Lost Arts of Sewing: Embroidered Vintage Style Dress by Shaffer Sisters

Shaffer Sisters were another Project Run & Play “sewalong buddy” – if you haven’t sewed along like that before – I highly recommend it!  There’s so much fun and camaraderie; seeing little peeks into others’ projects on instagram and the like.  Their Pleated Shindig Dress was their entry for the Cottage Mama Party Dress Remix challenge – so cute!

For today’s tidbit, I thought I’d touch on the term “vintage”.  If you’re like me you might have thought it referred to a certain amount of time in the past – say 20 years if you go by Etsy’s guidelines.  I have learned that is not the case!  Vintage defined refers to winemaking, but in the context of garments, really just means the specific timeframe to which you’re referring, such as “vintage 1950’s”.

Now, here’s Scary from Shaffer Sisters:

Hello, Jennuine Life Readers. I am Scary from Shaffer Sisters, the mission of our blog is to encourage, inspire, uplift and create. We share about sewing, cooking, motherhood, marriage, and life.

One of our sewing resolutions this year was to learn more about the “sewing lost arts“. I have wanted to learn for quite some time but didn’t know where to start. But when my mom’s neighbor, Wanda lent me three patterns to choose from for Boston’s Easter dress (ya I was about 2 months late), I picked this one. It was a good baptism by embroidery fire.

My reason for wanting to work with the lost arts of sewing is to have a connection to my sewing foremothers. One of those women who I consider a personal sewing foremother is Wanda, so for me it was a joy. It was encouraging to sew with one of her patterns, for more on that click here. 

For this project I used:
McCall 927- Size 1: a vintage dress pattern from the 1940’s with embroidery detail along the neckline.
Main fabric: Joann’s Casa Collection Glitter Satin, Calypso (I would call it Coral)
Contrasting Fabric: Legacy Unbleached Muslin
Embroidery Floss: DMC colors based on the color scheme Riley Blake Designs Promenade in Blue Floral, which I am making a skirt for me, for a coordinating mother daughter outfit.

After weeks of diligently working and weeks of tossing it off to the side because I was frustrated, I finally finished this dress!

Lost Art Resources used for this project:

Wild Olive: Embroidery basics tutorials

My neighbor Linda

I opted to do satin stitch for the outside part of the petal and chain stitching for the stem and the interior of the flower petals. French knots for the buds.

I made a few adjustments to the pattern by doing a pleated front & back instead of a gather, because I was using satin instead of a light weight cotton as the pattern called for. I also used 4 colors of thread as opposed to the 1 on the pattern examples.

There was no direction on the pattern piece for back closures so I did a exposed zipper with only the teeth showing up the back.

I opted for a bubble skirt instead of a 4 inch wide hem.

I added a pleat to the shoulder seam because the side was way too big, but she needs the extra room to be able to get it on. 

For the bloomers I took the embroidery pattern and blew it up 300 percent and instead of using 1-4 threads like I did on the bodice I used between 4-6 threads to get a bold design.

It has been a pleasure to share this project with you. I have started an English Smocking dress and have an idea for a fun summer dress using embroidery that I will be posting in the upcoming month.

I am really excited to see where my next embroidery and the other “lost sewing arts” take me.  Thank you for letting me share with you.

With Love,
Scary

PS. If you liked this project you should check out the sweet dress that my sister, Al made with almost endless chain stitching on the bodice.

Thanks so much for sharing today, Scary – I love the matching bloomers!