Weekend sewing - 70's party

On the weekend, hubby and I attended a friend's 'mid-life crises' party. Well actually it was only her 35th, but once you've had kids any excuse to have a party will be accepted. Interestingly, it was a dress up party - 70's retro. Now, my understanding of fashion from this era tells me that there are a number of characteristic styles that you could choose to wear from hippy, to conservative evening wear with the big sleeves to a bit more mod-disco style. Now while I do have this awesome pattern from 1978, I kinda left the preparation of our outfits to the last minute (1pm on the party day) and not only did I not have time to sew one of these dresses, but also didn't have the roll of fabric to do so.

 

So a frantic trip to the Op Shop was needed and it was there that I stumbled across this vintage dress.

Now I know that this isn't really a 70's frock, but it did kinda have the vibe of the pattern that I own. It's a handmade dress and I believe the fabric originated in India as the dress has been sewn with the selveges and the brand markings intact. Unfortunately the dress want' sewn very well, so I did cut out the original neck, which was supposed to be bound with bias, but the original sewer had cut the fabric on the grain, making the neckline uneven. Thankfully I did have a little light pink bias tape on hand to fix the neck.

An outfit for the husband was a little tricker, while my dress only cost $10, all of the mens attire suited to the 70's era, was priced closer to $30 and I'm waaay too stingey to pay that type of money for dress up clothes. So I heading back home and made him this daggy vest out of a piece of 70's corduroy in chocolate brown. Basically I guessed the shape, sewed the top shoulders then had him try in on, cutting away the fabric around the arms, and front until it looked OK. Then I trimmed all around the edge with black bias tape that way lying around. In all it took me about 1.5 hours to make his vest and thankfully I did, because everyone else was dressed up at this party, some were even worse than us!! I must say his outfit looked far nicer in real life.

So while I should have been sewing a few bonnets for orders, I was busy making silly costumes for a party.

Now while I'm talking all things vintage I thought I'd share this gem of a pattern that I picked up recently from the Op Shop.

I thought it would have been from the 60's, but after scouring it, I managed to find it is from 1978. It's from a pattern company called Star Patterns. I haven't looked them up yet, but I think this dress is so adorable! I think I'll be making a toile of this one in the next week or so as I'll probably have to adjust that pattern a little to fit.