Sunday, May 20, 2018

The 'Caley Dress'



This 1960s dress make is inspired by the old Caley Train Station gates that are still visible in Edinburgh.  In the 1890s the Caledonian Railway Company wanted to build an Edinburgh city centre station that rivalled that of the Edinburgh Waverley station (still the main station today).

Here's a photo of the Caledonian Railway Company's 'Princes Street' Station in 1963 (more history and source of picture available here):

Picture: TSPL
Two years later in 1965, the station was demolished.  The dress I made is from a basic Butterick sheath dress pattern from around 1963-1965.  So I felt it was perfect to recreate what it must have been like to be in Edinburgh at the time of this other great massive station (which by the way is now right at the back of the Waldorf Astoria and these gates lead into a car park!)



I bought this vintage yellow flowered fabric with subtle grey tones from an antique mall in Washington and have been waiting for the perfect project for it!  I didn't have a lot of fabric so I knew I had to do a fairly simple type dress (no big shirtwaist dress pattern for this amount of fabric!)


I'm so happy with how it turned out!  And looky at the matching belt I made (matching belts make me so happy --in fact, matching colours makes me super happy! lol.).  Speaking of matching colours, the dress goes perfectly with my Bait Footwear shoes (actually, I bought the shoes after I already had the fabric! My favourite thing about sewing!!)


Here you can really see the gates against the Waldorf Astoria Hotel:


The dress consists of a narrow panelled skirt attached to a basic v-neck bodice with a side zipper.  I did extend the sleeve length a bit so that it is a bit longer than the pattern called for. 


 The suitcase is from my Grandma--from around this time..probably 1950s.  It's great inside as it has fabric barriers for each side that slot into hooks.


Overall, quite pleased with this great spring dress. Makes me want to take a steam train trip! ;)


I hope to get more into train travel history in the UK--it's so interesting and I just love all the old train posters...would be fun to learn more about which stations still exist and the histories behind this great way of traveling!

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1 comment

  1. What a pretty yellow print dress! And you are very lucky to find matching shoes for so many of your makes. Of course, we who sew are able to do the reverse also -- match our clothes to whatever color wonderful shoes we find in the store. Fun!

    ReplyDelete

I read each and every comment--thank you so much!

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