Sewing with Vintage Patterns: Two 1940’s Blouses

Vintage skirts are much easier to find than vintage blouses. Blouses have to be washed more frequently and are more prone to staining so fewer of them have lasted. I have several beautiful vintage skirts. I realized though that I don’t wear them as often as I’d like because they need a certain style and color shirt to go with them. I usually end up finding the plainest white top I can, but even then, I struggle to find the right style.

I decided to pull out my vintage patterns to see if I could find some better blouse options. I had a few yards of plain white fabric to put to use and some vintage trim and buttons.

The first blouse I made was the short sleeve option from Simplicity 4230. Though not dated, I believe this pattern is from the early/mid 1940s. Yes, I do want to make the jumper soon if I can find the right fabric for it! This pattern is old enough that it was not printed. Instead, each pattern piece came cut to the correct size with small perforations to mark special points and to label the piece. If that sounds challenging, it was. I had to be much more careful that I had the correct piece, that it was facing the right direction and on the grain correctly.

The instructions also assumed the user knew a lot about sewing. The first step has a diagram of the nearly assembled blouse.

I wasn’t going to have quite enough fabric of my left over remnant so I did something very common in vintage sewing. For one of the pattern pieces, I sewed two pieces of fabric together and laid the pattern on this pieced fabric before cutting it out. I chose to do this on the one of the puffed sleeves because the puffs mostly hide the seam in the back. I found a set of little vintage buttons for the neck and it was ready! I look forward to wearing this with vintage skirts and jumpers.

The second blouse I made was view 2 from Simplicity 2034. This pattern is from 1947. I liked that it was simple (as in no buttons, zipper closure, or darts). Though not fussy, it had a fun element with the ruffles and ricrac. I didn’t have enough ricrac to use the same color throughout, but I liked the yellow and pink together, especially when paired with a vintage teal skirt with small yellow and pink accents.

These instructions were also pretty minimal so I had to do a little bit of guessing. Fortunately, though, the pattern pieces were printed.

I love the Carmen Miranda/ vintage fiesta vibe from this one.

I’ve also been having fun helping others learn to sew. I’ve been helping a teen girl learn foundational sewing skills while making her first dress from a pattern. She’s doing an awesome job! If you are local and interested in learning the basics of sewing, I’m offering sewing tutoring at a low hourly rate. Let me know if you’re interested.