The bolero and skirt project…the Vintage Suit warm up

I started this project a while back, inspired by this lovely, lovely grey wool-cotton blend fabric from a friend de-stashing, at about the same time I had been perusing glamorous images of women of a certain age looking in stunning grey. Why had I never thought of grey before? I mean it is a wonderful colour for an outfit. Really lovely. Add some red, and wow, stunning.

I was also inspired by two patterns, one a bolero I had made up, and enjoyed, and a skirt which – cleverly – can be made up in my size from just a meter of fabric. Thrifty and stylish.

Simplicity 2269

Simplicity 3114

There was just enough fabric to make these two garments, just quite a bit of laying up, and re-laying up the pattern. I had a small length of fabric suitable to line both the skirt and bolero my nana gave me too, perfect!

The bolero has such a great shape, really of it’s time. The skirt pattern called for gathers at the front, which I was not that into, so I experimented and went for soft pleats which joined at the waist band at an angle.

See this pretty trim? I found it at my mums.

Just perfect for this project, I think it’s quite authentic detailing for the bolero.

The skirt called for a vent, but I opted to make a kick pleat…which was a touch too tight to walk with my usual stride, so I think I’ll release it and make it a split.

Red handbag, a little flash of red from a scarf…

Quite a nice excuse to wear my nana’s flower burst brooch.

Red and grey!

This was a great little project, I enjoyed putting the work into lining the bolero, I drafted the lining from the pattern pieces for the fashion fabric, hand stitched the trim and lining. It was a bit of a challenge, and I found the light-weight lining fabric so floaty that I had to redo it twice to get it to sit right. I does still pull under one arm….so I’ll need to adjust that before the next outing.

Next….the Vintage Suit Project!