Sewing

Last Wednesday two ladies - Elin and Mie - came to visit me. Elin had received a whole bag of vintage dresses from her grandmother, and now needed my help to take them in and make them fit her better. I'm no trained seamstress, almost everything I know about sewing I have simply learned by sewing, so the thought of sewing for other people than myself usually feels i bit scary. But I felt it was time to face my fears about that, and agreed to help...Ok. I really wanted an opportunity to see and examine the dresses too...

Old clothes usually have some lose threads here and there that needs to be fastened. So with all of that, some hand sewing, trying on and needling, sewing on the machine, and then trying on again, this takes longer than you might think. In the end, I had only managed to fix two of the dresses. But some of the rest already fit Elin pretty well, and I gave her some tips about how she could change them herself. Though when she started talking about that she wanted to rip some sleeves out and remove collars, I punched her in the face!...Ok. Now I'm lying again. I didn't do that. But vintage dresses that are in really good condition should not be subjected to such atrocities! So if she wants to go ahead with those plans, she should do it far away from me!

Most dresses she brought were from the sixties, and here are some pictures of the two I took in for her.

Love the colors in this one! It's difficult to se in this picture, but at the sides it has two folds that are attached with a few stitches at the middle of the front waist line.

This one has a square neckline with a little collar, folded up cuffs, pockets with pleats in the front, and "fake" buttons op the back. These are just there for decoration, on the inside are snap fasteners.

For my help I was given one of the dresses that was a little too small for Elin (they brought chocolate chip cookies too!). To me it looks to have been made in the 30s. The fabric is like fish net, with inlays in different colors, and it closes with hooks and eyes in the back. Except for the obvious holes in the fabric, there were a few extra holes, especially along the closing in the back, that shouldn't really be there. Sewing didn't feel like such a good option, so I simply brought out my textile glue and glued it together. I'm not sure if I should keep the purple trimming at the hem or if I should change it for something else though. I like the crazy color combinations, but the purple hem is in a not so very good condition and makes the whole dress look trashier than it really is. It fit me like a glove though! In the pictures below I'm wearing it with only nude colored underwear. If I'm going to bring it out in public I will get a skin colored - preferably floor length - slip to wear underneath though.

Close up of the fabric.