Vintage patterns and making

How to make a Downton Abbey era 1920s flapper style hat- sewing pattern

We have just listed 4 sets of sewing patterns for making stylish 1920s flapper hats.  Each pack has 2 different flapper hat patterns so they are very good value. We have included step by step instructions and full size paper pattern pieces to help you make these lovely hats. The pattern also includes the decorations on each hat. These are available through our Amazon and Ebay stores as they are not downloads, due to the actual paper pattern pieces being included.

They are deceptively simple to make and we think that each one could be made in an evening.....they are excellent for 1920s revival and re-enacting but also look very elegant today with modern fashions too.

Those of you who are following the TV drama Downton Abbey will see that the new series 4 is set in the early 1920s and the ladies are wearing styles very much like these...so this is your chance for a little Downton Abbey elegance and style.....

Here are the 4 sets of 2 hats available

2 lovely and slightly unusual shapes with floral decorations- click here

2 slightly more traditional flapper shapes with leaf and flower decorations - click here

A turn down brim and a turn up brim with decorations are in this pack- click here 

And finally 2 elegant deep crowned floral trimmed flapper hats- you can find these here-

All of these are really such fun to make- and here at Vintage Visage we take our patterns seriously and so you know that you can always reach us for email back up so that you can enjoy our patterns fully. 

Have fun- and enjoy making them

1940s Make Do and Mend Aprons made from old clothes- sewing pattern

As we know, the wartime 1940s gave rise to a number of interesting designs and patterns as women looked to old clothes to make new items. Make do and mend was the motto- and when the husbands shirt had already had its cuffs and collars 'turned' to stop the fraying showing- what could you do with it?- why- make it into an apron of course!

This apron is made from an old shirt 

and the cute little girls apron below is made from an old dress-

Both of these 'pinnies' as they were called then, would be great made up today from recycled clothes- or if you are a re-enacter of the 1940s  then you could recycle some vintage clothes too- heres a use for that very pretty fabric which has gone a little 'ripe- fuse it onto interlining and reuse it as a pinny!

We have put both diagram sewing patterns together on to one pattern- and you can now purchase and download it from our Etsy shop here

Vintage handbag sewing patterns now available on kindle

We are adding to our range of patterns available on kindle all the time. Kindle is fast becoming a convenient way of storing lots of patterns at once- and is very handy to keep in your craft bag!

You may wonder how we can sell a sewing pattern on the kindle- well, of course we can't give you actual paper pattern pieces- but what we do give you are very very simple instructions of the shapes to cut for making our ingeniously simple yet stylish handbags.......

Here are a few available- the links to get you to the kindle store are at the bottom of each picture- just click and it will take you straight there......

This is a gathered 1940s clutch bag- very simple to make- find it here

Heres what the cover of all our patterns on kindle look like- this is a very sweet little petal trim bag- perfect for evening, bridal or flower girls.....find it here

And this is the stylish bandbox handbag-its great as it looks like a mini hat box...find it here

We have many more knitting and crochet patterns on kindle , as pdf downloads from the Vintage Visage website, pdfs via email from our Etsy shop and also as printouts in our Ebay shop 

 

Vintage 1940s toy sewing patterns- giraffe, monkey, lamb, frog, camel, etc

We have just sourced a wonderful book of vintage 1940s toy sewing patterns. There are 10 altogether- there is a giraffe, a camel, a lamb, a tortoise, a monkey, a china doll, a peasant doll, a frog, a clown and a cockerel. They are  all very cute and definitely have that vintage retro feel about them!

The patterns are all in diagram form- which means that there is a squared grid which shows you the size and shape of the pieces to be cut. You would then transfer those shapes onto 1 inch squared paper.That means that the sewing patterns are perfect for delivery as a pdf or on a cd. 

They are all quite simple to make and only have a few pieces each to cut out. If you are an experienced maker you will already understand how to resize a squared grid to make the toys bigger or smaller too.

At the moment they are on Ebay as a cd- but look out for them on the website soon as a pdf download. Click here to find them

How to sew or knit a cute little vintage llama toy pdf

Llamas are such wonderful animals and have recently become very popular to keep for their coats which can be brushed to obtain the fibres to make luscious yarns.

They are such cute animals too- even though they can be a little naughty towards some humans (they can spit and chase!) they are very loveable and have many fans.

