How to Refresh Vintage Hats/Veils

Hello everyone! Today I want to share a quick and easy way to refresh vintage hats, or fascinators, that have been badly stored and are in need to new life. Be sure to look through all the photos and to check out the accompanying video at the end of this post. (Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel.)

Lately I have been going through my vintage sewing and clothing items in an effort to de-stash. While sorting hats these pieces surfaced and I knew I finally needed to do something with them. I've had these vintage hats/facinators in my collection for several years now. They came to me along with some much nicer hats and had been badly stored by the former owner. I've never had much interest in late 1950s or 1960s fashions and because of their poor condition I really didn't know what to do with them. They were too pretty to toss so these sad little things have sat in a hat box unloved for the last couple of years. Until now!

Here are a few pictures of the hats before and after steaming. As you can see they were badly crushed and rather sad looking. These hats are all made from netting and have chiffon flowers and velvet leaves attached to the top, or in the case of the pink one, little velvet ribbons. So cute!

So, what will you need for this hat refresh tutorial?

Supplies

- Vintage hat/veil

- Hat form or tailor's ham

- Iron with LOTS of steam OR a hand held steamer if you have one
- Straight pins (optional)

A few things to keep in mind as you work. STEAM IS HOT!!! I know that seems obvious, but please be careful! DO NOT touch or press your hot iron directly on the netting or flowers of your hat. The heat could melt or otherwise damage your item. Hold your iron several inches ABOVE the hat and LET THE STEAM DO THE WORK. :)

I practiced this method on the pink net facinator first as a test as it was the most damaged of the hats. I wasn't worried about ruining it. Your iron should be set on a middle to high steam setting. Let your iron heat up while your are placing the hat on your form.

If you don't have a hat form or hat block, a tailor's ham with work just fine

For this tutorial I used a hat form but you can also use a tailor's ham. Start by placing your hat over the form of your choice. Using your fingers, GENTLY pull/stretch the lace/letting. Do not pull too hard because you could cause the material to break.

TIP - To keep your hat from sliding around while you work place a couple straight to help hold it to your form.

Next, hold your iron several inches ABOVE your hat. Gently move the iron back and forth for a few seconds at a time to help the steam work its way into the flower petals and over the lace/letting. Let the steam to the work to relax the material and help fluff up the flower petals. It make take a few minutes so be patient.

If needed, use your fingers to lift up the flower petals then steam again. (DO NOT try and hold the petals with your fingers while steaming or you will get burned!!) Fluff, then steam. Save your fingers! :)

The flowers of the beige hat you see me working on in the video were really flat when I started. I found that several seconds of steam then using my fingers to lift up the petals followed by more steam worked well.

You may also find it helpful to tip your hat form as you work so the steam can really get under the flowers and around the netting.

That's it! What do you think? If you use this tutorial please let me know how it worked for you!

My apologies, the video is a little fuzzy at times. I think it's due to the lighting in my sewing room. I should note too, the video cut stops a little abruptly at the end because my camera decided to shut off. Silly thing. :p

Violets are Blue and Purple Birthday Dress

Another overdue post! But it's OK because there are lots of photos to make up to it. I call this my "Violets are Blue and Purple Birthday Dress." It was finished just in time to wear for my birthday outing the last week of May. The dress was made from two different vintage patterns. The bodice was made using McCall's 8949 (from the 1950s) and the skirt from McCall's 5812 (from the 1960s).

A nice close up of the dress fabric.

McCall's 8949 and McCall's 5812

The fabric came from my mom's sewing stash. As a quilter she has an ever growing pile of fabrics to pick from for her projects. Many fabrics are gifted to her but not all are suitable for quilting. This was one of those fabrics. You'll see some more in my upcoming posts. If you look carefully at the picture below you can see some light staining on the fabric, probably from storage. It mostly came out in the wash. The marks were difficult to cut around but are not all that noticeable on the finished dress.

Here you can see the pieces for the bodice. My fabric for this project was limited so I had to cut carefully. If I had more fabric to play with I could have done a better job of matching up the print.

And here is the finished dress! I had the perfected lavender/blue colored crinoline to wear with this dress but because it's very short and full ( it was made for square dancing) it looked really funny underneath. There is a really good post here showing the difference between true vintage crinolines/petticoats and those made for square dancing.

