Hollywood 1145 - starting to sew a 1940s suit

When I stumbled across Lucky Lucille's Sew For Victory sew-a-long I was terribly excited and keen as mustard to join in.

I had just bought fabric for a 1940s skirt suit.  I had at least half of the month left.  I could do it!

Despite my grand plans and then all of my efforts to coerce all of my friends with even a speck of sewing skills to join in, I fell flat.

I was progressing nicely through the usual steps of pattern grading and mockups and all was going well - until I tried to put the collar on. Fail, fail and fail again.  What's worse, time got away from me (that is, I played on my xbox way too often, had too many weekend social engagements and worked late a few too many nights this month) and so the deadline has gone by without me even completing the skirt.  Woe.

That said, it is still worth putting an entry or two here to record my (miserable-to-date) adventure sewing the suit.

The pattern I'm using is the first vintage pattern I ever bought.  It's a Hollywood Pattern, #1145, featuring Ginny Simms on the cover.   I'm making view 1, the short sleeved option.

The style of the suit is very typical of the 1940s with features like shoulder darts leading into pockets, a peplum on the blouse/jacket and the fabric-saving 6 panel skirt with a hemline just below the knee.

I scored a wool and cotton blend from a local fabric store on mega-sale for $6 a meter.  This was purchased at the same time the linen for my 1960s blouse with intentions of matching the blouse with the skirt.  Mixin' my eras!

When I got the fabric home I realised it also would go nicely with my1940s blue silk jacket as well as my the blouse from my 1950s mustard skirt and top set.

As mentioned above, my work on this sewing project so far includes:

• buying and pre-washing fabric
• grading the pattern up to a size that will fit (including drafting a collar piece as this is missing from the pattern set).
• cutting out the mockup fabric
• sewing the mockup of the skirt.
• sewing the upper half the bodice mock-up and attaching collar.
• removing collar fail and reattaching collar.
• removing collar fail and reattaching collar.
• cussing at collar fail and throwing it in the corner

GAH!  I honestly can't believe the troubles I am having with this deuced collar given that I've made it before in the past!  Sewing rage aside, I am not defeated and will continue to work through this sewing project at my own, typically slow speed.