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I finished this suit, made from a 40s pattern, quite a while ago and you’ve probably seen it in a few Instagram photos since I’ve been wearing it a lot, but now I finally have some proper photos of it.

I got the fabric by accident when ordering what I thought was a very pale green fabric on Etsy, I got a refund but didn’t have to send the fabric back. I realised it was a great fabric anyway, and just the right size for making up this pattern.

I made a matching belt as well but I don’t have a buckle for it yet, so this black patent belt will have to do for now.

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A new Instagram crop!

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I made another hat, and this time I made two so I could sell one! One of the hats is available in my Etsy shop.

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A look back at January through Instagram (plus a couple of pictures from december). I’ve been using it quite a lot!

If you want to follow me on Instagram I’m johannaost.

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When I showed the photos of my grandmother’s 40s suit I said I would make a post about the hat I made from the leftover scraps of the hemmed skirt. Well, I’ve finally gotten around to it!

It’s really difficult to take decent photos of stuff indoors in the dark winter so it’s taken me until now to get some ok ones. I had to make the photos really light to show the details of the all black hat, so now you can see every little piece of lint on it as well…

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I finished this suit recently, made from an early 50s or late 40s pattern. I actually started it way back last winter (I wore the unlined jacket to the antiques fair in February), but then I kind of forgot about it and summer came along and it would have been to warm to wear anyway so I didn’t feel motivated to work on it.

I originally planned to do a pencil skirt instead of the wide skirt of the pattern, but when I had finished the jacket I thought the flared peplum was so perfect for a wide skirt, and I liked the idea of going with the very New Look-look of the original pattern. However, I had already bought the fabric planning for a pencil skirt, so making it into a flared skirt took a whole lot of piecing and tweaking, and I modified a different pattern, for a dress, that didn’t take quite as much fabric but had a similar look to the suit pattern skirt.

It’s made from a thick wool with satin lining and built in shoulder pads. I made the neckline very simple without a collar so that I will be able to wear it with a bunch of different loose collars.

I kind of wish I had skipped the last button since it pulls at the fabric. But it’s not perfectly smooth anyway so I think it still looks ok.

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Today is my birthday! I’m 28 now. I’ve gotten this book and a Mason Pearson hairbrush from Henrik.

I also wore this sequined tiger top I made recently. I love repetitive fiddly work so sewing on sequins was just my thing. Perhaps I should embroider more! Anyway, it goes perfectly with my favourite jewellery set from Cecilie Melli, and with a long slinky skirt it would be the perfect 40s style midriff evening ensemble. The fabric is the remains of a cut up 80s skirt I got from a friend a long time ago, and I used the same pattern as for this dress.

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I got this fantastic tiki themed fabric on Etsy (I don’t think it’s vintage though) a while ago, but didn’t quite know what kind of dress to make with it. It had to be a 50s or early 60s style because of the cars and architecture in the print. Since I had been wanting a cheongsam dress (see the cheongsam post) and bought a pattern for it I realised that it would be the perfect style for this. The pattern is from the right era, and Asian themes are pretty common in the tiki esthetic.

It turned out great and I just love it. It’s a little bit loose in the waist area and thus not quite as figure hugging as I would like it to be, but I might change that later. The pattern I used was Butterick 9790 but I shortened the sleeves a bit.

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