It's Alive!

A long time ago I posted about this pattern, McCalls 5147:



And now Toi has found it all made up, for sale on Etsy ($40, B36, click on the image to visit the listing):




I love it when I find handmade vintage for which I can identify the source pattern -- it's like CSI: Sewing, isn't it (except with fewer splatter marks)? And it really helps when I'm trying to decide which of the embarrassingly large number of patterns in my sewing room should be worked up next -- look how well this one worked out! I love the rick-rack, and the orange & plaid combo. How fancy would this look in plaid taffeta and velvet? (It'd also look about six years old, but I don't usually let that stop me.)

Has anyone else ever found a dress and known what pattern it was sewn from? (It doesn't count if you found it in your own closet ...)

Comments

[john]

you say splatter marksi would say spatter marksmy guess on this dress is that it is newer than the pattern by a number of yearsjmo

[Katie Alender]

No, but this is lovely! I love the pleats on the bodice.

[Kate]

No, but I once saw some fabric I had used to make a dress on a mannequin at the Smithsonian. Talk about feeling Ooooooooooooooooold! K Q:-)

[Katie]

I have! I found a great 60's a-line mini dress at the thrift store, and soon after, found the pattern at either the same shop or the one across town (not sure which one). I'll snap you a photo sometime if I remember!

[renee]

What a cute dress. I never have found one that I could identify;but, what if you found the perfect 'double row border' vintage fabric - just like in the sketch on a vintage dress pattern. So of course I had to make it, and wear it to a niece's wedding ( lots of compliments ! ).

[Anonymous]

This dress is slightly reminiscent of an Austrian Dirndl.Linda

[Alison Cummins]

Unrelated to the dress at hand: just wanted to report that Oracle and I met up on Friday to go fabric shopping and I had a wonderful time. Oracle had mentioned in Comments here that she was in Montreal and wanting to shop for fabric; I replied in Comments with my contact info; and that was that. We met the next afternoon. We had so much more in common than either of us expected, having exchanged no information about ourselves before meeting besides names and what we were wearing so we could recognise each other. So - in case any of you were wondering - A Dress A Day is a good place to meet other fabric lovers, in person as well as virtually.

[Latter-Day Flapper]

I have long fantasized about a sewing-related CSI episode. I can hear them now: "Well, the clothing is very unusual. It appears to be home-sewn but she was clearly an expert seamstress with a taste for vintage and a daring fashion sense. Grissom is scouring eBay for patterns as we speak . . . "

[Andrea]

I just bought some throw pillows at a thrift store with what appears to be the same plaid fabric! No kidding. I'll try to get you a picture. I love the dress pattern. I traipsed here by acccident, sew very rarely, but I have to say I read all your posts on this page and really enjoyed them. You write well! I have bookmarked your site and will return. Nice work!

[Katie Alender]

Hmm... looking at this again, maybe those are just darts. I thought they were cunning little pleats! I still like the dress, but I have to clarify, in case anyone thought I had lost my mind.

[Lady Be Good]

That's a gorgeous dress! I once went into a hipster boutique in Silverlake and saw the salesperson cooing to some customers over a dress, saying "This is from one of our local designers." I immediately recognized it as the famous Butterick walk-away dress, #4790. It was even made up in all the exact color combinations that are on the pattern envelope. It blew my mind that this 'local designer' was passing off this pattern as her own work, and in the nastiest polyester broadcloth that I have ever laid hands on! I was in such shock that when the salesperson approached me to coo about the dress I couldn't help but spill the whole history of it to her, going back to Claire McCardell and detailing all the different reincarnations over the years. I've shared the story with a few people, and nobody seems to share my reaction, but the whole thing still blows my mind.

[ambika]

lady be good, I would have been blown away, too. Love this dress, btw. It's gorgeous in these colors.

[Silverstah]

*dies of pattern lust* I would give my left pinky toe for that pattern. *swoon*:)

[Anonymous]

Isn't it a copyright violation to make up and sell the dress? I'm not trying to take away from the beauty of this person's work but I'm personally breaking away from patterns for the first time to sell my own stuff.

