vintage sewing patterns

I  got totally inspired by watching The Great British Sewing Bee over the last few weeks – the great news is that they’ve just announced a new 6 part series of it for next year! Anyway, it inspired me to dig out my sewing machine and dust it off. I bought a sewing machine in a fit of enthusiasm about 5 years ago and only ever used it for making a pair of curtains, but I’ve definitely got the sewing bug again and would love to actually make some clothes this time.

Can anyone give me some advice on good ways to start? I always have the attitude ‘how hard can it be?’ when I’m trying something new but I’m probably being very optimistic! My mum (frequently) tells me that she made pretty much all her clothes from the age of about 17 and ‘never even questioned whether it was hard or not, I just got on with it‘…

What I’d ideally like to do is make some clothes out of vintage material using vintage patterns, but I don’t know whether I should start simple and basic first. Is that just too ambitious for my first attempt? Here are some of the patterns that I love (below) but I could do with some advice, I don’t know whether vintage shapes and sizing will complicate things unnecessarily!

All of the patterns below are from here, and I’ve noticed that you can also buy brand new ‘Vogue Vintage Model’ patterns, which seem to be reworked versions of their old patterns. I don’t know whether they’d be easier to start with…

Any help, suggestions, tutorials or advice would be gratefully received!