If you wish to make your own little llamas- you may keep llamas yourself and want to sell cute little toys to go along with the other merchandise- we have a couple of vintage patterns that you might like.

One is to sew, and one is to knit....

1940s llama vintage knitting pattern

this is Lucy llama who dates from the 1940s and who you can knit- shes very cute - especially if you knit her in lovely soft alpaca yarn...you can find the pattern to purchase by clicking here

If you prefer a sewing pattern- this cute little llama toy is available to purchase as a pdf download

 

1940s sewn llama

This is Holly llama who again dates from the 1940s and is made via a diagram sewing pattern (eg the pattern is charted on a grid and you would then transfer the shape onto squared paper). You can find her as a pdf download to purchase by clicking here

Little llamas make great gifts- there is definitely a cuteness about their funny little faces!- enjoy!

How to make Point Lace- vintage victorian instructions, patterns and pictures.

We have just digitised 2 booklets on how to make pretty and stunning point lace in the victorian style. Point lace is made by taking different types of fine braids and then infilling with stitches. Both booklets are by Weldons and are titled Practical Point Lace

You can see in the second cover how the lace is formed by the braid and infill stitches

Why is it called Point lace?well according to a victorian source, 'point' is the french word for a stitch of any description as used in needlework- so the name point lace signifies lace made in stitches- Point de Bruxelle, Point de Venise and so on. Modern (eg Victorian!) lace work is also known as renaissance work, which means a lace having the from of the design in braid, with the intervening spaces filled in with stitches. How those stitches are worked determines the beauty of the lace work.

You can see here some of the different stitches used- this example is also worked on a net base.

This is a lovely example of a victorian collar worked in Point lace- you can clearly see here the different filling stitches.

This pretty cake doily too shows the beauty of the different infill stitches.

Another pretty collar.

All of these designs are in the booklets along with many others. You can find the digitalised ebooklets  on our Vintage Visage website by clicking here 

How to make Limerick lace- vintage victorian instructions and photos

Limerick lace is so dainty and so beautiful.  This is a our second booklet that we have digitalised for you which shows how to make the stitches and examples of pretty Limerick lace to make.

Limerick lace is unusual in lace in that it is really embroidery onto net. You can see from the examples above and below how pretty it can be- its a very good lace for wedding and bridal items as nets and veils can be made to look very beautiful.

According to the introduction in the booklet, it is also unusual in that it differs from other Irish laces as it was a purely commercial enterprise started by an Englishman who married the daughter of a Nottingham lace manufacturer.In 1829 he settled in Limerick and took over a number of lace workers to teach lace making to the women of Limerick

This lovely and informative ebooklet was first published in 1902 so it is now over 100 years old, and it shows some wonderful examples of made lace, and also how to stretch the net over a frame, and has picture and instructions of how to make a large number of the fancy stitches to infill into the netting.

It is a craft which will not take long to master as the stitches are quite simple, but will take a long time to execute as the stitches are necessarily small as they are worked onto fine netting. If you are a design entrepreneur or a textile artist then you may be able to work out a way doing this in a large scale with bigger netting which might be very interesting.....

You can find the ebooks to purchase as pdf downloads on our Vintage Visage website by clicking here which will take you straight to the correct page

Vintage glove making sewing instructions and patterns

Do you want to learn how to sew lovely vintage gloves? There are lots of patterns for vintage knitted and crochet gloves out there, but here at Vintage Visage we have found some lovely patterns and instructions for you to make leather, suede or fabric gloves.

Making gloves is not an easy thing to do- you have to be fairly exact in your cutting out and of course its a bit fiddly when sewing as you have to go up and down the fingers- so its not a quick process either....Having said that, its perhaps not as complicated as you might fear. The first pattern that we have here dates from the 1940s and is for cotton pique gloves, which are nice and light to wear- and very often used to go with summer dresses or 'sunday best' clothes. 

They have a very sweet turn up on the wrist and were usually made in white in the 1940s but of course today we can make them from any colour cotton, brights or pastels- they would look fab in bright printed floral or abstract cottons for a fun effect too.

The most difficult part of the making of any gloves, and perhaps the bit most feared by potential makers, is the cutting out of the fabric. This particular pattern comes with a gridded diagram to help you work out the shapes for the paper pattern pieces. Even so, there are still a fair few curves to cut. As ever though we don't want that to put you off, we like to encourage all of our customers to 'have a go'. Nothing was ever gained with out trying, and if you decide that you don't like sewing gloves then you have only lost an hour of your time. If however you decide that you do like making gloves...then you have a whole new skill and potential income..... 

