Sewing Patterns For Beginners

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Style 2167

"Where should I begin with vintage sewing?"

It's probably the question I'm asked most, and I always hesitate slightly before answering because the sensible answer is usually not the one people are hoping for.

Most people are waiting for me to suggest something dramatic. A beautifully tailored 1940s jacket. One of those evening dresses with a tiny waist, covered buttons and enough internal structure to make you wonder how anybody ever cleaned it, never mind made it at home.

Those are the patterns people notice first.

A plain shift dress usually has a harder job convincing anyone.

It is nearly always the envelope that gets them. The woman stepping out of a car. The one holding gloves she probably never wore. Someone standing somewhere looking into the middle distance as if she has just received important news. The person who originally bought the pattern may simply have needed something for a wedding or a summer holiday, but the illustration usually suggested a much more interesting life.

I've fallen for that myself.

There is a jacket pattern tucked away somewhere in my collection that I bought almost entirely because I liked the picture on the front. I remember the envelope more clearly than the actual pattern. It has an old price sticker in the corner, slightly wonky, and for some reason I've never removed it.

I could remove it.

I probably should.

But now it looks wrong without it.

I've never made the jacket, either.

That happens more often than I like to admit.

My first attempts at sewing were not especially impressive. There were seams that wandered, thread gathering underneath the fabric in little knots, and moments where I sat looking at the instructions thinking I'd somehow missed the important bit.

I still remember one pattern that said:

"Prepare bodice."

That was the whole instruction.

I looked through the booklet again because I assumed there had to be another page.

There wasn't.

After handling a lot of original patterns, I've become a little cautious about words like "easy". Sometimes they really are easy. Sometimes they are easy because the person writing the instructions already knows what they mean.

Older patterns often assume you've picked things up somewhere along the way.

Which was probably fair enough at the time. Sewing was much more common. People learnt at school, from parents, from relatives, or just by making things repeatedly until they stopped needing much explanation. Pattern companies were writing for those people.

Unfortunately, if you weren't one of them, some instructions could feel rather abrupt.

The artwork doesn't always help either.

I've had patterns that looked frightening until I opened them out and found they were perfectly manageable. Then I've had others that looked wonderfully simple until I reached the neckline and discovered several small pieces I'd somehow failed to notice on the envelope.

That has happened more than once.

One blouse pattern in my collection has pencil notes all over the tissue. The previous owner altered the sleeve, changed the neckline and wrote "better this way" beside one seam.

I have no idea whether it was better.

Perhaps it was. Perhaps she just preferred it that way. I like that she wrote it down though. It feels very different from the untouched patterns that have probably sat in drawers for sixty years.

Vintage instructions have their own particular style.

Modern patterns often explain everything. Older ones sometimes feel as though you've joined a conversation halfway through.

"Apply collar."

Two words.

That's it.

No little drawing. No reassurance that the collar will look completely wrong for a while before suddenly starting to behave.

Another pattern I own spends ages explaining how to transfer markings and then finishes the neckline section with:

"Finish neckline."

I remember laughing when I saw it.

Although I doubt I would have found it quite so funny if I had been trying to sew that neckline for the first time.

I don't think beginners usually choose patterns that are actually too difficult. Not always, anyway. Sometimes they choose patterns for a person they imagine they will become.

The person with matching thread.

The person who knows where the seam ripper is.

The person who finishes one project before buying fabric for another.

I still buy patterns for her occasionally.

She seems to have a much better wardrobe than I do.

My actual sewing room is less organised. My thread box was sorted at some point, but I can't remember the system now. It makes sense when I'm looking directly at it. As soon as I need a particular colour, it disappears. This is usually when I discover I have three almost identical shades of blue and none of the one I actually wanted.

So when people ask where they should start, I usually suggest something they have a fair chance of finishing.

A shift dress.

A simple skirt.

A revere shirt.

Relaxed trousers.

Not because the complicated patterns aren't wonderful. They are. I still buy them. I still open them up and admire the pieces.

I just don't always make them.

There is a tailored jacket in one of my drawers that has been waiting for years. The tissue is starting to soften at the folds and I keep thinking I should unfold it properly before it gets worse.

I haven't.

It will probably still be there next time I look.

At a Glance: Recommended Vintage Sewing Patterns for Beginners

They are rarely the envelopes with the dramatic evening skies, the impossibly elegant women or the hats that make you wonder whether anyone actually wore them outside the photograph.

They are usually not the ones people rush to buy at vintage fairs, either. They are not the patterns that get framed or admired from a safe distance.

They are just the ones I would probably put in front of someone who wanted to try vintage sewing and actually finish something. Ideally something they might want to make again afterwards, which is often the part people forget about.

