I’m back!

Oops… that was one heck of a long absence… my apologies.

I have actually been trying to write a post for a while now, but I had a major computer rebuild a couple of months ago and Windows Live Writer disappeared completely.

Now, I know that its kind of a weak excuse but I love the simplicity that Live Writer brings to writing a blog post… and to demonstrate my commitment to simplicity I have spent… oh, I think maybe 8 or so HOURS trying to reinstall it!

Firstly the computer told me it needed me to download a ‘service pack 2’ and a “platform update’.

Sounds simple huh? Thirteen downloads and COUNTLESS computer restarts later… including one very detectivey-sleuthy download that turned into four separate downloads when the one click version wouldn’t work… and I have Windows Live Writer!

VICTORY! I feel a little “ALL THE THINGS!!” right now.

Hyperbole And A Half - This Is Why I'll Never Be An Adult

I do love this blog.

Another brilliant Aunty gift!

Looking back over my last few posts of last year, I realised that I didn’t write anything about the emotional turmoil that my family was going through at the end of October.

My Aunty Patty – sister to seamstress Aunty Bub and to my Dad (as well as Aunty Bonnie, Uncle Johnny and Uncle Bernie) – had been fighting lung cancer last year and sadly she passed away on October 23… which is my Dad’s birthday and last year was the day Uncle Johnny was getting married.

Of course there is never a good day, but this one was particularly unfortunate.

Her funeral was held on November 1 – which is my birthday… like I said, there’s never a good day.

Anyway, she was a wonderfully warm and happy person and I miss her dearly.

I recently caught up with my cousin Carol, Pat’s daughter, and she was so very, very kind as to give me one of Aunty Patty’s books – an innocuous looking red-covered book called The Universal Measure: The Golden Rule - Lutterloh

BUT… what an amazing bounty lies within its pages!!

      

There are some beautiful outfits in this book including, as you can see, wedding dresses, suits, day wear, dickies, collars and cuffs, overcoats, swimsuits, nightwear and childrens clothing.

The truly amazing thing though…?

Yep. 307 patterns included in the book!!! MORE THAN THREE HUNDRED!

It is an incredible book – not the least of which are the illustrations. The clothes are just beautiful.

The only bugger is that the Luttersloh rule isn’t in the book, which is what you use to scale up the patterns… but hey, I’m a creative person, I’ll make do. :0)

I have to confess, I’m feeling so conflicted right now – I have such an amazing family that I am so grateful for, but at the same time I am watching the devastating news footage coming in from Christchurch in New Zealand. My thoughts and prayers are with the city and indeed the entire country.

Australia and New Zealand have certainly been through some trying times of late with devastating floods, bushfires, hurricanes and now earthquakes.

Is Mother Nature trying to tell us something?

This post is dedicated to the memory of Catherine Patricia. 8/8/28 – 23/10/10

Butterick 8084 – made up

That heading feels like such a lie… but it isn’t!

Butterick 8084 is definitely made up – and how – but I cannot tell a lie, it was not my sewing skills that got the job done.

Lovely Aunty Bub made this one up some years ago – quite some years ago – and once again its lucky old me that gets to benefit.

Aunty Bub wore the dress for a while, then passed it on to her daughter Yvonne, whose daughter Alicia wore it once before she grew out of it… so its been handed to me… and I just love it.

It’s a tight squeeze but I think its worth it.

So, to refresh your memory (and mine) – here’s the pattern… its the ‘my hips, my arms, my boobs’ one, where Ms View C’s head is bigger than her waist…

And here’s what happens when Aunty Bub gets hold of some beautiful pink cottonish material that has pink flower sprays embroidered on it. You can just see one near my knee.

But seriously – check out the shoes. Original 1940s WHITE suede pumps. The arch in these shoes is out of control but you do get used to them.

Here’s a shoe-tastic Christmas flavoured shot, with two-day-old pincurls and my summer-no-show ghostly tan… :0)

I’ll make sure if I make this one up myself to add a little length to the skirt panels to hide those knees away, but overall it’s a lovely fit.

I really am very lucky – and appreciate the heck out of my family! :0)

Aunty Bub also passed a couple of sweet and simple shift dresses to me when I was about 16 and they are made of a very similar material, again with embroidered flowers on them. Sadly they no longer fit me but I still have them so tomorrow I will dig them out and take some up close and personal shots of those flowers. They are simply lovely.

As are talented, generous Aunties with great taste!!