For my birthday each year, Cori and I travel to one of our favorite antique shops in Quechee, Vt. The ladies who work there recognized us right away from previous visits (like last year's trip) and came over to chat. Afterwards we stopped for lunch and headed over to check out the Quechee Gorge. As you see we weren't exactly dressed for hiking so we only walked a short distance on the trail that leads down into the gorge.

You get the best view of the river below by standing on the bridge but I'm not one for heights so I didn't stay long. It didn't help that Cori was playing around and making me nervous.

It's sort of an odd family trait but two of my siblings and I seem to be able to find four leaf clovers where ever we go. I found all of these when we stopped for lunch. How many can you count in the picture below?

How many 4 leaf clovers do you see? :)

We finished the day with dinner and an ice cream Sunday at our favorite restaurant in town.

Summary of the Pattern
Fabric: Vintage cotton print
Pattern: McCall's 8949 and McCall's 5812
Year: 1950s and 1960s
Notions: Buttons, buckle, thread, fusible interfacing, zipper.
How historically accurate is it? Hard to say because it's two pattern used to make one dress.
Any tricky parts to the pattern? Fitting the bodice was tricky but it's hard to fit something on yourself without help. Once I worked out the fit issues the dress went together fast.
Did you change anything? Not really. I basically followed the pattern directions for pleating the skirt and the other directions for the bodice. Joining the two together was pretty straight forward.
Time to complete: About a week
First worn: May 2014
Total cost: All the materials were from the stash! Yeah! One pattern was free and I think I paid around $10 for the other.
Notes: If I had more fabric to play with I could have done a better job of matching up the print but I'm happy with it. Also I think the fit is still a little funky and could use some adjustment in the future.

Finished Breakfast at Tiffany's Dress for Prom

Hi All!  I'm back from the Reading, Pa airshow, what an awesome event!! I have so much to share but I want to get caught up with a few posts first. But before I forget, the winner of my surprise giveaway is ....

Brigid of the blog Boyer Family Singers! Congratulations! I will be contacting you soon :)

I have projects to share as promised. :) Today I have some photos of the Breakfast at Tiffany's dress I finished back in May for my friend Abby. You may recall the first post where we played with the pattern to get just the right look.

I first couple photos are ones I took with my cell phone so they are not all that great. (I have a new camera now so going forward photos will be much better!) The photos of Abby wearing the finished dress at prom were taken by someone else.

The final mock-up of the bodice back.

This photo, although very washed out, shows the finished front with some options for jewelry.

The finished back.

There were a few minor adjustments to make last minute, such as taking the bodice in a little more, but I think in the end it fit pretty well. Using my mom's sewing machine I was able to serge all the seams making the inside of the dress much neater. The fabric, although nice to work with over all, did fray quiet a bit.

Abby looks fantastic, don't you think?

Photo by Kate Garaffa

Photo by Kate Garaffa

 I love how the back of the dress turned out. :)

Photo by Kate Garaffa

Photo by Kate Garaffa

Finishing Projects, Delays in Sharing

I've been a very bad blogger lately. I have been sewing like crazy for the last few weeks and have several finished projects but I have not shared them yet. Partly because I'm waiting for pictures from someone and partly because I've not had the time to upload my own pictures and create new posts.

Preparing to sew the pleats of the skirt for my birthday day dress.

 So what's waiting be shared?
- Abbey's finished prom dress. The construction post is here.
- My birthday dress! One construction picture seen above.
- 1940s blouse
- 1940s linen trousers
- 1940s red bird dress

Why so many 40s projects you ask? As I mentioned on Facebook, later this week Cori and I will be attending a huge WWII event in Reading, PA. It's the annual Mid Atlantic Air Museum's air show and WWII reenactment. We have several friends who go just about every year and have been telling us it the event to go to on the East Coast for WWII living history. While I have a fairly decent selection of actual 40s vintage I can wear, recreating pieces from my vintage patterns just seemed the way to go for this event. I don't mind wearing a 70 plus year-old garment for part of a day. But for this event I will be outside and moving around all day and into the evening (there will be a USO dance in the evening!). That's a lot of stress on an older garment, not too mention the added stress of sweat and environmental impacts like sunlight and dust etc. Don't get me wrong, I love wearing my vintage! I just like to save most items for special occasions and try to limit the amount of stress I put on them so they will continue to last. :)

I hope to have lots of photos to share sometime next week.