[Eva]

I *want* that pattern!/Eva

[oracle]

Alison, so there you are!I'm home in Ontario again. Was thinking on the train last night that I hadn't sent you any kind of follow up to say how very much I, myself, had enjoyed our Friday evening stroll through your favourite Montreal fabric shops! In fact, I'm just going to unpack my new fabrics today.Folks, I must concur with Alison. An insatiable appetite for fondling, oohing and aahing over, and even sometimes purchasing new cloth, plus enjoyment of really good writing and love of dresses to boot may be enough to draw two strangers together. And, those two former strangers may also discover (toward the end of the fabric shopping spree when other details such as how long one has been reading Dressaday and perhaps what work one might happen to do and so on finally get mentioned) that they have other, more serious things in common.And don't we all come to Dressaday because we love fabric and really good writing and lest I forget dresses!?Erin, are you going to throw a great Dressaday ball for us all in good-hearted, friendly Chicago?Alison and I could take the train, since we both believe in public transportation.By the way, once, while waiting in the parking lot of a tiny rural post office, I spotted a woman coming out the door wearing Folkwear's magnificent Afternoon Dress (the first version; not the revised version they're offering now), and, never questioning that she would see me as a kindred spirit, I jumped out of the car and ran up to her, gasping, "I know that dress! That's Folkwear's Afternoon Dress!" I finally faltered a bit and asked, "Isn't it?" since the woman was staring at me as though I'd just arrived from another planet and she did NOT know what to make of me. "I've got the pattern, too," I continued, acting a little more subdued in case that might make her feel a little more comfortable." But it didn't. Judged, distanced, and dispensed with as not sufficiently repressed for the local cutural climate, was how I felt! Not what I would have expected from someone who'd made up that incredible dress in drab colours and was wearing it as they went through but normal, unremarkable daily activities.

[Sewing Siren]

Once I found a factory made childrens dress at a thrift store, that I had made the pattern corrections for when it was in pre-production. It just happened to be in my daughters size, so I bought it :).

[Jenna]

There is a huge Ren costume/replica catalog that I get sent every few months. Often with items I pine for, but in the last few issues they have been selling a simplicity outfit - the ENTIRE patterns worth of extras - for several hundred dollars. Now, its a nice costume, heck I have personally made myself the skirt portion in about 6 different variations. But it makes my brain itch to be able to point to each section and know I have the tissue paper version upstairs in the cupboard.Of course when it comes to my fellow seamstresses out there, I have tried to learn to be subtle, but my husband still catches me checking out dresses and muttering "I wonder why she went with option B? The pockets would have laid flatter if she had just used C........"

[Erin]

I like the idea of a Chicago ball. Maybe someday; I've not yet recovered from the conference I arranged back in June!And yes, you're not supposed to sell stuff you've made from commercial patterns, commercially. However I think that if you make something from a pattern and it doesn't fit you or you just don't like it, it would be stupid for McCalls or Vogue to forbid you to sell it ... and that's different from making 500 to sell.I wish I had a good link to the page on Fashion Incubator where Kathleen talks about how home sewing patterns are inefficient for mass-production anyhow ...

[VickiJane]

I laughed, Oracle, when I readabout you rushing up to a stranger. I too have done the same. I was needing to track down a particular style of hat that I was having to copy for theatre costume when I saw a man walking down the street wearing the EXACT one I needed. I rushed up to him, grabbed his arm and said Oh I need to look at how your hat was made. My eyes then went into focus on his face that was ENTIRELY covered in tattoos (I live in New Zealand) and I realized my hand was on the HUGEST bicep I had ever seen. A very scary looking man. He was charming though and was more than happy to let me borrow it to draft a pattern.

[Missy]

oooh...I didn't know they had that pattern in an adult version. I have the girls size 8 pattern! too funny...gorgeous dress!Missy

[Theresa]

Ok- I don't knwo what in the world happened to my comment-- so I will try again. I totally agree with lady Be good. I too am guilty of accosting people to inspect the construction of their clothes.I love, love, love, love this dress and the pattern.I want to go to the ball!

[andrea]

My latest accosting involved walking back into the women's room in a rest area in South Dakota to ask a woman if her bottom was a skirt or an especially clever skort. She looked at me like I was an escaped mental patient.It was a very clever and cute skort.

[Anonymous]

I'm waiting for the CSI episode where they get DNA from a quilt-in-progress in a quilting frame. Prick your finger while hand quilting and get a little blood on the quilt? Use your own saliva to break down the red blood cells so they don't leave a stain - a very old quilting trick that would leave enough DNA to identify someone.Producing and selling clothing from a commercial pattern is a violation of copyright. Somewhere on the pattern, perhaps small print on the instruction sheet, it should list what you ARE allowed to do with the pattern, that is, what rights the copyright owner has decided to sell to you when you bought the pattern. It is possible to purchase (license) the right to make and sell items made from someone else's pattern. Some craft pattern publishers will allow you to purchase a cottage (or cottage industry) license to produce items according to their patterns. The cottage license conditions almost always require that you identify the original pattern on your hang tag. "Cottage Industry" assumes that YOU are making the items yourself, not producing them in a factory with hired help.CMC

[Anonymous]

This person is selling a vintage dress, not a dress they produced from the pattern. Anyone who would make this dress today and sell it for $40 is a glutton for punishment! The yardage on that skirt alone...