Vintage Pattern Pledge 2015

So I missed out on taking part in the Vintage Pattern Pledge last year, I only cottoned onto it after everyone had posted all their wonderful creations. I had tried to use a vintage pattern a few years ago... With terrible results. I bought this Simplicity 7263 as I wanted to make a winter coat, and view 1 seemed nice and simple with basic lines.

 The coat I produced from this pattern was just awful! I had a mini tantrum, stuffed the coat in the back of my wardrobe and parcelled up the pattern pieces in their envelope. Since then I've avoided vintage patterns, I thought "they're not marked out easily, the sizes are all squiffy, I just don't get the instructions" and stuck with modern reproductions, or vintage style things.

It was looking at all of the pattern pledge creations in the blogosphere last year that got me thinking... I wanna do that. This year is the year for me to try again! So I have taken the pledge to sew three vintage items this year, but this time I'm going to start out with something simple.

So the 60s were not kind to me (pattern wise), fast forward to the 70s and feast your eyes on this little beauty!

 There's so much I love about this skirt pattern, that it only cost 60p at the time is just brilliant (I feel just as happy when I get a second hand book that has 25p on the back... And no barcode). I thought this would be the way forward as it has the waist and hip measurements stated very clearly on the front (the blue doodle is my waist measurement, so some adjusting needed.

A huge bonus for my confidence is that it came uncut.... All shiny and new, well... faded and aged and new.

This pattern is also a good stash-buster for me, I have a black textured fabric that I bought from ebay pre-washed and ready! 

 It looks grey because of the camera trickery it took to catch the texture, this is an über close up.

Because the person who sold me the fabric may have been de-stashing herself, she couldn't remember what the fabric was, but it feels like crepe paper (the kind we used in art lessons in junior school). Because of the 3" difference between pattern and me, I thought the natural stretch in the fabric could only act as my friend.

I've started cutting out the skirt so it's currently my VPPWIP (vintage pattern pledge work in progress), after my last expedition into vintage patterns, this one I'm taking slowly. I did some adjustments to the pattern at the cutting, I'm 3" short round the waist so I decided the best place to mess about with this is round the back, I cut the back piece (on the fold) 1.5" from the edge so that the extra 3" would appear centre back bumwise.

 This also meant some adjusting the waistband. The pattern is awesome and has the centre back clearly marked out, so a little snip, 3" of tracing paper, and a smidge of sticky tape later and I can rest easy knowing all of the little place marker tab things will still line up when I put it together. 

I feel very excited about this pattern, it has been kind to me so far, fingers crossed it comes together as easily.