tablecloth top - vintage fashion

There is a certain security in planning. The perfect parchment has been chosen. It's untarnished surface begging for immaculate A+ worthy letters.  Your head tilts to admire the ruler like straightness of your prose and you dot a stray "i" with accomplishment as if you're adding the last flourish to a Botticelli. 

I revel in the perfect "to do" list favouring lolly coloured felt pens and headings encased in frothy cumulonimbus clouds. There's the "to email/call", the "to do", "to buy".  Items completed are crossed off and often a zesty tick is marked beside them. This weekly art form however hides a multitude of sins as too often the planning overshadows the doing.

Embarking on this new year and all the wonders and tumult it will be bring I have endeavoured to let go of the plan somewhat and embrace more of the do. The plan is still kept on a leash these days albeit a longer one now but the do sits proudly on my lap happily being fed morsels of my thoughts and most importantly - my time.

With dreams to fill my wardrobe with vintage and handmade treasures I have deviated from the fabric store perusing, the pattern book marking and that great foe of the do - the plan.  Vintage patterns have been snaffled up still bearing their old Coles price gun tag for 50cents and drapey tablecloths, sheets and household furnishings of yore have been collected. Lavender scented and fresh from the sun they have been cut up and transformed anew. Their cost is minimal and the planning even less so but the rewards have been far greater than those ambitious projects that more often than not spend their time languishing beneath a hot pink cloud.  Tucked away in that perfect kind of notebook they never see the light of day nor are ever bestowed with that school mistress tick.

Steph x

I have been bold with my sewing lately and have stepped away from the security of store bought patterns. Ginormous vintage kaftans have been purchased and reborn as floaty maxis, vintage patterns and wisps of this and that have made blouses and shorts. A cut here, a dart there and a liberal dash of "what's the worst that can happen?" has helped to fill my wardrobe with pieces I love for next to nothing. This post is the first in a series of vintage fashion revamps where I've made tutorials of things I've upcycled. I'd love for you to join me on this thrifty adventure.

I have been trying so very hard to copy this pattern and upload it here to share with all of you. Fingers crossed!