I discovered that phenomenal vintage dress and jacket set in Tante Uschi’s treasure chest!
The only problem?
Measuring 150cm from shoulder seam to hem, it appears to have been originally created for a gorgeous glamazon – as I’m 168cm tall (in shoes) some rather drastic refashioning was in order!
Here’s the steps behind A Glamazonian Vintage Dress Refashion:
I revisited my Shrink That Dress video tutorial and resized that glorious frock to fit my not-at-all-glamazon-sized proportions.
As the fabric is thick & heavy I decided not to re-attach the sleeves and instead added some groovy doodle stitching (in the same colours as that fabulous bust embroidery) to the arm holes and dress hem.
On to the jacket: I carefully removed the sleeves from the jacket.
Snagged a coat with my desired fit and measured the arm-hole width.
Marked the too-big arm holes.
Stitched straight down from my marks.
Then chopped off the excess fabric and zigzagged the raw edges to prevent fraying.
At first I thought I’d keep the sleeves of the jacket long so I measured the arms of my template-coat.
But then decided that 3/4 sleeves would look fabulous and chopped the arms even shorter!
I marked the sleeves with that smaller arm-hole width and stitched, trimmed & zigzagged each one.
Popped them into the jacket arm-holes with right sides facing, underarm seams and raw edges lined up.
Stitched, trimmed & zigzagged together.
And my gorgeous glamazonian jacket & frock finally fit moi!
Side note: Berlin is welcoming Spring with chill-your-bones-snow-rain that has the magical ability to instantly curl my painstakingly straightened hair the second I step outside – harumph!
2019 update: that awesome vintage set is still looking fab and going strong:
Transform your entire wardrobe for pennies with my groovy CoaR tutorial E-book collections right here:
I love the little embroidery on the front. It looks like it was a quality dress in its prime! I love how it turned out.
It was definitely a fabulous find: 100% true vintage & completely handmade! 😀
Lovely work. It has a kinda Irish feel to it now.
As someone who can’t sew straight for toffee, I’m going to remember that doodle-stitching!
On the jacket, what did you do with the lining? Did you treat it all as one?
…must be my Irish half shining through! 😉 Yep, that doodle stitching has saved my wonky seams more times than I care to admit!
Luckily the jacket lining was awesomely attached so I didn’t have to worry about trying to remove it and could simply stitch & trim it as is.