OWOP Day Seven: Better late then never

This is my last day of OWOP, only three days late. This was actually day six but I posted day seven first so I could post about my Mad Men dress before the deadline. Thanks for your comments on my last post. It's nice to know other people feel the same way.

This is a pretty boring outfit. I find it really hard to think of exciting outfits with separates because I wear dresses most of the time. I wore my London blouse with a self-drafted skirt, op shopped cardigan and Golden Ponies t-bars.

I think my lesson from OWOP is that I need more plain skirts. I have lots with crazy and colourful prints but they don't go with all my printed blouses so I'm pretty much limited to my one grey skirt and one black skirt. I tend not to buy plain fabrics because I don't find them exciting, so I have a whole wardrobe of prints that all clash, and not in a good way.

OWOP Day Six: It's a mad world

I feel like I should preface this by saying that I don’t actually watch Mad Men anymore. Honestly, all the misogyny and all the Don Draper just got really annoying. I hate Don Draper. There, I said it. He cheats on his wife all the time, stole another man’s identity, was horrible to his brother who then committed suicide and is generally not a good person. I guess the glamorisation of characters like Don Draper and Roger Sterling who are sexist, racist and homophobic doesn’t much appeal to me. The misogyny I could handle if the female characters were well written but I just don’t think they are. When watching, I constantly ask myself, “Why am I meant to care about these people again?”. The clothes and the set of Mad Men are gorgeous but I find myself bored and not invested in the characters at all. Obviously, this isn’t meant as a criticism of anyone who loves Mad Men. It’s just not to my personal taste.

That said, when I saw Julia Bobbin’s Mad Men challenge I wanted to take part because there was a dress Peggy wore in one of the early seasons that I’ve wanted to make for ages. I do love the clothes in Mad Men, if not the actual show. I think Peggy wears this dress to a party sometime in season two, but I’m not sure.



I loved the shape, the collar and the bow. I did manage to find a pretty similar print to Peggy’s dress but it was $24 a metre and I didn’t really love the print to begin with. I found a red and white floral print on trademe that was way cheaper and I liked more.

What does this have to do with OWOP? Well, I used my OWOP blouse pattern for the bodice, adding a pleated skirt to turn it into a dress. The fabric is quite thin so I underlined it in white cotton. I made the collar slightly bigger and added a side zip.

The bow is just attached with a safety pin. I’m not sure I’m sold on the bow which is weird because I usually put bows on everything. I think it’s the colour. The black contrasts a bit too much with the rest of the dress.

OWOP Day Four and Five: Two for the price of one

I may have got a little Picnik-happy with these photos. Got to use it while I can.

I have two OWOP outfits today because I was a day behind, although considering the New Zealand timezone is ahead of just about everywhere (except Tokelau and the Chatham Islands, I think), I'm not really behind. On that completely irrelevant note, here's what I wore on Tuesday. My OWOP blouse is a black broderie anglaise version. I wore it with self-drafted circle skirt, op shopped cardigan, vintage bird brooch and shoes from Wellington. The tights were a birthday present last year. You can't really see but they have flowers screen printed on them. They are made by Imprint right here in Christchurch.

Excuse my really wrinkled skirt. I ironed it this morning but sitting all day left it a bit worse for wear. I wore my birds nest printed blouse, the same as for day one of OWOP. The skirt, belt and cardigan are all op shopped. Worn with my usual saddle shoes and bakelite bangles.

OWOP Day Three: ...ties are cool

For day three of OWOP, I wore my sailboat version of Butterick 9405 to uni. The leather tie is my Dad's. Mum made it for him many years ago and now I have stolen it. The skirt is another self-drafted one. I got the red plastic bangles at an op shop the other day for $1. I think the cardigan was from Vanessa and Warren's old shop Tete a Tete Vintage, when it was still standing. The shoes are from Golden Ponies.

OWOP Day Two: Bike shorts

No, not those kind of bike shorts. I made another pair of shorts from McCalls 5458. They're so good for biking in since I'm paranoid about getting my dresses caught in the back wheel.

For day two of OWOP I wore my shorts with another version of Butterick 9405. I haven't shown you this one either even though I finished it ages ago. It's made from some linen/cotton blend London themed fabric. I didn't actually like London much when I went as a kid. The sheer number of people was slightly terrifying for a seven year old from New Zealand.

The buttons on my shorts are from Madelaine of Look, Make, See, Do. I bought a couple of patterns from her etsy shop a while ago and she very sweetly sent me some notions as well including these vintage buttons still on their card. They are perfect because red is my favourite colour and, for some reason, red buttons are hard to find here.

OWOP

I know what you're thinking. What is this OWOP thing? The new Hansen song, perhaps? No, it's Tilly's One Week, One Pattern challenge. The idea is to wear different versions of the same pattern every day for a week. I chose vintage Butterick 9405, aka the best three bucks I ever spent.



The envelope may not look like much but view D is my perfect blouse. I mean, it has a peter pan collar.

My latest version is made from some quilting cotton that was on the sale table at Spotlight for $4/m. It has little nests and birds on it. I used some buttons from an op shop.

For day one of OWOP I wore it with a self-drafted skirt (and by self-drafted I mean, I took a rectangle, pleated it and added a waistband), vintage bakelite bangles and saddle shoes and some random tights.

Sail away with me honey*

I'm pretty sure I've expressed my love of novelty prints about a million times before on here. One of the best places to get vintage style novelty prints is in the children's section. Ages ago, I found some awesome sailboat printed fabric in the kids fabric section on Trademe for $7. I was going to use it to make a skirt but then I saw this sailboat print shirt by Milly (it costs US$230 which is like NZ$300!!!).

Image from here

I wanted a more 50s style than the Milly shirt so pulled out Butterick 9405. I've already made this pattern twice so it went together pretty quickly. I made view D.

What on earth is that woman at the front doing?

I did darts at the front instead of tucks but that's the only change I made. I did french seams where I could because I am obsessed with them.

I actually finished this a little while ago but the print made it a total nightmare to get an okay picture of it. I tried three times to take photos but the bright white background of the fabric made all the pictures blurry.

I used some vintage buttons that I love but haven't been able to use until now because there are only three of them. It closes with a snap at the top because there's not enough room for a button.



So my fabric + notions cost less than $10 vs the $300 Milly version. I think I win.

*Incidentally, I don't like sailing or going on boats because I get seasick. My face turns green and I think I'm going to die.

Back in Black

Thanks for your comments on my last post. It was interesting reading. Unfortunately, blogger deleted some but I did get to read them before that.

When sewing I tend to use fabrics I think are pretty (florals), not practical (black). I used to scoff at the idea of sewing 'basics'. I didn't want to waste my time sewing boring things. It became clear this was somewhat of a problem when I briefly considered pairing a top covered with tiny pink roses, with a bright red poppy print skirt. I decided I needed to make some neutral clothes that would actually go with all the clashing separates I have made.

I made this blouse using Butterick 9405, from 1959. It's made of black broderie anglaise with vintage flower buttons. I realise that its not exactly plain but I am ridiculous this is my idea of neutral.

I also made a black pleated skirt out of drill cotton. It has buttons down the back because the zip I had broke just before I was going to put it in.

Sorry about the bad pictures. Black is hard to photograph.

I wore both the blouse and the skirt today. I actually really liked this outfit when I put it on but the photo makes me wonder about that. I also remembered why I don't wear black very often...every stray bit of fluff or cotton within a one mile radius seems to instantly stick to the skirt. I should've just stuck with the florals.