Garment	Pattern	Why I Like It
Women's Dress	Advance 2850	A forgiving A-line dress that does not demand perfection
Women's Dress	Vogue 1774	A manageable 1960s style one-piece dress with gentle shaping
Women's Dress	Style 2167	A practical 1970s dress that feels wearable today
Women's Skirt	Simplicity 3841	A straightforward skirt that teaches useful techniques
Women's Skirt	Vogue 5321	A classic A-line shape with uncomplicated construction
Women's Skirt	Vogue 9593	The sort of skirt people actually reached for every week
Women's Blouse	Butterick 6043	A good introduction to blouse-making without sleeves
Women's Blouse	Anne Adams 4784	An excellent next step once you're feeling more confident
Women's Trousers	Vogue 8864	A relaxed introduction to trouser construction
Women's Apron	Butterick 4974	A practical garment with straightforward construction
Women's pajamas / jumpsuit	MABS 6726	A modernised multi-sized pattern with only 2 pattern pieces for easy construction

 

I've bought beautiful patterns instead of sensible ones more times than I care to admit.

The beautiful ones usually come home first. The practical ones are the patterns I actually make.

After a while you notice something else. The glamorous envelopes often survive in remarkably good condition because people admired them, filed them carefully and promised themselves they'd make them one day. The simpler patterns tell a different story. Their folds soften. The corners become slightly rounded. Someone has written "lengthened 2 inches" in pencil across the front piece or tucked a tiny square of matching fabric inside the envelope.

Those are often the patterns that earned their keep.

Dresses

If someone asks where to start with vintage dresses, I nearly always say a 1960s shift dress.

It’s not usually the answer they want.

By then they’ve already seen the 1950s patterns. The tiny waists, the enormous skirts, the collars that seem to have been given almost as much attention as the rest of the dress. The envelopes are usually what gets people first. One woman looks ready for a weekend in the country. Another looks as though she knows something that nobody else does.

I still stop and look at them.

There’s a late-1950s jacket pattern in one of my drawers that I bought mostly because I liked the picture on the front. It still has the little paper price sticker in the corner. I’ve thought about taking it off, but I never do.

It has been there for years now.

I've never made the jacket.

There are several others I could say that about.

A first dress is a different thing. Something like Advance 2850 is much easier to get along with. The shape is straightforward and you can spend more time thinking about the sewing rather than trying to solve several fitting problems at once. If a seam is slightly uneven or the hem isn't perfectly straight, you will probably notice it before anyone else does.

I know because I have done exactly that.

I've seen people apologise for stitching that I could barely find while standing next to an ironing board covered in fabric pieces, pattern tissue, pins and a cup of tea that had been left there for too long.

I have also been that person.

The longer I collect original patterns, the less attention I pay to the artwork. Although I still buy patterns because of the artwork, so clearly I haven't completely stopped.

The woman on the front is not the one sitting at the table trying to work out why the neckline facing suddenly has more pieces than expected.

Some patterns look intimidating until you open them out. Others look simple until you reach one instruction that makes you stop and read it three times.

Vogue 1774 is one I’d happily suggest to someone starting out. It has the look of a 1950s dress without being one of the more complicated versions.

Gathering worries people. It worried me.

My first attempt was uneven. I remember deciding it was probably fine and carrying on. It was fine. It just wasn't especially even.

By the 1970s, dress patterns often became a little more relaxed. There were still plenty of dramatic styles, but there were also many ordinary dresses.

Style 2167 feels like one of those.

It looks like something someone might have worn for shopping, visiting friends or just being at home. It probably wasn't the pattern people rushed to buy when they wanted something exciting.

Those are usually the ones with the most worn envelopes now.

Although I still have plenty of the exciting ones sitting in drawers waiting for me.

Skirts

Skirts don't have particularly good publicity.

Very few people get interested in vintage sewing because they saw an A-line skirt on a pattern envelope. Usually it’s the fitted jackets, evening dresses or coats with dramatic collars that make them stop. The sort of patterns where the woman on the front looks as though she has somewhere much more interesting to be than the rest of us.

I still pick those up first.

I know I shouldn't. I know I already have plenty of patterns with enormous sleeves and complicated-looking bodices that I bought because the illustration was nice. They are mostly still waiting for me.

Skirts are usually where I end up starting again.

They are not especially exciting on paper. A few pieces. Some seams. A waistband. Something that sounds very straightforward until you are standing at the ironing board wondering why the waistband that looked fine ten minutes ago now seems to have become slightly determined to disagree with you.

