The bolero was very easy to make and I definitely want to make more! The only alteration I made was to shorten the sleeves so that the winged cuffs sit a bit higher on my arms.
I used this amazing cotton leaf-patterned fabric (the leaves are outlined in gold)...It's a busy fabric but absolutely gorgeous:
I'm also making the halter top from that pattern in the same purple fabric that I recently used to make a 1940's skirt. I originally cut out the full skirt from the Simplicity pattern above but the more I thought about it, I realised I wanted more of a pencil skirt shape. I searched through all my patterns to see if I had a skirt pattern that I could use with the already cut out material. The only pattern I had that would fit was the skirt from this Butterick dress pattern (I used the slim skirt on the right):
I ended up using the original waistband that I had cut out from the Simplicity pattern and that worked really well to provide a thicker waistband (since the Butterick skirt didn't have one because it's really part of a dress and not a separate skirt pattern at all). I also did not like the way the darts fit on this skirt so I ended up making two small pleats on each side of the skirt front. I also ended up tapering the skirt as I sewed down so that it was a bit narrower at the hem.
Lastly, I was looking in one of my favorite stores, Monsoon, and came across a great gold blouse that they had on the clearance rack. I think it looks perfect with the outfit!!
Here I am in the whole outfit and out and about in our wonderful small historic village in Scotland:
Love the winged tip cuffs!
The hair roll I learned to do from Casey's 40's hairstyle tutorial. The lipstick is also new from Boots Pharmacy in the shade called "Retro"!
Lovely little lane in our town...
A close-up of the Monsoon blouse. Isn't it cute? Reminds me of those keyhole blouses from the 40's.
The whole outfit. Ah, I am so happy with the way it turned out....now we just need some warm weather (it's about 40 degrees in these photos despite the sunshine!!!)
