Hello!  Today I am joining in with a fun series hosted by Liz and Elizabeth from Simple Simon & Company. Liz and Elizabeth  sent me an email recently asking if I would like to take part in their series (in its second year) - Ugly Duckling Pattern Challenge.   The idea was to be given a terrible 'vintagesque' pattern and to transform it into something much more acceptable, and hopefully nice!  I decided to throw my hat in the ring and asked the girls to send me one of their best...I thought, "I love vintage, even bad vintage is good."  How wrong I was....you can imagine my delight when I received this 80's vintage dress pattern in our little letterbox....

Clearly Liz and Elizabeth must think highly of me to be able to do anything with this atrocious pattern!!!! You should have seen the size of the sleeve pattern pieces.  Photos did not do them justice, but let me say, they were big enough to wrap a sizeable gift!  I asked some friends what I could do with the pattern to make it nice...one suggestion was to add more volume to the skirt...ha!!

So what was I going to do with this beauty?  I decided the only things I liked about the pattern were the general style of the bodice and back straps (without sleeves), and the waistband.  So I kept those elements and I cut one of the skirt pieces as is (not on the fold).  I pleated the front and back of the skirt inspired by this dress I recently made. The dress is made of  a lovely soft creamy grey pinwale corduroy I had in my stash.

I actually thought I was going to have to pull the pin on Liz and Elizabeth at the eleventh hour as this dress was not looking so great half finished laid out on my sewing room floor. But I perservered and I think the finished result is definitely acceptable!  The opening on the side seam is probably a bit big and I will adjust it a little.  I used a vintage button for the closure.

I trimmed the seam allowances around the bodice and back strap pieces so I could add grey bias trim. I used some vintage green floral fabric I had to line the bodice and back straps to tie in with the vintage them. I outlaid a whopping $0 dollars on this dress, which is always a bonus!!

Here is my latest little deers creation.  A vintage style 'mini pinnie'!!

The pinnie is made from 'peggy pique' cotton which has a waffly/seer sucker feel.  Made from a Butterick pattern (see post below), it is fully lined with cream cotton.  It has cute little double apron pockets at the front.

Bloomers to match to keep a girl honest!

I can make this set to order and is available in sizes 2 and 3.  You can buy it here!

I'm sharing today over at Kootoyoo.

I have had a lucky streak with vintage patterns over the past week.  I picked this gorgeous one up at my local oppy for 50 cents!  It is printed in size 2 so is a little too big for Juliette now but I couldn't resist getting some pics of her in it.  Plan on wrapping it up for her for christmas (eighteen month olds don't have very good long term memories!).

The fabric is from the Everything but the kitchen sink range and was also a bargain...I visited Darn Cheap Fabrics in Heidelberg last week after my ultrasound and found this sunny yellow print.  I planned on buying 20 cm for my baby quilt at $7 per metre. The woman pulled the fabric off the end of the roll and gave me what was left (about a 1.2 metres) for the price of 20cm - about $1.50!! So all up this gorgeous dress cost $2.00 (plus a lot of time - pattern had no instructions and needed some adjusting). Plus I still have plenty of leftovers to feature in the baby quilt and other little projects.

My next sewing project is from another vintage pattern I borrowed from my lovely next door neighbour.  It's about thirty years old.  Stay tuned...

I'm joining up today with Her Library Adventures to share my vintage finds.