They do teach a lot though. Straight seams. Zips. Hems. Pressing. All the things that appear again and again, even when you would rather they didn't.

Simplicity 3841 is one I mention quite often. It is a gathered skirt, which sounds almost too simple. It is simple. That is probably why it works.

Gathering appears everywhere in vintage sewing once you start noticing it. Sleeves, yokes, dresses, children's clothes. Suddenly you see it everywhere. It becomes one of those things you can't stop spotting.

The instructions make me laugh every time.

"Gather evenly."

That's all.

No advice. No reassurance. Just a small instruction that assumes you are already the sort of person who knows how to do that.

I wasn't.

If gathering isn't your favourite thing, Vogue 5321 is another one worth looking at. It is an A-line skirt, which is not exactly the sort of thing people usually get excited about. Nobody is usually standing at a vintage fair saying, "Look at that skirt."

They are looking at the jacket next to it.

Or the dress.

Or the coat that has somehow survived seventy years without losing its shape.

The funny thing is that when you look through old pattern boxes, the skirts are often the ones that haven't aged as much. The collars give everything away. The sleeves definitely give everything away. But the skirt might just sit there looking like a skirt.

Vogue 9593 is even plainer. 

Not exactly the pattern that makes you feel like you are about to become a glamorous vintage person.

Although I have made more than one garment because it seemed sensible and then worn it constantly, so perhaps I should stop judging.

Old clothes are funny that way. The things people photographed are not always the things they wore most. The everyday pieces tend to show up later with repairs, alterations and little signs of use.

I've found skirts with replacement waistbands and hems that had clearly been changed. One had a name written inside in fading biro. Another had something scribbled on the envelope that I couldn't read at all, which annoyed me more than it probably should have.

One had "Tuesday" written on it.

I still have no idea what that means.

Maybe the day it was cut out. Maybe the day it was finished. Maybe someone just wrote Tuesday on things because they could.

I have no better explanation.

Some patterns look almost untouched. The folds are sharp, the tissue is still crisp and you can tell nobody got very far with them.

Others are softer. The pieces don't fold back quite properly anymore and there are usually a few pencil marks somewhere. Those are the ones I tend to pick up first.

Not because they are better.

I just like knowing somebody actually used them.

Blouses

Blouses are probably where I started underestimating vintage sewing.

I remember thinking a sleeveless blouse would be simple. Which, looking back, was probably because I was comparing it with the more dramatic patterns I was looking at. The evening dresses. The fitted jackets. Things with enough pieces inside them to make you wonder whether anyone actually finished them.

Then you open a blouse pattern and find out that a few small pieces can cause just as much confusion.

I still have a Butterick 6043 pattern that I often mention to people beginning with vintage sewing. It isn't particularly exciting on the envelope, which is probably part of its charm. It gets on with the job. There are darts, facings, pressing, all the things you need to learn, but it doesn't immediately throw everything at you.

Although I have managed to make easy patterns complicated before.

Sleeves are usually where confidence disappears.

There is always that moment when you have the sleeve piece in your hand and it looks nothing like it should. You check the notches. You look at the pattern envelope again. You consider whether you have somehow picked up the wrong piece.

I have done this more than once.

It has never been the wrong piece.

Usually I had just been looking at it for too long.

One of the odd things about older patterns is how little they sometimes tell you. I found a blouse pattern once where the neckline instructions were:

"Finish edge."

That was the entire instruction.

I remember reading it several times, waiting for the rest of the sentence to appear. It didn't.

To be fair, somebody must have known what they were doing. Plenty of people sewing at the time would have had more experience than many beginners do now. They had made things before. They had probably seen similar collars and facings and knew what was coming.

I just wasn't that person.

Not yet, anyway.

There are still days when I am not that person.

The end of a blouse is probably where I make the most mistakes. The garment is nearly there, the machine is still threaded, everything is spread out on the table and you think, I'll just finish this one last bit.

That phrase causes trouble.

I have unpicked collars because of it. Not dramatic disasters. Just those annoying things where you know, as soon as you look at it properly, that you should have stopped ten minutes earlier.

Old patterns often contain little reminders that someone else was there before you. Pencil marks. Alterations. Notes that make sense only to the person who wrote them.

One of my blouse patterns has changes all over the tissue. A sleeve adjusted. The neckline altered. A note beside one seam saying "better this way."

Maybe it was.

I have no idea.

I like that someone felt strongly enough about a small change in a blouse to write it down, though.

Another pattern had a little square of matching fabric folded inside. It was too small to be useful. I kept it anyway. I don't know why. It was probably just left there accidentally, but after several decades it felt as though removing it would be more strange than leaving it alone.

