Color blocking a vintage sewing pattern (without the pattern)

You know when you fall HARD for an idea, and you absolutely must drop everything to work on it? Could be sewing, knitting, cooking, anything. That’s what happened to me recently! I fell in love with the color blocking on a vintage McCall’s pattern envelope on Pinterest, McCall’s 5831 from 1961. And immediately had to drop absolutely everything to plan and make that top!

Follow along in my latest YouTube video.

Never mind that I didn’t have the pattern. Would that stop me? Umm I’d say I have over a decade of blogging stories to prove it certainly would NOT. ?

So I found a similar pattern in my stash, Advance 9030 from the mid 1950s.

I’ve sewed the sleeveless View 2 before–the first version I blogged about several years ago, and most recently, I sewed another for the project in my all-in-one facing burrito tutorial. (Oops! Forgot to blog about that video, but do go watch it!)

With a few tweaks, I thought View 1 would be a good substitute to recreate the look of View C in the McCall’s pattern.

I’ve never done color blocking before, but I’ve been wanting to try color blocking something all year!

Perhaps ironically, the actual color blocking was the smoothest part of this project. Everything else plagued me! Puckered seams, thread choices, sheer fabric, bad drafting choices… was I even able to pull it all together in the end?! Well, you’ll just have to watch the video and see how it all turns out!