Vintage Sewing Adventures: Using Weigels 2089 from the 1950s

On a recent trip to Singapore, I attended a High Tea at the Raffles hotel and my friend wore an absolutely gorgeous dress made up of multiple different colours of gingham. I have always loved gingham as it’s a classic vintage staple, it’s easy to style and for those who like to sew, it’s 9 times out of 10 a great fabric choice for whatever your project may be. Inspired by my friends dress, I wanted to give making a vintage style dress using different colours of gingham a go and thus, the project began.

When it came to deciding what colours of gingham to use, I had a few options. I originally wanted to sew up a dress using red and pink gingham as this is my favourite colour combination and always a win in my books but I found a few other designers who were selling dresses in this gingham colour combination. I didn’t want to take away their shine so after toying with combinations such as green and blue, pink and orange or pink and yellow, I decided that I wanted to use three different shades of gingham and eventually decided on pink, orange and yellow. This combination reminded me of these square Starburst lollies and honestly, the combination sounded fun and summery. Being in Canberra at the time this project was taking place, we drove across the boarder to get to the nearest fabric store and I picked up two meters of pink, orange and yellow gingham plus some plain white cotton to use as lining.

As for the pattern, being away from my normal pattern stash, I was quite limited in my choices but I did find the pattern Weigel 2089. This pattern originally came out in the 1950s but I didn’t find out too much information about the company except from the fact that it’s of German origins. Weigel 2089 isn’t the most fancy or complicated pattern and honestly, the most interesting part of it is the skirt which I wasn’t planning on using. The bodice of this pattern is pretty straight forward with a rounded neckline, darts in the front and back and the option of sleeves. There are many patterns on the market that have similar bodices to this but I figured because it was all about the skirt and the fact that my sewing machine in Canberra isn’t the greatest, a simple pattern would be good.

As mentioned above, this dress is all about the skirt and to get the look I wanted I did some research and number crunching. I normally like my skirt to be 28″ or so in length and seeing that I was going to be making 4 different coloured panels, I calculated each panel to be about 7″ wide. Once I added in seam allowance, I knew I would make each panel 8″ and even if the skirt was to be a tad longer than normal, the fullness of it would make up for that fact. The big question came when it was time to deciding the length of each panel. I did a bit of research online and compared skirts from multiple other bloggers and vloggers and I eventually decided on the measurements in this video from the YouTuber PaperStxrs who I have enjoyed watching over the years.

With that, my measurements for each panel are as follows:
Panel 1; Pink Gingham
130cm or 51″
20cm or 8″ wide

Panel 2: Orange Gingham
203cm or 80″ long
20cm or 8″ wide

Panel 3: Yellow Gingham
317cm or 125″ long
20cm or 8″ wide

Panel 4: Pink Gingham
508cm or 200″
20cm or 8″ wide

Sew, let’s get started. The first thing I had to do was cut out my bodice pieces in the yellow gingham and white cotton lining, There were only two pattern pieces which made this pretty simple and they were already cut coming out of the envelope. I also cut, or ripped, my skirt panels. Laying out my gingham fabric in each colour, I measured out 8″ from the end, cut about an inch into the fabric in a very straight line and then I simply picked up the fabric and ripped it in a straight line all the way down the end. As each piece of fabric was 2 meters long, I was able to calculate pretty easily how many strips I would need for each skirt panel. Ripping each section was really satisfying and I think I could have done it for hours. With all my pieces cut, I started to sew the bodice.

The bodice required some simple darts in the front and back pieces and this process was repeated on the lining. I then joined the outer fabric pieces at the shoulders and did the same with the lining. With a quick press using the iron, I made sure the seams were flat before going ahead and attaching the front fabric to the lining by sewing along the neckline and and arm holes. Flipping the bodice inside out, I then sewed the sides together and the bodice was done. These kind of patterns are super simple so they are great for beginners as they can be finished really quickly. With that set aside, I was about to move onto the skirt panels.

