Playclothes repair Friday: The green 60s silk dress

Hello lovely people.

Hope your week was nice and your weekend is going to be better. Me, I've got a list of projects to get through and most of them are going to go on this weekend. 

But first, I thought I'd give you an update on my week.

Brian is doing well. He's on an ointment to help for his skin (curb the bacterial and fungal infections) so I have to rub it on his junk twice a day. Yea, you heard that right. Oh, the things I do for this dog.

I prepped and washed a lot of 'new' vintage fabric that I bought and I'm itching to get to working on some new projects for myself.

See! Starting already!

Got new business cards!

I also went through some of my old fabric and decided to get back into this. It's some beautiful beaded yardage that I want to finish making a skirt from. The panels I cut were all hand sewn together, so it will take some time to complete.

But now for Playclothes.

I'm going to try and post some of the repair/restorations that I do for Playclothes every week, every week. I've gotten some great pieces to work on and some of them have been challenging.

This week is a cool 1960s silk blend. It's fully lined and sadly all the thread was rotten.

It was brought to me because of the shoulders, they had split out at the seams, but as I worked on the dress, I realized that all the thread was bad, even the re-sewn zipper.

Here I am matching the seams. For this work, I used a silk needle and a dark olive thread. I just stitched over all the seams, pulled apart darts, and the entire waistline, everything.

Looking through all the construction of garments like these is so delightful. There is bias tape on the wast and the underarms for stability, and zip zag finish for the raw edges. No buttons, only a placket zipper (which still works great). The lining is actually sewn to each piece and then the garment was stitched together. That's totally something that you can do, it's just a lot of work so make sure you match up your grain lines so you can have the least amount of surprises with drape.

Presto! It's ready to be worn!

I had finished the hem (back kick pleat) and the sleeves and once it's pressed, I'm sure it will find a lovely new owner.

It even has it's original belt and it's in pretty good shape. This dress looks like it got a lot of use. It's a clean practical style, so I'm sure it was a work dress, perhaps for an office?

Oh, the stories it could tell, huh?

Okay lovely people, that's it for me. I'm planning more Playclothes Friday posts so do keeps a look out. Forcing myself on a regular posting schedule will help me unload all these pictures of repairs I have in backlog.

Have a great weekend!!