Vintage Dresses, Vintage Patterns, and Vintage Prints
I’m so proud of myself. Just in time for fall, I finally sewed my summer dress. I wore it today and people liked it. This is encouragement to sew more.
The pattern is a vintage Butterick Misses pattern, Size 12 #5355, kindly Freecycled to me along with other vintage patterns. I heard patterns tend to run small and this one was precut by the previous owner, so that saved time. I used a cotton print I bought at G Street Fabrics (when combined with a coupon).
What I learned from the project:
1) Sewing patterns suck. It was only useful in terms of cutting out the pieces. Otherwise the directions were insane and all my markings wore off super fast. Guessing and trusting my judgement about how to put things together would have saved lots of time and agony.
2) I bought way too much fabric. I imagined myself messing up the cutting part, which was actually easy. I plan on making either a bag or top with the remnants…not sure which.
3) Buying clothes is cheaper than making them…if you shop at thrift stores or Forever 21. The dress cost about $30 to make (not counting labor). That includes the fabric, matching thread, matching zipper, and hooks. Goodwill runs about $10 for dresses, although recently I’ve made the mistake of buying two with broken zippers (even after I tried them on in the store!) meaning that the zipper replacement ended up costing me $25 more dollars (however, one was a Betsey Johnson and the other was a couture Italian dress, so all in all…). Also, my handmade dress is one-of-a-kind and made of cotton, versus the dresses I buy at Forever 21 that are made of polyester. Or rayon that result in me matching 12 year old girls.
UPDATE: If you want to buy this pattern, I found it here in Size 8. I have no idea how that translates to modern day sizes, but I found my dress to not be as fitted as the design on the pattern.