I made sure to sew all my gingham strips until I had enough to meet the required lengths I needed for each panel. Once that was done, it was time to sew it all together. The best way to tackle gathering multiple long pieces of fabric together and gathering is dividing and marking each panel into quarters. I did this by putting sewing pins and a marker line at the top and bottom of each quarter. From here I sewed two rows of basting stitches (the widest stitch your machine can do) at the top of the panel. Bringing it next to the panel it was supposed to attached to, I was able to line up the quarter markings and then gather evenly.

I’d recommend pinning both middle sections together. From there, pull the fabric along the basting stitches so it starts to gather and then adjust your gathers so the next quarter section lines up. It’s best to find the middle and then work your way out as you’ll be handling less fabric in one go and gathering will be a little easier. Once your quarter points line up, pin and continue to the next quarter. Once your panel is pinned to the next panel, sew it down. If you have an overlocker, this would be a great next step but I could only use my pinking shears to clean up the edges. For each panel, sew two rows of basting stitches, line up the middle markings, pull the fabric along the basting stitches to gather the fabric evenly and then make sure the quarter markings line up.

This process can be a little slow and tedious but it’ll get the job done and the quarter markings really help once you start handling the longer panels of your skirt. I unfortunately sewed one of my pieces on back to front as I noticed I could see the wrong side of the seam along one of the panels. At first I thought I might have to unpick the whole panel but I ended up just unpicking the seam and an inch across where that panel met the above panel. From there I ironed the seam to face the opposite direction, I sewed it down and reattached the panel to the above panel. It was a quick fix which I was glad for and very soon, my skirt had all its panels attached. The last thing I needed to do to the skirt was sew another two rows of basting stitches along the waistline of the skirt and gather it until it fit along the waistline of the bodice. I sewed it down and the skirt was finally attached to the bodice.

I then sewed the back seam of the dress, once again wished I had an overlocker so I could really clean up the edges and installed my zip. I do wish I had tried the dress on before I attached the zip as I would have brought it in a bit as she was quite big but I think I was just a little overtired at this point and I just plain didn’t think of it. With the zip attached, I then ironed on my new custom dress label and hemmed the bottom of the skirt which took a while because it was over 5 meters long and for a double hem, that’s quite a length to hem. With the hem complete, so was my new three coloured gingham dress.

Fit: As mentioned above, this pattern was a little too large on my and I would have also shortened the torso as well which hasn’t ever been an issue for me before but new patterns do take some adjusting. Despite that, the dress itself was a lot of fun to wear and it twirls like a dream. I really love the colour combination but I do regret my decision of making the bodice yellow gingham as I now think maybe orange or pink would have been better; I’m not sure why I think this but it’s just what I think whenever I look at the dress.

I really love the fullness of the skirt and am really happy with the measurements I settled on for each panel. I do wish I could have added pockets but as this dress was my first big attempted at ruffles of this size I think I did ok even without pockets.

This dress gives off vintage picnic vibes and has a real summery feel about her. Even though it’s winter here in Oz, I still like sewing summer projects and although I intended this dress to come on travels with me, I was happy with her just being a cute summer dress. When I get to wear her properly, she will be styled with a coloured cardigans, either pink, yellow, orange or white would work thanks to the colours in the dress, and cute shoes (these black flats were the only pair I had with me besides slippers and Pokemon sneakers). This dress would also be cute with a straw sun hat just to really bring out the summer vibes and this whole image makes me want to frolic in a meadow.

If I were to make this dress again, I would absolutely change the bodice colour but apart from that, there’s not uch else I think I would change, besides fitting it better. I do want to make another similar dress and have had a project in mind for well over 5 or 6 years (I even have the fabric ready to go). A project such as this, especially if you want an even fuller skirt with more gathers, would be great if you had a gathering foot on your machine but unfortunately, every gathering foot I have bought for my machine has never worked even when a professional store has recommended them to me. My next project with a ruffle skirt has a lot of fabric that needs to be gathered so I am waiting until I can budget in either a new machine or until I find a foot that actually works (I’ve tried over 7 different gathering feet all allegedly designed to work on my machine … nope, nothing). I am really hoping to get this project started one day as ever time I see the fabric in my stash, it makes me want to sew this project but I don’t want to stress out over gathering over 80 meters of fabric panelling.