Vintage Jen's Style

First off I must say that my husband is a very patient man, he puts up with me and my need to change EVERYTHING!! Poor man.. That being said, I am busy on a sewing project (of course without a pattern) that has been a fun mix of sewing, painting, beadwork and all of it vintage inspired.

Let me back up a bit. A few years ago I was cruising Etsy.com... yes that site is eevil! I saw this dress and couldnt stop staring! It was magical I fell in love with it, but couldnt afford it (as it was going for about $450). I saved the pictures in my "dresses I like" file so I could drool over it at a later time.
Now, lets be clear, this is a vintage, one of a kind, beauty! It was made by Fred Perlberg.

Fast forward about 6 months and while shopping at my favorite second hand store I came across a lovely simple strapless, floor length black velvet dress. I purchased it for a whopping $15 and figured it could be an "oh crap we have a formal to go to and I have nothing to wear" type dress for me. It didnt dawn on my how close it followed the lines of the vintage one till I was in my photo's drooling.  (and no I dont have any picture of it before I started messing with the dress, sorry)

Now we are upto about a few weeks ago. My husband, thinking I would turn it down, announced that a formal ball was coming up in the middle of March. To his dismay I jumped at it, it will be the last oppertunity to go to a military ball for us, so he's gonna have to suck it up. We are going!

For the last couple of weeks I have been slowly altering the dress to follow the "flow" of the vintage dress. Here you see it pinned up with one of my flowers that I use for my hair. It is starting to get the feel of what I want it to ultimately be.

Next I laid a pattern out for the vine that the flower and its rosebuds would sit on. That was the easiest part of the whole process for sure.

Since I wanted the vine to twist and turn I had to cut out the vine pieces in sections and then sew the sections together before I could even start sewing the vine. I used green satin for the vine to make it stand out from the rich black velvet.
That was harder than I figured, it took alot of precise sewing to get the corners and loops right and ironing it about two inches, sewing that two inches and then going back to ironing. It came out nicely in the end but took me about two days to finish just that piece.

I then purchased a store bought silk red flower, it was too bright for what I really wanted, which was more blood red than cardinal red. So I pulled out my paint set and painted it black. :0) Told you, happy crafter here!! With all the petals dry I put it back together and still it didnt look full enough so I added layers of chiffon (in matching red) in between. I have some extra smaller flowers so I will use those in my hair I think. (aand the close up of the flower is gone missing too, I will find it and add it later too)

So with the vine and the main flower finished I made the rose buds with chiffon and ribbon. they were pretty easy to make. The leaves however were another test of my patience as they were so small!! I am going to go back over and top stitch some veins in them to finish them and then they will be ready to go onto the dress too. (picture note.. the shiny dots on the dress are the pins, I havent sewn anything down yet in these pictures)

Now that I have almost got all the pieces ready I am going to finally attempt to sew it and put it all together this weekend. I am going to start with sewing the gather in the dress first. Hand stitch on the vine, sew on the main flower and then the buds and leaves. Simple right? right... lol

Oh I forgot I am adding lace to this too. Its not what the original has on it but I want to soften up the look a little so I bought this pretty dainty black lace that I will add across the bodice and then attach to the tulle underskirt. It will fancy the whole dress up but also add some length to the dress, with heels it looks a tad short for me, so I am going to try to cheat that by adding lace to the bottom edge. We shall see how it all comes out. Pictures to come soon as I work away I promise.

I hope to get most of this done this weekend. I love this project a bunch but I have other projects that I need to get onto too, sigh.. a crafters work is never done!!