Monday 14 January 2013

Little Vintage Frock

I love vintage children's patterns, there are so many cute little frocks and rompers. I was lucky enough to be sent a copy of another vintage children's pattern. This time a little frock.


Absolutely adorable in my eyes!!

Which means that I had to try it right away. Well, when I mean right away, I mean once Miss Ember has gone to sleep and I haven't fallen asleep putting her to bed.

When trying out a new pattern for the first time, I like to make a mockup out of not so good fabric just in case I stuff something up. That's where my big crate of solid colour cottons come in handy, it contains almost every colour imaginable...except red! I discovered that when I was looking for a red piece to contrast a pretty cream and red fabric. Anyway, back on subject...

Ack! So adorable!

The mockup frock turned quite well, but I didn't really like how the garment was constructed, other than the french seamed side seams. I love french seams!! I like not having seams or raw edges showing if possible. So my plan for future frocks is to not follow the pattern [which is very typical of me] and line the bodice instead of doing the facings. Maybe even make some reversible frocks by doubling the skirt too...

I now have four more frocks cut out...just need to sneak away from the small child [hah!] and sew them.

Sunday 6 January 2013

Vintage Hearts Romper Tutorial



Here is a tutorial for the Vintage Hearts Romper.

For the pattern pieces, please follow this link: Vintage Heart Romper Pattern Pieces. You will need to make sure your printer is set at 100% or Actual Size, don't 'shrink to fit' or it will be too small.

Size: 1-2 years

Pieces:

Main Fabric
1 x Front Pants Piece
1 x Back Pants Piece with ruffle placement marks
2 x Bib Piece [I added about 1 ½ inches to the length of the bib to suit my daughter.]
2 x Straps 3” x 18”
1 x Ruffles 3.5” x 44” [for full ruffles] or 34” for looser ruffles

Contrast/Lining Fabric
1 x Front Pants Piece
1 x Back Pants Piece
2 x Ruffles 3.5” x 44” [for full ruffles] or 34” for looser ruffles
1 x Bib Ruffle 2” x 31”

Interfacing
2x Front Pants Facing
2x Back Pants Facing

Lace [optional]
6mm Elastic [1 x 8”, 2 x 9-10”]
Plastic Snaps or desired fastenings

Cutting
Cut all your pieces out. You can get all the pieces cut out from 1m [½ of main, ½ of contrast/lining] with a little bit of fiddling and folding.


Straps
Fold in half, stitch across one end and up the length. Turn and press. Top stitch [optional].


Ruffles
Either hem, pinking shear or sew lace to the bottom edge of the ruffles.
Run gathering threads along ruffle and gather to desired fullness. 44” makes a very tight full ruffle, 34” is a loose light ruffle.


Bib Ruffle [Optional]
Fold in half so long ends are together and run gathering stitches along raw edge.

Note: I gather my ruffles on my sewing machine by setting my stitch length to 5 and my tension to 9.

Bib

Pin lace or bib ruffle inwards to one of the front bib pieces and stitch.

Right sides together, stitch the two bib pieces together leaving the bottom open.

Clip and notch, turn out and press. Top stitch [optional].
With Lace

With Bib Ruffle




Interfacing
Iron interfacing facings to wrong side of material of back pants and front pants.


Pants
Attach lowest ruffle to back pants piece. Pin it to the ruffle placement marks upside down [right sides together] and stitch.

Flip ruffle down into position and top stitch. Remove gathering threads. Repeat with middle ruffle.


Sew crotches of front and back pants outer pieces together. 

Sew crotches of lining pieces together, leaving a 1.5-2” turning hole in the centre.

Pin bib and lining to front waist, right sides together.

Pin top ruffle, straps, and lining to the back waist. Ruffle should be attached to where the interfacing pieces end not the length of the waist band.
Showing the order to pin before pinning the lining over the top.

Showing the order to pin, back pants, top ruffle, straps and then the lining.


Stitch all around the pants pieces, right sides together using a min 1/4” seam.

Attach back elastic [8”] on the seam allowance. It shouldn't overlap the interfaced parts of the fabric.

Attach leg elastic on the seam allowance. Again it shouldn't overlap the interfaced parts of the fabric.

Sew around all edges, attach elastic to seam allowance and then turn out through hole left in the crotch.
Clip corners and curves. Turn right way out.

Pin and stitch back elastic casing through all layers including top ruffle-except the straps , being careful not to catch the elastic in the seam.

Pin and stitch leg elastic casings, being careful not to catch the elastic in the seam.

Attach snaps to bib and straps, the back and front facings [2-3 sets per side].

Optional: tie a knot or attach a snap on the crossover of the straps to help hold them steady.

And you are done!




Vintage Hearts Romper

This adorable little vintage pattern came to me, thanks the the generosity of a lady on one of my facebook sewing groups! 

It was just the pattern pieces, no instructions, so I decided to bite the bullet and just wing it! 




The blue was by far the fiddliest! So for the next one I modified it to have a lining. It made it so much easier to sew together and saved a lot of time and finger stabbing with pins! I also prefer the look of no exposed raw seams.


The second I made out of some vintage fabric I had in my stash, and if I do say so myself, it worked really nicely!



Because the pattern was so kindly shared with me, I will be posting a tutorial shortly, so others can make it too. :)