It's De-Lovely

The joys and quirks of vintage sewing patterns

Happy Me Made May!

If you aren’t familiar, Me Made May is a monthlong challenge where you pledge to wear your existing handmade garments to identify what gets worn a lot, what doesn’t, and where holes in your wardrobe might be.

It’s not about photos on Instagram or sewing more clothes (full disclosure, I absolutely use it as an excuse to sew more clothes because I am a monster). It’s a fun way to feel connected to other folks who make their own wardrobes and holds special meaning for me because May is the month when I finally figured out garment sewing.

It’s been a little over a year since I started favoring vintage sewing patterns (as opposed to vintage-inspired ones), and I thought it might be fun to share some of the differences between modern and vintage sewing patterns. But first I need to confess something—despite being a much more experienced and advanced knitter than I am a sewist, I’ve never made a true vintage pattern. I have so many 1930s and 1940s sweaters I want to make, but I’m such a chicken about it. I buy a PDF of Stitchcraft magazine on Etsy the way I used to buy Cosmo in college, but I have yet to dive in.

But vintage sewing? I’m fully behind that. I’ve spent the last 4 days sewing the Gina Dress by Wearing History and it got me thinking about just how different vintage sewing can be from modern sewing. This is a long one because I had lots of time to think.

I really love the challenge, and find the process much more satisfying and interesting than working with a modern pattern. I also find the connection with previous generations of home sewists really meaningful and I love having period-accurate garments.

Here’s a noncomprehensive list of things to expect if you make a vintage pattern. As a caveat, I’m talking about patterns from the 1920s-1940s because that’s where my heart and brain are.

1) Instructions are often sketchy and rely on you being very familiar with garment construction. I started off sewing modern indie patterns. Modern indie patterns often have step by step detailed instructions, which is really helpful for beginners and there’s no way I would have been ready to tackle the patterns I am now if I hadn’t spent years learning and practicing the basics of garment construction, finishing, and fit. I actually love this about vintage patterns—it gives me the freedom to look at the big picture and do things my preferred way.

2) Bias tape is your best friend. Bias tape is strips of fabric cut at a 45 degree angle to the grain of the fabric. They’re stretchy and perfect for finishing curves and seams. Bias gets used for facings, seam finishes, hems, and visible trim and I almost always make my own from scraps. You can purchase bias tape, but the modern kind is a really stiff cotton poly blend. I’ve snagged vintage bias from antique shops and it’s lovely if you can find it.

3) Seam finishing can be an adventure. I don’t use my serger much in vintage sewing (I like to keep the process as authentic as possible) which has meant figuring out all kinds of seam finishes. Historically accurate seam finishes include pinking shears, hand overcasting, bias binding, French seams, seams turned under (where you fold the seam allowance in half and stitch it, sort of like making a hem). Singer didn’t release its first zig zag machine until 1936 and home sergers didn’t really show up until the 1970s. It’s really common to find completely unfinished seams in handmade extant but I’m a rough and tumble modern human and you bet I'm machine washing and drying things. I favor French seams (this often involves having to add seam allowance to pattern pieces) and bias binding, but I’ve been known to use rayon seam binding, too (it always looks like garbage when I do it). I’m not overly precious, though. The Gina has so many weird angles that I ran all the raw edges through the serger before starting to sew and it made my life much easier and I always use the serger for trousers.

4) Learn to love the lapped seam. The “normal” way you sew a seam is to put two pieces of fabric together, right sides together, and sew along the edge, so the seam allowance is on the wrong side of the garment. For a lapped seam, you press in the seam allowance of one piece and lay it on top of the seamline of the other piece, and topstitch along that folded edge from the right side. This is super common in 1930s garments, which often feature angular shapes (hell yeah, Art Deco!) that would be difficult to sew with a traditional seam. I’m embarrassed that I literally just learned this yesterday—instead of marking in a seamline with a pen, it’s easiest to run a line of stay stitching at that seamline.

5) You’re probably going to have to make a mockup. This is good advice in general and it took me a long time to accept that making a mockup is part of the sewing process. I’d say it’s even more important in vintage sewing, not just for figuring out fit, but for figuring out construction. There’s at least one point in every vintage pattern I’ve made that stumps me, and I’d rather work it out in a mockup than in fabric I’m fond of. It also makes the sewing of the actual garment much more enjoyable.

1) Fabric requirements do not come to play. In modern patterns, there’s often a lot of cushion built in when it comes to fabric requirements. I’ve been known to squeeze garments that call for 3 yards of fabric out of 2 yards. If a vintage pattern says 3 yards, it means 3 yards and you’ll probably need to do some creative cutting. You can get around some of this with wider fabric widths (vintage fabrics were often 39” wide), but proceed with caution. The current pattern I’m working on called for 2 ¾ yards and I spent four hours squeezing it out of 2 yards of 60” wide fabric.

2) The fewer pattern pieces a vintage pattern has, the more drama it’s going to be. This is purely anecdotal but I recently spent three days sewing a blouse that had four pattern pieces and this wasn’t the first time something like that has happened.

3) You’re going to have to hand sew. Get ready to slip stitch all the things! A slip stitch is virtually invisible from the right side of the garment and is used to sew down bias facings and hems, and to hand finish waistband and collars. I double my thread, wax it (I like Thread Magic), and after trying a zillion different hand sewing needles, these are my favorites. Retro Claude has a great tutorial on how to slip stitch. I actually find it really relaxing to do and it’s such a nice finish.

4) Vintage sewing is a slow process. I’m not a particularly patient person, but I’ve learned to love the process of working with vintage patterns. I can churn out finished objects from modern patterns fairly quickly, but vintage sewing slows me all the way down. These garments require care and attention, and as much as talking about “mindful sewing” makes me want to chuck my machine out the window, that is what’s going on here. Every garment I make requires some historical research (this helps with fabric choice and styling), a full mockup, lots of sewing time and fancy finishing. I’m thoughtful about what patterns I choose because I know that they’ll take a good bit of time and brain space.

If you would have told me a few years ago I would have cared this much about pattern matching, I would have howled.

If you are interested in and new to vintage sewing, I cannot recommend Wearing History’s patterns enough. They are true vintage patterns, but Lauren provides extra details and tutorials that you won’t find in reprints or extant ones from Ebay or Etsy, and quite a few are multi-sized. I might not have survived making the bodice of the Gina without her excellent video.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on vintage patterns!

xo,

Kathleen

PS: I stumbled across this marvelous digitized archive of vintage McCall’s magazines and I’d be remiss if I didn’t share them with y’all. The 1930s ones are obviously my favorites!