We would suggest that for your first pair of gloves that you make a 'trial' pair- that is, use some fabric such as calico or spare cotton, and really take your time to follow the instructions of how to cut and how to sew. Once you have made one pair, you can try them on to see how they fit. If they fit beautifully then you can carry on to your preferred fabric and make your first 'real ' pair. Most likely though, as with anything made, you may need to make a few 'tweaks'. It may be that the fingers of your trial pair are too long or too short for you, or you have sewn the fingers a little tight for your fingers to fit into. Don't worry if so- thats what the trial pair is for, to understand if adjustments need to be made.  we all learn best though our mistakes! Don't forget that we all have different size and shaped hands too, so its pretty likely that they need a 'tweak'.

Once you have made this pair- you might like to try making these wonderful 1900s gloves and gauntlets too

or these button driving gloves

Once you get really proficient you can start to embroider your fabrics before you make them into gloves- and perhaps make some as beautiful as these

If you wish to purchase the patterns- they and many more are on the Vintage Visage website, which you can get to by just clicking here....enjoy!

The booklet for the gauntlets and embroidered gloves can be found by clicking here

 

Vintage Victorian Hardanger Embroidery Instructions booklet pdf

We have 2 booklets of instructions for Hardanger Embroidery on the Vintage Visage website. The booklets date from the early 1900s Victorian era and have instructions and illustrations of how to work and make the embroidery.

Hardanger embroidery is said to have originated from Denmark where there is a city named Hardanger, and was also worked in Norway and Sweden. However- the origin of this type of embroidery can be seen as far back as ancient persia and Asia where it was worked in silk and a fine gauze netting.

As you can see from the illustrations, its a sort of mixutre of embroidery, cut work and drawn thread. It was used to make 

"pillow slips, tea-cloths, sideboard cloths, tray cloths, mats, sheet decoration, centre pieces, collars and cuffs, aprons, blouse trimmings, belts and button ornamentation. Indeed, each and every article designed for  household or personal use can be ornamented with this work, which is not difficult to learn and not expensive to do...."

And as you can see from the illustrations above, the ebooklets give you comprehensive instructions and very good illustrations to show you exactly how to work the stitches

Its an interesting skill to learn, and inside each of the 2 booklets there are lots of ideas and designs for anyone wishing to research more about Hardanger, or as it says on the second booklet, Hardangen, embroidery

If you wish to purchase the ebooklets along with other Victorian Embroidery instructions-- they are available by clicking here which will take you directly to the Vintage Visage website- enjoy!

1920s fabric flower corsages sewing pattern-Lady Crawley, Downton Abbey

You may be watching the new series of Downton Abbey TV series  which is set in the early 1920s. The series is full of lovely costumes and in the last programme it showed the ladies of the manor getting ready for the wedding of Lady Mary. We have already shown some patterns very much like the long lean dresses they were wearing- but did you see Lady Crawleys corsage and hat?

She had the most lovely fabric rose chiffon or organza flower as a corsage and the same flowers on her hat. Now can make your own beautiful fabric rose corsages from our instructions which are downloadable from the website (links below the pictures)

Now here at Vintage Visage we have mentioned how much we love sewing fabric flowers- they look so pretty and are useful as they use up lots of scraps of beautiful fabrics. We have a selection of very pretty genuine 1920s sewing instructions for these pretty flowers below. The first one, the wild rose, is very like Lady Crawleys corsage on Downton Abbey....

its so pretty- imagine lots of these set together on a hat too- gorgeous!

This one is smaller but still so pretty- its been made here with a spotty dotty fabric but you can of course use plain or printed fabrics- vintage floral fabrics would look lovely...

This one for instance is made from plaid or tartan fabric- you also get the instructions for the wonderful bunch of grapes too

These fabric flowers were made from black velvet for a very luxurious feel

And if you are looking for something pretty but slightly less fancy, then these little 1920s fruit and leaf clusters made from tiny scraps of silk would fit the bill nicely.

All of these could be made as gifts, or to sell- try presenting them on pretty cards for a cute touch.

As always, the patterns can be purchased and instantly downloaded from our Vintage Visage website by clicking here- it will take you straight to the correct page in a new window.