This vintage sewing pattern is from 1943, and like cooking recipes from that period, assumes you know what you are doing, which I do not. Case in point: no layout is suggested for the pattern pieces. Figuring it out for myself was actually kind of fun, like a jigsaw puzzle.
DH helped with the cutting. I went through four pairs of sewing shears before finally finding my left-handed pair, which at least did not torture my hand. I HATE scissors; it's a wonder I made it through kindergarten.
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| Carefully clipped and marked pieces, with pattern removed for maximum later confusion! |
Then I spent two days adjusting the tension on the sewing machine. The first day, nothing I tried worked, and I walked away. The next day I discovered that it wasn't the tension that was the problem, it was the bobbin threading into the machine. Got that sorted and inserted a smaller needle, and I was finally ready to go.
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| Bad |
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| Acceptable |
Did I mention that the instructions don't provide detailed guidance? For instance, it tells you how to assemble one half, and assumes you will know enough to go back and do the same for the other half. It has you baste down things that it never tells you to go back and actually sew down, and I don't know if I'm even supposed to.
Time to pin the first seam. I looked at it, and then pinned the seam on the other side. Stop, stop! cry my imaginary readers. You've pinned the wrong sides together on the second seam!
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| Nope |
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| Yup |
Ah. Early on I noticed the options for finishing seams and hated all of them. Pinking shears? See third paragraph above. I disliked the other options, although not as passionately. Fortunately my mom taught me a better option a good forty years ago. So between pinning the first seam and pinning the second - and before sewing anything - I decided French seams were the way to go. Ta-da!
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