Sydney Vintage Show

I can't believe I haven't been to the Sydney Vintage Show before. I never seem to see any ads for it, and I thought it was in November anyway, so if someone hadn't mentioned it to me this week, I would have missed it. The thought of that just pains me now.

Because I went today.

And . it . was . amazing.

It's only 10 minutes' drive from my house! If you're in Sydney this weekend, I recommend you go. It is on until 4.30pm tomorrow (Sunday). (I have snatched up most of the B32 patterns though, just so you know)

Vintage shops from all over NSW have stalls there. (I noticed Chapel Street Bazaar had a stall there, so there were probably interstate sellers too.) You can see a list of sellers on the official website I linked to above.

The damage:

Fabrics! There was a lot of vintage fabric, and not many people looking at it! I mostly ignored the vintage clothes and sparkly doodads and dived into the fabric and patterns. The blue rose fabric is a John Kaldor crepe, the other fabric is a 50s rayon, both about 4metre lengths. (click on the photos to enlarge):

I bought 12 patterns, and most were $2 each! I bought 2 sewing books too. Love those vintage how-tos:



some lovely vintage buttons:

and some 40s-via-the-70s suede sandals:
I watched a bit of the hairdressing demonstration too, a victory roll tutorial! Fun! (but don't ask me how to do them Moggy, I was drawn back to pattern hunting before the end)

The official show site has photos from the April 2008 show. Does this mean there will be another one in 6 months? Be still my beating wallet!

Finally some sewing...

...but sadly, I'm a bit stuck so I may not have a new frock to post this weekend. I can't figure out how to put the collar on this dress. The instructions blithely say to sew the collar on, matching notches...and then unhelpfully show no illustrations of how you are supposed to stop the collar from hideously pleating and gathering in the process. Just happens by magic apparently, although not for me. I've tried putting it on every way I can think of. I guess I could try to topstitch it on. (Oh you may notice I did pleats instead of gathers. I found with this fabric the gathers made the front upper chest 'pouchy'. Not a good look)

I've pinned this thing so many times I'm starting to think I'll have to finish it without the collar. Sigh.

It doesn't help that I don't like the fabric. It's stash fabric which I must have thought was stretch cotton sateen before I knew any better. It didn't melt with the burn test so I thought it might be rayon. The back pieces stuck to the iron after I'd put the zip in of course, not before. So I had to recut the pieces, unpick the zip, do the darts again...grr.

Oh well. You can't win 'em all. I might put this aside and make an easy sundress instead.

Although, it's a lovely day for a bike ride...

Edited to add (within minutes!): Yay, I took the front pleats out, changed their position a little and I have finally been able to pin the collar on!
Edited yet again to add:
Here she is. Very similar to 'The Stepfrock' I made recently, except in a woven instead of a knit. I should have made it in some other colour instead of black I guess, for variety.

Edited yet again to show the frock on me: