Fall for Cotton: a vintage sew-along

Today is an exciting day!

Rochelle and I have been putting our heads together for awhile now, and you may have seen a hint or two here and there, but we're ready to let you all know about our newest sewing collaboration.

Lucky Lucille and By Gum, By Golly present... Fall For Cotton: a vintage sewing challenge for the cotton lover!

This is a sew-along for those of you who, like us, love sewing vintage styles and think cotton fabric is amazing. Don't think of it as a sewing competition, but as a fun way to challenge yourself. Limit your fabric choices, sew a vintage style, meet a deadline, and make some new friends!

Intrigued? Great! Here's the scoop.

Any vintage decade from the 1920s through the 1970s is fair game. But you're only allowed to use fabric that is 100% cotton. You heard right! It must be 100% cotton.

There are lots of varieties of cotton you can choose! Quilting cottons, flannel, twill, corduroy, voile, broadcloth, sateen, and chambray (to name a few) are all great options. Get it? If it's cotton, it's all good!

This sewalong will work much like how Rochelle ran the wonderful Sew For Victory sewalong. You can pick your own pattern and work at your own pace. You can use a vintage pattern, a reproduction pattern, or any modern pattern that helps your recreate your vintage look!

When's the kickoff? Well, that's today of course! That gives you about two weeks to gather your supplies, so you can be prepared to start sewing on the 1st of September. Although it doesn't matter when you actually start sewing, as long as you have your finished project photographed and uploaded to the Fall For Cotton Flickr Pool by the end of Monday, September 30th.

We encourage everyone to join us on Flickr and upload photos of your inspirations and your progress, and get involved in the discussions all along the way! Use the hashtag #fallforcotton on Twitter and Instagram to check in with your fellow sewalongers and show off what you're making! We'll be posting some inspiration and helpful hints, so be sure to follow along on our blogs.

So are you excited yet?! We certainly are! Here's the low down:

• Join the Flickr group Fall For Cotton and introduce yourself in the discussion
• Pick a pattern that helps you recreate a garment from your favorite vintage decade: 1920s through 1970s 
• Pick any fabric that's 100% cotton 
• Start gathering supplies now, and plan to start sewing on September 1st 
• Have your finished garment photographed and uploaded to Flickr by the end of Monday, September 30th 
• One finished project = one chance to win some awesome prizes at the end of the sewalong! 

Now grab a button and spread the word!

Fall For Cotton Button - 300 px wide
 

Code for 300px button, copy and paste this in your sidebar.

<a href="http://luckylucille.com/2013/08/fall-for-cotton-a-vintage-sew-along-for-cotton-lovers" target="_blank" alt="Fall for cotton"><img src="http://luckylucille.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/FallForCotton300.png" /></a>

 Fall For Cotton Button - 200 px wide
 

Code for 200px button, copy and paste this in your sidebar.

<a href="http://luckylucille.com/2013/08/fall-for-cotton-a-vintage-sew-along-for-cotton-lovers" target="_blank" alt="Fall for cotton"><img src="http://luckylucille.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/FallForCotton200.png" /></a>

Remember, this isn't a sewing competition. This is a fun way to challenge yourself by limiting your fabric choices, sewing a vintage style, meeting a deadline, and making new friends!

Join us and let's have some fun! Are you in?!

I'll be Sewing for Victory, will you?

If you haven't heard yet, Rochelle over at Lucy Lucille is hosting a fantastic sew-along, Sew for Victory! It's a 1940s themed sew-along, so of course I'm in!

As you know I already do a fair amount of 1940s sewing, so I wanted to use this sew-along to really challenge myself in some way. I've thought a lot about it and have come to a decision that I hopefully won't be regretting down the road... ha!

I'll be sewing the jacket from Hollywood Patterns 1678:

In the pattern it's referred to as a battle jacket, but you'll also see it called an Eisenhower or Ike jacket, as Dwight Eisenhower was responsible for the military design that inspired my pattern. The Ike jacket became standard issue in the United States military starting November 1944. It was in part modeled after a British military dress jacket, but you also see similar jackets in other countries.

{source: Kansas Historical Society}

At a time when patriotism was high and catalogs were filled with "man-tailored" women's suits, slacks and jackets, it's probably not surprising that this style of jacket made its way into women's sportswear!

This is one of my favorite styles of jackets, but I don't own any. Several months ago I squirreled away this amazing Hollywood pattern for the future. I'm going to sew view 1 with the collar and fly front (like the Ike jacket above):

I can't actually find anywhere in the pattern where it has you add buttons in the fly... it might just be assuming you know enough to add them when it's explaining them for the buttoned up view 2, but would you really do bound buttonholes inside a fly? It does say you can work them by hand or machine, so perhaps that's what it assumes you'll do for the fly?

(Anyone have a vintage fly-front jacket that can tell me how the buttonholes are worked inside the fly?)

Anyway, if I can't figure that out, I may just do the buttoned-up version like view 2. Or maybe do a mock fly where there's no real fly, but with top-stitching and hidden snaps on the inside.

Did I mention I've never sewn outerwear? The pattern has instructions including the lining, and I've ordered a couple of books specific to tailoring and jackets, and have been generally getting myself pumped to try this.

Here are a few inspiring pictures of other women's short jacket styles from the 1940s. Fly front styling on the windbreaker on the left, and two lovely double-breasted wool jackets:

{Source: Sears & Roebuck, 1943)

I need both of these skirts, jackets, blouses (or knit pullovers) and shoes, thank you.

{Source: Sears & Roebuck, 1944)

And these sports jackets (another fly front on the left) would be great for hiking and camping this spring!

{Source: Sears & Roebuck, 1943)

I also found a jacket from almost my exact pattern... but I'll save that for another post. ;)

I'm really excited about the Sew for Victory sew-along, so hopefully I hope I'm up to the challenge of sewing my first jacket!

If you haven't heard about the sew-along yet, pop over to Rochelle's intro post, her post on links to get your creative juices flowing, her post on authentic 1940s resources, and the Sew for Victory Flickr group. Join us!