The 1938 Dress: Tutorial Snap Button Closure

Here it is, the last post about the making of my 1938 dress, and what you see in the picture below is the side with the button closure:

Nice, right? Actually so much better than a zipper!

Normally, I would have opted for a zipper, for whatever reason. I guess I would have found it too much of a hassle to sew snap buttons and I am more familiar with sewing zippers. However, my decision to look up this technique also had to do with my mission of using up my stash/notions/whatever-clusters (I have TONS of snap buttons, but NEVER the right zipper at hand), as well as kneeling myself deeper into the real reason why I sew vintage - to LEARN stuff...

The 1938 Dress: Making the skirt

On we go, today, we are making and adding the skirt!

This is not a real tutorial post, but I wanted to show you how this pattern works. I find it quite interesting, as there is a bunch of gathering right in the center front of the skirt, which adds nice width, while keeping the silhouette narrow from front and back. I actually sewed a vintage pattern with this kind of skirt before, but I altered it back then, because I couldn't imagine that this bunching up right between my legs would work out... :-) This time, I went for it, and I like the result!

The 1938 Dress: Finished! Vote and Win!

If you are here to vote and win, just scroll down to the second half of the post! :-))

So this is the finished dress from my 1938 magazine:

The 1938 Dress: Tutorial basting and setting in Sleeves

Here we go, today I'll show you how I first basted in, then set in the sleeves I so nicely prepared yesterday. I'll also explain the whole point of basting sleeves a bit later in the post:

Again, I am using the book from 1935 as a reference. It is a fairly small book, but there is so much information in it!

 This illustration is our reference for the basting:

The 1938 Dress: Tutorial Preparing Sleeves

 Today: Applying the stripes and preparing the sleeves!

It's funny, even though I am going at an extremely slow pace, reading up every stitch I make in my vintage sewing book and stopping to take pictures after each move, I feel like I am moving along nicely!
Gone are the days where I thought I could finish a dress in one evening, here are the slow-paced precision days! :-)

I'll first show you how I applied the velvet stripes, but you can just scroll down to get to the sleeves if that's what you stopped by for...

The 1938 Dress: Tutorial Built-up Neckline

Dear Readers: Happy 2012!

I want to apologize for my long absence, but really, it was for the better. And I don't only mean for the better of myself, but for you, too ;-)
The blogging got quite stressful, because I couldn't keep up with my own ideas and instead of enjoying my hobby, it became pressure. So I stepped back, thought about where I wanted to go with this blog - and came back.
Well, I will bring you even more information. I will not merely "show and tell" what I've sewn, but I will provide you with more details - things I am learning along the way, techniques I am picking up, patterns I'm creating. Maybe less posts in total, but the posts will be filled with information that hopefully inspire you and give you useful information.
I promise to try and make better pictures (it's difficult with the low-light winter season...), answer questions (as always!) and only write when I feel like it. I can't promise that my fingernails will always be perfectly manicured, but hey, my priorities lie elsewhere ;-)

The beginning of my 2012 blogging is this 1938 dress I have had on my list FOREVER. I was just going to sew it up and show you, but what's the point? As you might know, vintage instructions are usually minimal and say little more than: put it together. In this instance for example, it says to leave the left side open within the marks and prepare it for snap-button closure. But how exactly is a snap-button closure done? Well, here enters my 1935 sewing book!

It has a lovely signature from the previous owner that says 1958, but the copyright of the book is 1935, so a match made in heaven. And while I first only planned to give you the snap button tutorial, I decided we'll go top to bottom.


So let's get to it!
This dress features a gorgeous built-up neckline which is achieved with a slit and facing.