New dress and sewing success!

Shopping for vintage clothes can be daunting. Teeny tiny waist measurements, drowning maxi dresses, massive shoulder pads and exceptionally short mini skirts are enough to put the most daring of shoppers off. Often I find one off items that are much too small or much too big. While I've known I could turn large dresses in, the fear factor has always put me off purchasing.

Until now! You remember I told you my mum was volunteering in a vintage clothes shop? Well, she managed to pick me up this gorgeous 40s/50s dress. It's a beigey brown colour with white polka dots and it's become one of my favourite dresses!

It was much too big when I first tried it on but I've successfully adapted it, sewing in the sides to make it a size 10-12 instead of a size 14. I was really scared when I started sewing because I've never adapted a dress in this way before and I tend to have a love hate relationship with my sewing machine. It was actually a lot easier than I first thought though, and I'll consider buying large vintage dresses and resizing them in the future.

You'll find some useful sewing instructions in Cloth Magazine, they have a special section devoted to sewing techniques - check it out!

Corinne x

PS: Remember my post about my hair colour? As you can see I decided to go back to brunette!