Happy Mother’s Day to me!

You probably don’t know that I am a big I Love Lucy fan. I started watching ILL when I was about 4 years old (it was already in syndication then). Later I watched The Lucy & Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show and Here’s Lucy but nothing can come close to the original. When my son was small, he was shocked that no one else in his kindergarten class knew about Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel and their hysterical antics.

One of my favorite episodes is #63 entitled Lucy Wants New Furniture (June 1, 1953). Ricky finds out that Lucy has purchased new furniture without his permission and refuses (my, how times have changed) to allow her to go to the hair dresser and buy a new dress for an upcoming event. What’s a girl to do but give herself a home permanent and make her own dress on a rented machine? That’s what I’d do! Well, maybe I’d skip the home permanent.

Anyway, when I spotted this 50 year old pattern on Ebay I had to buy it. I know it’s quite tattered and I may have paid too much considering the condition (at least my DH thinks so) but it was impossible to resist.

The Big Night

Here is the finished garment on prom night. My son was the only boy not wearing a tie - he certainly enjoys being unique. All the kids were calling him John Travolta and he humored them with a quick Saturday Night Fever pose or two. His date’s Chanel-inspired dress was made by her grandmother. I wish I had taken some close-ups of the gorgeous beaded and sequined lace used in the skirt. I like the way the lace with white underskirt goes so well with the pattern of the shirt fabric. That’s it for this project. On to my graduation dress!

Dress rehearsal

Please excuse my Mountain Man - he’s refused to shave, cut his hair (or wash his uniform) until baseball season was over. I’m not 100% happy with the sleeves. I suspected as much going in - I even made sure I’d have enough for a recut. My son has not been home much and by the time I decided they needed recutting it was too late. You can see that the sleeve cap needs more height so I’ll make that change next time. But, bless him, he thinks the shirt is perfect just as it is.

The fabric is a wonderful, silky cotton with just a touch of lycra. It is from Ascher Studios and was a pleasure to work with. Year before last, Fashion Fabrics Club had many gorgeous prints from Ascher at an irresistible price so, naturally, I bought all of the ones that appealed to me. Top-quality cottons are not always easy to come by!

Finished collar

You can see how the collar stays and additional fabric in the undercollar points (from the patch described below) give a nice appearance to the collar - no more curling collar tips! I’m pleased with the way this turned out. I used Palmer/Pletsch Sheer interfacing on both collars and bands. The end result is crisp without being boardy. I’ve had excellent results with this interfacing over the years. I only wish it were available by the bolt.

Collar stays

My vintage pattern calls for buttonholes in the under collar to accommodate the collar stays. I really don’t like that idea. Instead I like to use what I refer to as the patch method. It is neat, easy and adds more body and weight to the points of the collar - especially helpful in a large collar such as this. What I do is fold a piece of the fashion fabric in half on grain. I then place it across the under collar with the fold at the stay opening, trimming away any excess around the collar. To reduce some of the bulk in the very tip of the point I trim about 3/4″ across the point from the underlayer only. Do not trim anything from the upper layer. If you do, it will show later. After stitching the channels for the stays, the under collar is ready to be sewn to the upper collar.

Neck Sizes

When I taught shirt-making I was often asked how to change the neck size of a pattern - usually how to increase the size. We are so used to simply adding on to a pattern in order to grade it up yet that is exactly the opposite of what must be done to increase the neck size. If you were to simply add on to the neck edge it would become smaller as you can see from the pattern here. In order to increase the neck size you must make the opening larger by removing material. Little or nothing is removed at the back neck edge as neck size does not increase in that area. Of course, the easiest thing to do is buy a pattern that has cutting lines for various neck sizes like Kwik-Sew 2777 that is shown here. However, that doesn’t always fit in with our plans, does it? If you make a lot of shirts you can cheat a bit by making templates from a pattern such as this. It works and it’s easy to do.

Once you’ve made the neck opening larger you will need to increase the length of the stand and collar. I like to walk the neck edge along the stand to see how much extra length I’ll need. On my son’s shirt I needed an extra 2″ so I slashed the stand in four places and added 1/2″ at each slash. I knew I’d need 2″ in the collar as well but I walked the collar along the stand just to be sure. A typical shirt collar runs from center front to center front but you’ll want to check your pattern in case it’s different from the norm.

My Son’s Prom Shirt

My son wants a 1970s-style shirt to wear to the prom. I found a couple of vintage patterns on Ebay. The one pictured here is the one we’ve decided to use as we both like the lines and fit. Unfortunately, it isn’t his size - he’s a 38 with a 16 1/2 neck - so I’m grading it up. I’ve done the tissue-fitting and am taking time off today to make the alterations and cut a quick muslin. He will be home from practice around 7:00 tonight so hopefully I can cut the shirt out tonight and sew it up tomorrow. Prom is on Saturday night and he has a game on Friday night - oh, and then there’s WORK - so I don’t have much free time. But I’m not worried. Once I have the fit down, it’ll only take a couple of hours to make the shirt. Groovy, huh?

Worth staying up until midnight for!

I’m a little less than fresh today because I was up late bidding on this *gorgeous* vintage Pucci pattern on Ebay. Happily, I won the auction for less than half of my maximum bid! Yes, I’ve been buying a lot of vintage patterns lately but when you see one this good it cannot be passed up. I prefer to buy patterns that are, or are close to, my size. Unfortunately, this pattern is not even close - it’s a 16. But, I didn’t want to risk never finding one in my size so I went for it. Isn’t it a beauty?