Sewing the 60s

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Baby you can drive my car

I’ve been working on this early 60s coat for awhile and I finished the hand stitching this weekend.

Initially it had a collar but I didn’t have enough fabric to make a full front facing so off came the collar!

The fit is similar to the 50s style car coats – it’s shapeless and only has 2 small darts at the back to stop it looking too sack like. The pattern I used was Butterick 2624

Fabric-a-brac

This Saturday I woke up nice and early to catch the train into Newtown for the Fabric-a-brac pop up shop.

Newtown is one of those special places in a big city. You can dress as you wish and no one will blink an eye. It's the alternative centre of Sydney and you'll find many shops to support people's love for vintage clothing or mid-century home wears as well as piercing and tattoo parlours, cyber Goth outfitters and plenty of hairdressers who will style your hair to match your outfit. In international terms it could probably be compared to Camden Town in London or Portland, Oregon. It's become very popular for upper middle class families and lots of high end boutiques have moved in lately, but that's ok. Its underbelly is still owned by the weird and wonderful!

My friends and I Ioved it so much as teenagers we would replace the words of Petula Clarks Downtown with Newtown and sing it on the train on the way there!

Pattern Purchases & Pop Up Shops

I had a little shopping spree this morning on eBay and bought a few cute dress patterns from the late 60s

McCalls 8917 from 1967

It's says it’s a teen pattern so I might have to make a muslin first just in case there's any trickiness across the shoulders. The long-sleeve version looks like it will be great in a soft viscose rayon or silk. Hope fully I can find one in a fun psychedelic print

Listen & Look : Donovan - Guinevere

Listen

And look

Source

Dedicated Follower of Fashion - Green Dolly

I work in a fairly big company and although they are a pretty relaxed and flexible place, I work in the very Business-y part of the business and so I'm expected to look dressed and pressed each day.

Normally early 60s dressing lends itself very well to corporate wear - wiggle dresses, twin sets and lovely dress/jacket combos, but it's all a bit done in my opinion.

People stop referring to it as 60s and call it "Mad Men inspired". Now don't get me wrong I love Mad Men and Pan Am when that was on, and will put on my dress/jacket combo when the occasion calls but there is a whole other half of the decade to wear!

Green Shell Top Tutorial

Today I will be showing you a variation on Burda Shift Dress 09/2012 #107

This variation turns the top into a tank style top with a cross back. You can use Burda 09/2012 #107 or Collette patterns Laurel as your base as we only need the front and part of the back of the pattern.

If you have another pattern for a shift dress or plain top, you can use this too! I will instruct you to make this top to fit you so make sure you have your measuring tape and if you have one a dressmakers mannequin or packing tape shell (if you ever made one). I don't have a mannequin and I did ok so don't worry if you don't have one