The back of Abbey's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" prom dress

With the exception of the first, I must apologize for the poor quality of the photos in this post. I finally have a new camera but I'm still learning how to use it. I used the camera on my cell phone to snap the other shots.

The awkward photo from Facebook of my finished 1940s blouse and trousers.

And a real teaser photo, the bird dress! :) You'll have to wait until after this weekend for pictures of the finished dress. Sorry. :) Everything for this dress came from the stash!! That's all for now. Off to finish packing.

Breakfast at Tiffany's Dress for Senior Prom

Hello everyone! Thank you all so very much for your wonderful comments here on my blog, on Facebook, and on Flickr about my Sew For Victory dress. I was floored by how well it was received. Thank you! There are little things here and there I would like to change (most obviously a longer slip is needed!) but over all I'm very please with it. Cori and I are going to a big WWII event in Pennsylvania next month and I'm planning to bring this dress along. :)

I posted briefly on my Facebook page a few weeks back about a new sewing project. Now that my Sew For Victory dress is finished I have started to work on a prom dress for my friend Abbey. Some of you may remember the blue and silver lace prom dress I made for my young friend Jen. You can read all about the construction and see the final pictures in my posts here.

Abbey wanted something different and really special for her senior prom. So when she asked me about helping her create this particular dress I was super excited. I will be creating a version of the famous black dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 movie, Breakfast at Tiffany's. As part of my research on the dress I'll have to watch the movie, again. Oh darn. ;)

Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's - source

Source- Christies

 The original dress sold at Chrisie's a few years back. Here are a couple photos I found of the dress on display at the FIDM Museum and Galleries. Audrey's wardrobe for Breakfast at Tiffany’s was designed by couturier Hubert de Givenchy. In 2011, the FIDM Museum and Galleries held a special exhibition to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the movie. On display were recreations of Givenchy’s little black dresses worn by Audrey in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Little black dresses designed by Hubert de Givenchy for the movie, Breakfast at Tiffany’s - Source

Little black dresses designed by Hubert de Givenchy for the movie, Breakfast at Tiffany’s - Source

I first looked through my patterns to see if I had anything that would work as a base pattern. When that failed I searched online. Right away I knew that what ever pattern we picked would need to be altered to create that classic back. Below is the pattern I'm working from, Butterick 2460. It has the same gathered waist and an almost identical bodice. The skirt, obviously, will need to be lengthen but that should be easy. Another change will be to move the zipper from the center back to the left side.

Butterick 2460

Butterick 2460

Here is the progress so far....

The first step was to cut out and baste a mock up of the bodice straight from the pattern with no changes. I wasn't sure about the size so I wanted to get a good idea of those alterations first. There are two sets of darts to the front, and as was common with late 1950s and early 60s patterns the bust area is rather pointy, for lack of a better term. We going to see if we can smooth it out a little bit. After fiddling with the darts for a bit I begin drawing the new back.

The original back neckline will more or less become the bottom of the 'U' shape that connects to the shoulder straps. Next I used a marker - for some reason orange was all I could find - to draw the cut away sections, making sure to leave a portion of the center back attached to the center of the 'U'. Here's what it looked like.

I cut the front neckline a touch lower and had to adjust the arm holes as well. Here is the "new" back mock up. I need to remember to give myself a little extra material at the center back where the point meets the U. The plan is to keep the back all one piece. I'll be lining the bodice as well as using some interfacing to help the back keep it's shape.

Need to add a bit more fabric to this center section of the back.

Here's what the final mock up of the back looks like. The black marks indicate the back darts and adjustments needed for the side seams.

That's it so far. I'll work on adjusting the skirt to work with Abbey's measurements and gather my supplies for the actual dress.

This project is perfect timing as I just learned that the blog Rhinestones and Telephones has launched the Hepburn Hepburn Project. :)