Monday Outfit: When We Were Young Part 1

Good morning! We’re back from yurt camping, and we had a grand time! I hope to share some tidbits later, but today I’m posting an outfit that was originally intended to be a guest post for sewpony‘s When We Were Young Series (and you should see Jess‘ amazing little dress!). But you know how I constantly accidentally publish things? Yes, I did it again. I decided to go ahead and make it my Monday Outfit instead, and I created another guest post for Suz, which I hope you’ll check out tomorrow.

When Suz emailed me about her When We Were Young series, I immediately contacted my mom and had her send me pictures of her handmade clothes of yesteryear. My mom was as excited as I was and within minutes, she sent me a dozen photos. My mom made pretty much all our clothes and toys for my brothers and me back in the day. She said that I would wait patiently, perched by her sewing machine, breathlessly anticipating the completion of each outfit. K is exactly like that (ha! So not like that).

Many of my mom’s outfits were full of flounce and lace and she generally subscribed to the Victorian-meets-Little-House-on-the-Prairie-look. My brothers often wore frilly outfits too, and I should have asked her to send me images of some of those as well. Totally entertaining. There was something about this dress, though, that really struck a chord. That’s my mom standing next to me, playing dress-up and pretend with the best of ’em. We had a ball growing up.

My version isn’t an exact replica, but I think it captures the essence of the original. K had spirit week at school last week and wore this to the “Outfits of the Decades (50s/60s/70s/80s/90s) Day”. I’m not sure if this dress falls neatly into any decade, but it definitely has a vintage flair, and she fit right in with the bell-bottom jeans, mod/psychedelic garb, and Members Only jackets.

Not coincidentally, the fabric is from my mom. She obviously favors plaid linen and has gifted me a bundle over the years. I had the perfect amount to make this dress, though I couldn’t get it on the bias to truly recreate the look, and I had to cut the sleeves cross-grain.

I started off with a pattern from Girly Style Wardrobe, but shortened the sleeves. I self-drafted the neck frill, and wish I had made it frillier, but my friend saw the my version of the dress and commented that it was a “modern take” on the original, so I’m okay with it. Now if only I could match up prints – it’s really starting to become embarrassing, my inability to do this.

The hat is mine, but I made the white flowers out of — get this — Swedish tracing paper! I have so much scraps and always knew I wanted to make flowers out of them – one day I’ll whip up a ton. I got the stamens from JoAnn’s and literally made these in five minutes (taped together with washi tape) and sewed them onto the hat lightning fast so we could get the photoshoot done before school.

And look, we actually venture outside of the house sometimes too! You’d never know it from the photos on my blog.

So that’s part one of When We Were Young. I’m really excited about part two, so I hope you’ll stop by tomorrow!