Vintage patterns

I’m in waiting mode at the moment – waiting for a call from the car service place (really, if my car is booked in for 10am, why am I still waiting at 3:30pm for a phone call to say bring it in??) – so I thought I’d post up some lovely pictures from my pattern stash. Make the interwebs a prettier place. :0)

This is easily my favourite pattern (that I’ve never made up…). I purchased it on a weekend getaway with friends in a gigantic shed somewhere near Mount Beauty (or rather, somewhere between Melbourne and Mt Beauty). It cost me a whole dollar.

I didn’t care if all the pieces where there or not, I just fell in love with the story I made up in my head, about Miss M Gardner who lived near Ned Kelly country of Glenrowan, carefully clipping a coupon from a magazine in March 1937 and sending it away to the big smoke of Sydney.

Imagine my delight when I got it home (nope, resisted even PEEKING inside it) and found that all the pieces were there except the belt (meh… who cares?!?!) AND the instructions AND the original picture was included.

I have no idea if the magazine included it when they sent the pattern or if Miss M. Gardner clipped it from the original magazine article and then put it with the pattern when it arrived. Either way – I love it!

She’s pretty! I love the drape neckline and the back pleats with bow at the back of View 1. I haven’t made this one up yet, but the View 1 is looking quite likely.

I love these because of where they have come from. My Aunty Bub is the seamstress in our family – some of my favourite childhood dresses were made by her. I’ll have to dig some up and scan them in.

A few years ago on a family visit, Aunty Bub gave me a huge stash contribution and the above four were included. I particularly like the halterneck, top right. No… haven’t made any of these up yet.

Another Aunty Bub special AND why yes, I HAVE made this one up! I just can’t find a photo of it. I will do a full scale hunt for the photo after Christmas because it came out incredibly well.

I made up view B in a gorgeous Hawaiian print with a red background.

Aunty Bub Special. ABS from now on… What is with View B’s hip-thrusting don’t-mess-with-me stance, View A’s apparent discovery of her boobs and View C’s body building regime which doesn’t allow her to lower her arms…?

ABS… I’ve just noticed all the crossover/draped necklines in her collection. Love it.

This one I got from Miss Helene’s Vintage Sewing Shoppe. Apparently the inability to resist a draped neckline runs in the family!

This doll is a little more damaged than the rest and I honestly can’t remember where she came from. Rescued from an unloving store somewhere I think.

I know some people have gigantic fabric stashes… my weakness seems to be collecting patterns. I have every good intention of making them up, but then just don’t seem to get around to it.

I’ll have to get one of those kitschy pottery round tuits – that way I’ll have no excuse.

There are more patterns but Melbourne is having an unbearable cold snap right now and fingers and feet are frozen. Time to go stamp up and down and do some more mechanic cursing.

I’m not sure if I’ll get another post in before Friday so I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy Christmas. If you’re not celebrating Christmas, then I hope you have a very happy multi-denomination festival. :0)

 Seamus says “same here”

Two more projects finished

I feel a bit of a cheat on this post… it’s not like I’ve made a dress from scratch or anything… but finished is finished and so here’s the proof.

Project one - I was given a short dress by my ex’s sister, who acquired it from the drama department of the school she works at. A beautiful electric blue with black blobs that look almost like poppies. Someone – for drama purposes – had shortened the dress to above knee length and chopped off whatever they took up, so there was no going back there… and damnit, I dislike showing my knees. Anyway, bygones… moving on. All the dress needed in order to be wearable was to be taken in on the sides a little in the waist area – but that has taken me about two years.

Ta dah though… it’s finished! Now I just need to get a little musty smell out of it and being silk I’ll need to go to the interwebs for some advice… unless any of you have some for me. There’s a musty smell and also a little B.O. which arose in a stenchy cloud when I pressed open the new side seams. I’m just hoping that ironing hasn’t entombed the smell forever.

Enough chat – here’s the dress. And my gorgeous gas meter.

 

Jealous? Don’t be, the gas meter came with the house, I was just lucky…

Project 2 – this one is embarrassing in it’s tiny proportions and disproportionate amount of time it took to finish. Conservative estimates and carbon dating put this at around the 2 year mark. How embarrassment!!

 

Yep. Not even 10cm across. Shameful. When I lose the vibe, I really lose the vibe. It’s staggered me how many unfinished projects I have laying about the place. Just today I pulled out a gorgeous 1948 Vogue reissue that I cut out of some glorious light blue/grey satin-backed crepe about four years ago… and that’s as far as that went. The pattern tissue is still attached to the material. I’m not even sure I’ll still fit into it now. :0)

Oh, there was another thing that I sewed this week. Another long in the tooth project that I rescued and actually used.

