Happy March 1st and World Book Day to you all!
I am going to get some serious reading done today in honour of the celebration of books, I'm currently throughly stuck into "The Little Stranger" by Sarah Waters and I can't wait to see what happens next :)
However, this blog is mostly all about sewing, right? So I thought, what better way to tie in sewing and books than a little bit of 1950s book print fabric!
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| I love this fabric! Some of the titles of the books read "Shakespeare", "War and Peace" and "Romeo and Juliet" |
How beautiful is that? And it's perfect for a book worm like me! :) However, I'm now rather at odds as to what to use this fabric for. That's where you lovely people come in!
In an ideal world I would love to use this fabric for a 1950s style shirtwaist dress, but I'm not sure whether or not I have the yardage. This fabric is quite narrow, at a guestimate 30/35 inches, but over 4 metres in length, so maybe a shirtwaist dress with a narrow skirt wouldn't be out of the question? How you seen any patterns that might be suitable?
If you think you have seen any patterns or looks that this fabric would be suitable for then please get in touch, I'd love to know what you think. I really want to use it for something special, it's just so unique and pretty I want to get as much wear out of it as possible!
I can't wait to hear any suggestions you have :)
Katie xxx
5 comments:
What fabulous fabric indeed! If you wanted to use it for a dress, what if you did something to make the print go further by making the skirt in the fabric, the bodice in white, and collar and cuffs in the print? Something like that? Then you could possibly trim pockets on the skirt in white to pull the white into the skirt?
You are slender enough that you should be able to eke out a narrow-skirted, short-sleeved shirtwaist dress. There are any number of current patterns that would do nicely. You may have to piece yardage. If you can't get a whole dress, I'd go for a skirt, and make/buy jewel-toned blouses to wear with it. What a fabulous fabric find!
Kewl! I recommend retro apron (won't need a huge amount of yardage and you can use all the off cuts to make flounces/ ruching for the edges). OR lining for a 'reading' jacket (you'll need abubble pipe to go with it though).
I made a princess seamed, long sleeved shirt dress last year out of 2 metres of 45 inch fabric. It had a pretty narrow, rather short skirt, and I'm very short (only 5 ft.) and I didn't have much leftover after. The unaltered pattern (vintage 1963) actually calls for 4 1/2 yards of 35 inch fabric, and it has short sleeves and a pretty full skirt. I'm pretty sure that you could probably get a shirt dress out of your fabric: say about 2 metres for the skirt panels and then you're left with another 2 metres for the bodice which would probably be more than enough. Scanning through vintage pattern envelope backs on Etsy also seems to support the idea that you should be able to make a shirt dress out of that fabric if you take some of the width out of the skirts. Best of luck!
Erm, I don't know about the fabric... but I loved The Little Stranger!
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