Anne Adams 4784 is probably where I would go after a sleeveless blouse. Not because it is dramatically harder, but because by then you have already learnt the general shape of the thing. The extra pieces don't look quite so alarming.

Women's Trousers

I have a weakness for trousers.

Not because I wear them all the time. Mostly because the envelopes promise a version of life that seems wonderfully organised. Someone is always striding somewhere with great purpose. Hands in pockets. Hair behaving itself. Never once looking as though they've just realised they've sewn one leg slightly longer than the other.

I admire that sort of confidence. From a distance.

The paper bag waist always makes me smile a little.

If someone asked me where to begin, Vogue 8864 would be somewhere near the top of the list.

It's such an odd name for something rather elegant. You imagine crumpled brown paper tied with string, and instead you get this soft gathered waistband that somehow manages to look relaxed and smart at the same time. Fashion does that occasionally. Gives perfectly nice things slightly unfortunate names.

This one does it rather well.

The drawstring slips through a tiny opening in the waistband, then gathers everything together without making a fuss. It's one of those details you hardly notice until you've made a pair yourself.

I seem to notice those little details more than the obvious ones.

The side seam pockets are another one.

If you sew your own clothes for long enough, you begin to appreciate pockets far more than fashion magazines ever suggest you should. Somewhere for a hand. A handkerchief. A shopping list you've forgotten to take out before washing.

Wide-leg trousers seem to disappear every so often, and then before long they're back again. These have that unmistakable 1970s shape - long, straight and easy to wear, with just enough movement to make walking feel rather more glamorous than it probably is.

Especially if there's a bit of a breeze.

The illustration makes it all look effortless, of course. It always does.

What the envelope doesn't show is somebody standing on the sitting room floor wondering whether they've put the drawstring in before stitching the waistband closed. Or unpicking it. Again! That part belongs to all of us. I think that's why I like old sewing patterns so much. They still manage to turn into proper trousers in the end.

Which always feels slightly miraculous. And somehow, most of the time, they do.

Apron

I don't think anyone ever planned to collect pinnies.

They simply appeared. One behind the kitchen door. Another folded in a drawer because it was "still perfectly good." Most of them seemed to have a pocket full of something unexpected.

The nice thing about a pinny is that it never pretended to be fashionable. It was there to protect your dress, keep your hands free and get on with the job.

Butterick 4974 Mrs Hall does exactly the same.

It's only three pattern pieces, which is probably why I often recommend it to beginners. There's nothing here to frighten you. No awkward collars, no tricky sleeves, just straightforward sewing that comes together quite quickly.

I've always thought your first vintage pattern should leave you wanting to make another.

The wrap front ties comfortably at the waist, so the fit is forgiving, and the instructions have been simplified and translated into English, German, Spanish and French, which makes them much easier to follow than many original vintage patterns.

People often think a pinny belongs in the 1930s or 1940s.

I'm not so sure.

I still wear one when I'm baking, gardening or sorting through old sewing patterns. Some designs never really disappear.

They simply carry on doing what they were made to do.

Pajamas / Jumpsuit

You know, after sewing for many years, I’ve come to appreciate that the simplest patterns are often the ones we return to again and again. There is something rather lovely about choosing a pretty fabric, sitting down at the machine, and making something you’ll actually enjoy wearing.

This is the sort of pattern I would happily suggest to someone who is just beginning their sewing journey. The shapes are straightforward, the construction is easy to understand, and it lets you concentrate on learning the little skills that make sewing so enjoyable.

We have carefully resized Mabs 6727 pattern ourselves into a multi-sized version, so you can choose the closest fit and make adjustments more easily for your own shape. Vintage patterns were not always produced with the range of sizes we expect today, so this makes it much easier to achieve a comfortable, custom fit.

Choosing Your First Vintage Pattern

A good beginner pattern doesn’t have to mean plain or boring. It should give you confidence, help you learn as you go, and leave you with that wonderful feeling of, “I made this myself.” And believe me, there is no better encouragement to pick up the next pattern waiting in your sewing basket.

I've searched for my tape measure while it was hanging around my neck, found pins in places they really shouldn't be, and spent far too long wondering why a sleeve wouldn't fit — only to discover I had sewn it on inside out.

And perhaps that is the charm of sewing. It isn't always neat, and it rarely goes exactly as planned, but somewhere between the unpicking, the pressing, and the little victories, something wonderful begins to take shape.

So when choosing your first vintage pattern, don't worry too much about finding the “perfect” one. Choose something that makes you smile, something you can imagine wearing, and something that feels like you.

The best first pattern is not the one that looks the most impressive on the envelope. It is the one that makes you want to sit down, thread the machine, and begin.