The show we’re working on right now is William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. We’re setting it loosely in 1968-72, and we’re making a few costume items rather than buying. Really, you can buy so much for the late 60′s/early 70′s that it’s silly to make your own unless you have specific things you want to see color-wise or if you’re a bit crazy (like me?).
We have run across a lot of vintage patterns from this era, which is a lot of fun. However, they are often single-size, cut by the previous owner, or rare. They are all 40 years old, at least, and therefore the paper, while heavier than what the “Big 3″ use today, is not exactly going to stand up to being cut if we want to preserve the pattern. And, we do want to preserve the pattern. So, we move to tracing.
In the past, we’ve used something called Pellon Red Dot for tracing. However, the thing that works best on that particular material is Sharpie marker. I don’t particularly want to get Sharpie marker all over a pristine vintage pattern, so I went looking for something else to use and found Swedish Tracing Paper, which takes marks from pencils and from pens. When I took it out of the package, my first observation was that it’s a lot heavier than the Pellon, which means it will be less porous to markings. Excellent.
Vintage patterns are pretty cool. Let’s look at some photos.
When I took the pattern out of the envelope, it looked like it was still in factory folds. Crazy! However, as I pulled away at the layers of tissue, it became apparent that the pieces had been at least partially cut out, including the dress front and back, and some pieces to the short jacket.
Things were crinkly, so I needed to iron (without steam!) before I got started.
Before
Ready for tracing.
Once ironed out, I started tracing with a pencil. Eventually, once I got to the facings, sleeves and other smaller bits, I transitioned to using a ball point pen. Of the two, on this tracing medium, I prefer the pen. The pencil gets worn down very quickly.
The coolest thing about this pattern is all the advice it gives you – for example, about darts:
Fold on the solid line, stitch on the dotted line!
It also shows you where you can adjust the pattern using these nice little ruler graphics. I’m unsure, however, if you’re only supposed to adjust by an inch, or if that’s just a suggestion:
Finally, as you can see they used to also number the notches and mark the seam allowance, as well as telling you what the various dots mean. In the photo below, the dot on the collar piece is marked for the RIGHT shoulder seam, so you don’t go getting it reversed:
So there we are, a start on McCall’s 9629.