4 August 2016
This year, I pledged to make two garments from my vintage patterns. This is the first one, which I actually finished a couple of months ago, but lack of photos . . .
Leach-Way 13775
It is Leach-Way Frock 13775 which features ties sewn into the side seams which you then wrap around your waist to give the dress some shape, well that’s the idea anyway.
This is actually my muslin/toile. The pattern was too large for me, but I thought it might be OK anyway since you pull it all in at the waist, so I made a test version to try it out. Well, it IS too big around the neck and gapes open when I bend forward. The collar also ended up very frilly, which is totally my own fault. I really must be more precise in my stitching. You can see a little bit of the frillyness in this photo.
Frilly collar, which isn’t meant to be frilly
You will notice that I’ve chopped a load off the hem. Basically, it didn’t look like the illustration and I hated it! I was expecting the skirt to be very full, a bit like a circle skirt. However, it just hung straight down and there wasn’t enough width in the pattern pieces to make it look fuller. I should have realised it was going to be that way by looking at the pattern pieces, but I’d been looking at the pattern illustration through rose tinted glasses obviously!
By shortening the dress by quite a bit, it finally looked vaguely wearable. But it’s actually not very comfortable to wear as the ties ride up and end up just under my bust rather than round my waist. Well, maybe that has something to do with the fact my waist isn’t as defined as it used to be *sigh*
Didn’t stop me from prannying around during the photo shoot though!
Trying to be dainty
I do quite like the back of the dress though.
I like this view of the dress
I thought I might never wear it, but this dress was perfect on those couple of hot days we had here in the UK a couple of weeks ago. I just tied the ties really loosely and slopped around the house quite happily
My attempt at a vintage look
Well, I was not very enamoured by the pattern by this point, so I decided not to make it up in the blue poppy fabric with contrasting green collar and ties as I’d planned. Oh well, you win some and you lose some.
What pose should I do next? Oh I know, I’ll do my little girl pose, again.
And that’s about it for the Leach-Way dress which I was so excited to sew up, but ended up being a bit of a disappointment. I’m hoping my second vintage make of the year will be more of a success. I haven’t decided what that will be yet . . . I think I’d like to try something not from the 1950’s this time. Maybe a 1970’s wrap dress or a 1960’s hat!