the chance to sew along to many things lest we step outside our "time zones" so we decided to make up our own!

So with an opportunity to sew something cute for summer and also share something from my vintage fabric stash, I sent Allie half of my stock of this fabulous vintage cotton and we set ourselves a challenge end date of November 1st

Now it is actually November 2nd so I'm late for posting too, but I felt terribly feverish last night and had to go to bed. In fact I was already feeling icky while taking these photos. 

After sending off half of my fabric I was left with two metres to sew with, so with summer coming it was obvious that I could only really make a sleeveless dress. For my version I picked Simplicity 7952 from 1968.

I really liked this fabric for the interesting pocket detail along the princess seams.

Allie's version uses Simplicity 7194 which I also used for my Sally dress so we both have dresses that feature princess seams, which can be a real trick to sew sometimes but hey, no risk of pointy bust darts!

I cut this dress at the normal size 14 and it ended up huge! Like a size 18 which was so wack! So I put it on inside out and pinned out the sides and the front middle seam until it fit right at the front

Unfortunately this means that the back has a wide scoop neck which is lower then normal, which is fine, but its just not something I normally like, but it works just fine!

Cause of the fabric limit I didn't have enough to cut the armhole facings and being a summer dress there was no way I was going to line this and make it a sweat-fest every time I wore it, so I left it unlined and just finished the arm holes with bias 

I think both our dresses turned our pretty gosh darn sweet don't you? We both have some cute striped fabric lined up from Miss Matatabi. I'd love to have that sewn up before our weekend away in Palm Beach (If your from Sydney and have seen the series Avalon now, you might find that funny)

And just like Allie I have a bruise too (on my knee), but mine is from making an epic goal save in soccer! hehe

I believe there may have been mentions of possible further twin dresses soon, perhaps a wintery one cause I basically made poor Allie make a summer dress in Autumn!

Be sure to check out Allie's Lilly dress and also her whole blog! Its a 60s dream!

Cat xo 

Hello it's me, I've thought about us for a long long while

Hello dearest readers! I've been rather absent for a while haven't I? Happily it's not because of stressing sad reasons, this time it's because I've been mega busy with lots of fun happy friend filled things, and of course sewing!

So here's a little recap of whats been going on in Sewingthe60's land since July... 

The Love seat at Byron Bay Fresh

Pennylane, Joni, Hiroko, Bianca and daisies!

Today's post is a sort of mega sewing update post! 

As you may know I don't get to blog every day like I used to, and while the blogging may be slow, the sewing isn't! And if I wait to post photos of the things I've sewn, well you won't see the things I've made last winter till next winter at this rate!

So, instead here are a couple of things I have made over the last year that I've not had a chance to blog or perhaps they don't really need a whole post to themselves anyway to explain their awesomeness! 

If you want to see more detailed photos of each item, I've created a Flickr album which will have all those pics that I normally include in longer posts so if you are sewing the item yourself, you can check on the look and details there! 

First up we have The Pennylane skirt. So named because at the time of sewing I was watching the most wonderful film Almost Famous. Miss Pennylane the loveliest groupie of them all wears a similar suede button front mini in the film. 

Sandie

Ahoy hoy readers! I hope you've all been well? 

I have some rather exciting news! I bought a car! A red Fiat 500 to be exact, to be named Fiammetta the Fiat. She's very cute and little and doesn't have much grunt but that's ok, I'm still on my learners so I'm not allowed over 80km/h anyway. I can't drive it on my own without an instructor yet so for most of the time I just sit in it and listen to music and visit it in the garage and do funny things like that. Did you do that when you bought your first car? 

Hopefully I'll have my provisional license sometime next year so I can go on opp shopping trips and be able to bring home all those large heavy items I usually pass by with a heavy heart. 

Any way - it's time for me to post up a new dress! 

The travelling dress

A little while ago Laura featured a lovely frock on her blog as part of The Sisterhood of the Travelling dress being run by Joanna at Dividing Vintage Moments and it piqued my interest. Joanna, Laura and many other ladies from around the world have participated in a little dress chain mail, sending it around the world for each of us to wear and style as we desire and share the photos with you! It's been in warm and snowy climates, to New York City and even Hawaii! And currently it's down under visiting us antipodean vintage lovers! 

The dress is a 1940's handmade dress possibly made from an acetate or similar man made fabric from that era. 

I don't know a lot about fabrics from that period, but I assume it was one of those fabrics invented to make up for the silk shortage in WW2. Regardless it has a lovely style and didn't require any ironing when I unpacked it! 

The dress has so far been worn in a myriad of ways. True vintage 40's and 50's style, Victorian style and of course modern! 

I really loved the idea of taking part in the dresses journey and hoped that maybe I could add my own spin to it, so being a 60's blogger, I tried to imagine how a girl finding the dress in the late 60's would style it. 

You can find suitcases like these all over Etsy!

Grace

Well hey hey people! How have you been? 

I've been awfully absent but I'm still here, sewing away. I'm currently in between projects and waiting for a decent day to take photos of my new makes as well as cutting out scrap pieces for a quilt and pondering what to make next. Its terribly cold now that winter has come so all I really want to sew is cozy warm things. The Astoria jumper from Seamwork patterns is currently waiting for its fabric friend to arrive so I can whip it up and be all cozy and stylish for work! 

Anyway, I have something rather exciting for you to see - a new dress! 

Oh yes, yes, yes. I have a BIG backlog of things to post so let just get to it then shall we?