More 50's Inspiration

 Tyler is a lovely lady from the 50's in a cotton lawn shelf bust dress and green raw silk day coat. Of course, she has to have her matching hat and bag, and a simple strand of pearls.  

 

The hat was fun to make.  I used aida cloth for this one.  It was stiffened with Spray N Bond fabric stiffener and the pieces were molded over two different sizes of styrofoam balls.  It's trimmed with the same fabric I used to line the coat.  

"The Color of Love"

 That's the name of the pattern that I used for this confection.  I've had this sheer fabric with yellow roses on it for a couple of years and was lucky to find some old yellow silk charmeuse in my stash that matched.  I had no idea what I was going to do with them until I ran across this pattern by Marsha Olsen of Perfect Patterns.  She describes it as a reproduction of a 1946 Vogue pattern and it was perfect for this fabric.  I would only use silk for this because it allowed me to pin and steam the pannier into nice folds and the charmeuse allows the bow to drape nicely.  

The pattern was designed to fit Gene dolls so I did use a bustier pattern that I had used for Tyler in the past.  For some reason it turned out big in the waist this time so I decided to try it on Grace and it worked!   She looks so elegant with her "diamond" necklace from Lovegirlstore on Ebay.  Thanks for the pattern, Marsha!

50's Date Outfit

 In my mind, this is the kind of outfit a lady of the fifties might wear for a lunch date or a shopping trip with her friends.  

The dress and jacket are made from cotton lawn.  For the bodice, I used a pattern by DB Doll Patterns.  I shortened it to waist length and added a full skirt.  The jacket is human pattern that I shrunk down and enlarged the bust dart to get a better fit.  The hat is my own concoction as is the little faux leather clutch.  The hat has a white floral wire inside the edge trim to shape it to her head.  Little white gloves and a simple strand of pearls complete the look.  

40's Inspired Linen Suit

 

Switching decades, Tyler is wearing a blue handkerchief linen fitted suit.  This one strained my brain trying to think of way to do the cuffs with minimal hand sewing and the least amount of bulk possible which is something you always have to thing about when sewing in this scale.  The little tabs in the front were the most challenging and I really only got a perfect point on one of them.  I've since reworked the pattern.  In spite of the fact that I measured and measured and measured, the jacket still turned out somewhat shortwaisted and not as long as the original design.  Adding wearing ease to these little patterns is still something I'm figuring out.  Then I had to recut the skirt and lining after I had already sewed the eight darts in it because I forgot to add the seam allowances.  (Forehead smack).  But it's cute and I'm happy with the fit overall.  

The little bag is inspired by the one in the pattern illustration and is basically made from faux leather, cardboard, matt board and glue.  

The hat is made from navy aida cloth is same manner as the one with the rose coat and floral dress and decorated with silk blossoms, mulberry flowers and stamens.  

And the inspiration for this outfit.  I didn't make the skirt flared in the back because I didn't think it would hang right in this scale although I did do the flare at the back of the jacket.  I like the pencil skirts pegged at the bottom a bit instead of straight to get that hourglass look.