With Love Betty's very own....This Old Thing!

I don't know about you guys but I'm addicted to watching Dawn Porters "This Old Thing" on channel 4 on a Wednesday night. It's so great to see a program praising vintage clothing and getting people excited about wearing it. 

Dawn Porter from This old Thing, Channel 4, Weds night at 8pm

For those of you who haven't seen in, basically Dawn Porter, (who I Love) attempts to get people excited about vintage. There is one person per episode who has never been in a vintage store, let alone worn vintage. She/he loves high street fashion and doesn't understand why you would ever wear 2nd hand clothing. Through out the episode Dawn attempts to change their mind and get them into vintage fashion and she usually succeeds! 

She shows you how you can be as outrageous or as sublet as you like and spend as much or as little as your purse strings will allow you. She explains that vintage fashion is NOT about getting "dressed up" but about mixing the old with the new and that it can be incorporated into your everyday wardrobe.

She also has a workshop full of expert tailors, dress makers & designers and through out the episode they show u how you can make sublet changes to vintage pieces so they fit you better or to customise them so they fit in with modern silhouettes and trends. 

Now this show has done absolute wonders for us at With Love Betty, we've had so many people quoting the show, stating that it has inspired them to come in and buy vintage! I even had my own Dawn Porter experience the other day with a vintage virgin. She walked away with a stunning crochet midi skirt and absolutely loves it!! Her first ever vintage piece!! So if your unsure about vintage why not pop in and have a look around, we are extremely friendly and love to do a bit of personal shopping. 

Now the whole point of this post was to show you how easy it is to make sublet changes to pieces you love. The only annoying thing about vintage is that it's one off, so if it's not your size you probably won't find it again in your size. BUT don't fret, there might be a way around it......

My friend Louise, a With Love Betty model and one of my best customers, came into see me yesterday. She desperately needed some smart clothing for work but wanted to stand out and not wear the same as everyone else. Well I had the perfect outfit for her, a pair of gorgeous camel, 100% wool, tapered trousers, unfortunately they were slightly too tight. Fortunately for her though I'm quite good with a sewing machine. 

They were only slightly to small for her, less than an inch so I decided the best way to get over the problem was to add a piece of material into the waist band. Now I could have used elastic but I knew Louise might want to tuck tops into the trousers so I wanted to make the customisation as inconspicuous as possible. So I turned them inside out to see if there's any spare fabric I could use, sometimes the hem might be wide or in this instance there was fabric covering the zip. 

So I literally cut away some of the fabric to use on the waistband and because I took it from the inside you won't notice the missing fabric.

I then very carefully, using a pair of sharp fabric scissors cut down the left side of the waistband and an extra 10mm down the seam. These trousers had a side zip so I was only able to do it the one side. If they needed expanding more and didn't have a side zip I could do it both sides. 

I then pinned the extra fabric in place by opening up the cut area to make a V shape, Louise only needed an inch wide insert which was perfect for the extra fabric I cut from the zip. Then using my mini sewing machine from Dunelm mill I started sewing.....

To make it neat remember to fold over the edges of the cut waistband so the final result with have a hemmed finished. 

That's basically it, as u can see I folded over the top part of the extra fabric and gave it a hem and folded the cut waistband each side to give it a neat final result. I also hemmed the inside where I had taken the extra fabric, just so it didn't fray when Louise wore them. 

And that is how I added an inch to the waistband of a pair of vintage trousers and I'm sure your agree Louise looks fabulous in them......

And as you can see the inserted fabric is hardly noticeable. So if you do find a vintage piece that you love why not ask to see if something can be done to alter it. Your be surprised at what some people can achieve :) 

Please let me know if you enjoyed this post and found it informative,

And why not let us know your views on vintage fashion....

With love, Betty xxxxxx 

By Betty

So I know I have been out of action for a while when It comes to With Love Betty's blog but that's all about to change.......... I promise!! 

Regarding the content of my little blog, it is no longer going to revolve around With Love Betty but include my other interests and other projects I'm involved with. So I hope you enjoy the new content and find it informatative and exciting to read........here's hoping anyway ;) 

The lovely people who know me will probably tell you that I'm not the sort of person who can sit still for very long. I finish a project and straight away get itchy feet, planning in my head the next project. They range from being ridiculously huge (like opening my own vintage boutique) or teeny tiny (like making pom pom garlands) but either way my head is always planning and my Pinterest account is ever expanding. 

So With Love Betty is reaching it's 2nd year anniversary (I know right, how insane is that!!) and I still love being a shop owner. However the days can sometimes be a bit slow and frustrating when it's quiet. So to stop myself going absolutely crazy (and also to stop abusing my Netflix account) I decided to venture into a small side business. 

About 6 months ago a newly engaged friend of mine came round for her monthly dinner and gossip catch up. We started discussing her ever growing list regarding her wedding and on that list was finding the perfect wedding invitations. Like myself, my beautiful friend is extremely confident in what she wants (not fussy, confident!) and couldn't find exactly what she was after. After she showed me some of the samples she had received I said that it was something I could attemt to design for her. As you can imagine she looked a little scared at this, what if I was crap and she hated them? How do u tell a friend you hate her work? But she put her trust in me and thankfully loved my design and trust me I don't think she would hold back if she hated them. 

Using peonies in the design was a big must as these were the flowers she was to have in her beautiful bouquet. So after taking a photograph of a peony I went onto Indesign and started the slow process of drawing around it. I was then able to open the flower in Photoshop where I could rotate and manipulate it to look like multiple flowers of different sizes and shapes. Emma was there through out the whole design process, she was able to have the flowers exactly where she wanted them, the text in the fonts she wanted and arranged exactly how she imagined it would be. 

We were both very happy with the outcome :) 

Well 6 months later, on the 21st of June the wedding of Emma & James happened at the absolutely stunning venue, Osborne House, the holiday home of Queen Victoria herself! It was an extremely grand affair, the weather was perfect, the grounds and house were out of this world and the food and drink went down extremely well. As well as doing the invitations I ended up doing all the wedding stationery, everything looked stunning and I was so pleased with the outcome. 

Order of service......

 

Table plan, table names & menu.......

Framed items.....

The sweet table.....

Through out the process of designing and completing the stationery, Emma stated that maybe this is something I could pursue as a small business on the side of With Love Betty. It made sense, I had days when I had nothing to do and needed something to keep my brain ticking over, this seemed like the perfect answer. 

So "By Betty" was born...............

Xxxxxxxx