Vintage Fancy

Since the earliest of my pattern making days I have had a passion for the tailored femininity of vintage styling.  And now that I have discovered an extensive online community that enjoys both fashion and vintage designs I am presented with so many beautiful options for our weekly pattern puzzle.   I found this weeks inspiring image in a wonderful tumblr blog, The Tailors Desire, full of all things vintage.  🙂

This design has a most distracting and flattering use of Contrast in an interesting asymmetric design.  Part of the magazine description included:

 ‘The squared neckline and dramatic hip fancy will make you ever so feminine.’

Assuming we are working with woven fabric, without any stretch, I have chosen my women’s fitted dress block to base the fit of the new design.  The front has the asymmetric detail so a tracing of the full front block will be needed.  The back however is symmetrical and needs only half back to develop the pattern.

1. Begin by building a grown-on neckline for the front and back.
2. Extend the shoulder line, front and back, into a grown-on cap sleeve style.
3. Drop the underarm point for comfort and curve the side seam into the lower edge of the cap sleeve.
4. Lengthen the dress block to just below the knee and taper the side seams toward the hem.
5. Mark in the back yoke line and consider transferring the shoulder dart into the yoke seam.
6. Shape the back waist on the CB line by 1 cm.
7. On the front draft mark in the neckline, yoke seam and the vertical panel seam through the dress.
8. Note that I have moved the right side darts a little to fit in with the new panel line position.
9. Curve the lower edge of the front side body panel from princess panel to side seam.
10. This seam will hold the waterfall feature and the hip fancy.
11. Extend the line for the waterfall pattern making sure the leading edge is shorter than the seam edge.
12. Mark position and size of the hip fancy to give you a guide for the patterns final dimensions.
13. Now mark in the cut lines through the front dress to include extra fabric for the gathered drape.
14. Mark cut lines into the front right yoke to include extra fabric for the gathered drape.

Trace off all the separate pattern pieces.  Please note that :

1. All front pattern pieces are single cut R.S.U.  (right side up for fabric)
2. The exception is the waterfall pattern piece that may be cut double or single depending on your fabric choice.  As a single cut it would also be R.S.U.
3. The back pattern pieces are both cut in pairs for the symmetric styling.
4. The front neckline, on the yoke patterns, has a turn back facing included in the pattern piece.  As does the back neck on the yoke pattern.
5. It is possible to treat the front neckline on the dress panel in the same way – with a turn back facing.  However it may be more stable if a separate facing is used.

This was such a delightful pattern to work out and I hope to see many of you giving it a go.  Let me know if you have any questions in the comments section below.  I’m always happy to help.  If you’d like to buy a copy of these pattern making notes for your own personal use at home you’ll find them here:  Vintage Fancy – Pattern Making Instructions  🙂