#vintagePledge Simplicity 5022

I finally finished my first #VintagePledge pattern of the year! As you may recall back in January I announced my plans for the 2015 #VintagePledge, a sewing challenge hosted by Marie from A Stitching Odyssey along with Kerry from Kestrel Makes.

The goal of the sewing challenge is to sew a given number of (in my case 7) vintage patterns throughout the year. I decided to start with the easiest of the patterns, vintage 1972  Simplicity pattern 5022.

The Fabric

My plan was to make view 3 of the pattern and use a plaid seersucker fabric from my stash. I felt that it had kind of a 1970’s feel.

As it turns out I didn’t have quite enough fabric, not completely anyways. I really liked the plaid and knew it was prefect for this shirt, but the thought of mixing fabric patterns was a little frighten to me.

Then I remembered that Rochelle of Lucky Lucile is always mixing fabric patterns with her shirts and they come out so nice, like her mustang shirt.

Mix and Matching

After deciding it would be okay to mix fabric, I went through my stash to see what would match. Since the plaid was a seersucker material, I thought the accent fabric should be the same. As it happens I had a white seersucker fabric that had little blue flowers on it. The plaid fabric already had blue in, so I figured this would be a prefect paring.

The front facing for the shirt was to be cut with the front of the shirt and then folded over. However, I didn’t have enough fabric for this. Instead I folded the pattern on the fold line for the facing and added ½ inch.

I cut the facing out of my contrasting fabric and again added ½ inch. This meant that I could now sew the facing to the shirt fronts, using a ½ inch stitch.

Pattern Adjustments

This particular pattern was actually my size, or so it said. After I cut out the pieces I did a quick pinning and tried it on. While the shirt had a 38” bust, I’ve learned that most commercial patterns are made for a B-size cup, which means your fuller figured ladies have to adjust.

I didn’t want to mess too much with the pattern, so I decided that I would just sew the side seams at ½ inch instead of 5/8 inch. This worked fine, except for the center bust button is a little on the snug side, but still looks modest enough.

The only other adjustment made was the armholes. I’ve mentioned before I’ve got country girl arms, so I need space in the armholes. To address the issue I made it really easy. I cut and sewed the armhole facing pieces together at 3/8 inch seam.

After checking the facing on my arm I pinned it to the armholes of the shirt matching up the notches. The shirt armholes had a little extra fabric that extended past the facing, which I trimmed back. It was very little but once the shirt armholes matched up with the facing the fit was perfect.

Finally I added the collar using the contrast fabric and my personalized tag. I’ve used these tags in a few projects now and really love them. I designed the tag myself and asked my co-worker, the screen-printing professor if I could screen-print them. He was gracious enough to set up the screen for me and help me print them.

I really like how the tag finishes off the shirt and makes it look like a real product.

The Completed Shirt

I finished off the shirt with a set of vintage yellow buttons I found in my button stash. I was quite pleased with how the worked with the shirt.

While I wasn’t sure about the fabric mixing at first, I am totally in love with it now. I think it adds a bit of interest to the project.

I really like how the shirt turned out and how comfortable it is to wear.

With the first of my #VintagePledge patterns down it’s time to turn my attention to my next project.

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