My Latest Make - Vintage Maudella Maxi Dress




I am keeping up with the blog and this time I bring you a vintage make! This is the Maudella 5952 which I picked up in an antiques shop. I made it up in a suitably vintage style old duvet cover I also bought in a vintage charity shop. The prairie style cut of the dress with this patchwork pattern make the perfect 70s pairing.


I was a little apprehensive to begin this project to begin with because I’ve had fitting issues with vintage patterns in the past and they always seems to come up way too big! I began firstly by pinning the pattern pieces together and trying them on. Surprisingly, it seemed like it was going to fit perfectly so I ploughed on ahead!

Pintucks sewn

Front completed

I love this old fabric, it has a really nostalgic smell of old summers which reminds me of our family’s old wigwam we used to play in when we were kids. 

Trim attached to bottom of dress


I didn’t have enough fabric to cut 5 frill pieces, yes 5! But I knew that the dress was going to come up too long on me anyway because most dresses do! So I cut 2 frill pieces and cut them in half so I had 4 which was enough to gather into the trim I added at the bottom. The trim is from MacCulloch & Wallis which I had stowed away last year. Really glad I added this in as it breaks up the pattern and allows a breeze through which is definitely needed at the moment!  

Frill attached
Sleeves assembled

Surprisingly the instructions were really clear which I don’t often expect from vintage patterns. Usually I find they tend to assume a certain level of sewing prowess and don’t provide full instructions, saying things like ‘make bound buttonholes’ with no instructions but this pattern was very thorough. All the notches are numbered so you know which ones match with each other which is really handy when the pattern pieces are symmetrical. It doesn’t instruct you when to finish the seams though so you have to remember to do that yourself, I used my overlocker after each seam.


Overall I am very happy with the end result, if I were to make it again then I would lengthen the sleeves so they would be more billowy and widen the shoulders slightly because the shoulder seam finishes before the apex of my shoulder which causes it to tug a bit.

I expect I’ll be wearing this all summer long, now all I need is some cows to milk! 













 

Location: London, UK

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