The swing dance school that I go to had their Christmas party on Friday night and the theme was Christmas movies… anything you like from a movie about Christmas. Being contrary and having the right clothes in the wardrobe meant that I changed the theme to TV and went as Miss December 1962, Stirling Cooper – Mad Men for the non-watchers.

I had made a red dress a couple of years ago from a McCalls 8-in-1 pattern but I hadn’t worn it. Couldn’t figure out why as when I tried it on last week it looked OK… until I turned around and remembered, ‘oh yeah, this is the dress that gives you a tail.’

The damned back zipper ends right at the spot on your butt where the end of it sticks out and gives you a weird mutant tail bump. I tried a couple of fixes including shortening the zip, but I didn’t have a lot of room to move before shortening it meant I wouldn’t be able to get into it so it is still tailesque. However, much to my surprise I was at the point of ‘I don’t care’ which doesn’t happen often with my sewing. I’ll usually worry at it until it’s better or ball it up and piff it away.

So, I took out some white fake fur, sewed it around the bottom hem, then made a little scarfy tube that I draped around the front of my neck and dangled over the back. I was going to sew that on as well, but I found I really didn’t need to – it stayed put fairly well and then the ends could just drape over the back and goodness knows I love a bit of drape.

I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out – I think I could have gone with more lift in the hair – and I also found that I don’t want to make sewing with fake fur a habit. I swear it looked like I’d killed a chicken by the time I’d finished… white fluff everywhere. Turns out a vacuum cleaner is your friend when sewing with fake fur… but whatever you do, not matter how tempting you might find it… do not ever vacuum your clothes whilst wearing them, especially not a Dyson vacuum cleaner. They take no prisoners and will give you a hickey right through your clothes. :0)

Mad Men and the cheekiest Santa’s helper named Elise ever…

I’m back and fixing furniture!

Hi all!

I have dropped off the twig of late, with regards to blogging… my Dad’s heart surgery,two deaths in the family and surgery for me have all taken their toll.

I am feeling reinvigorated now though and am back on the horse – so to speak. No dancing for another two weeks though… I’m looking at that light at the end of the tunnel and just cannot WAIT for it to arrive… surely it isn’t an oncoming train after all the events of the last few months!! :0)

So… here is something I have finally finished though! I took a scuzzy looking black bookcase, pulled it apart, stripped it down, sanded it back, and then stopped…

My original plan was to sand off the rough bits and repaint, then it was strip it back completely and then repaint… but then… I saw the beautiful wood that was lurking underneath.

My real problem though was that the top two shelves – the two on the left of the above photo – are different wood to the rest of the bookcase and so the question was then ‘to stain or not to stain’.

I love the look of wood au naturel but I wanted the finished product to have a cohesive look – not a hodge podge of different woods all cobbled together… although that would have been appropriate as I think from all the extra holes in it that this is a refashioned piece. I think it was something else in a former life. :-)

Anyway, to cut a far too long story short… I ended up giving it one very light coat of a walnut stain, applied with a rag, then many, many, many coats of a satin finish – sanding between each coat.

And here’s a before and after shot…

I did like the look of the black paint – gave it a kind of jappaned look – but the natural wood did need to be released!

Hooray! One project down. Oh, two actually… I also touched up the chips on four figurines I bought on a trip to Cleveland in June AND put them up on the wall!

Who knew that little plaster Asian figurines go with the Creature Of The Black Lagoon, chandeliers and red ceilings?

It feels good to get two more things ticked off the To Do list… I think this month’s motto just might have to be ‘All’s well that ends…” :0)

Isn’t it always the way?

Ever notice how when you really need something that you can’t find it and conversely that when you don’t need something… magic, it appears?

Melbourne feels like it has been cold for about eight months now – I’m sure that’s an exaggeration but that’s what it feels like – so what happens when the sun finally starts to appear and jackets, scarves and gloves aren’t necessary inside the house anymore…?

Well, I find an awesome jacket of course!

A couple of weeks ago a friend and I were wandering through a secondhand store in the city when I came across a couple of awesome 1940s jackets but one was up on a mannequin and I couldn’t find a staff member to help me take a closer look at it and another one had a few too many moth holes and a missing button for the price they were asking… sure, it sounds a little like laziness but I’m also trying to not spend money and also not increase the vintage section of my wardrobe until a few things that no longer fit are taken out.

Anyway, I’m half-heartedly browsing when I spy an awesome plaid in the racks. Now I have quite the collection of tartan skirts – I call them kilts, but as I don’t have any family affiliation with the tartans, I sometimes feel a bit funny wearing them. Am I being overly sensitive here? I do have some Welsh ancestry and I have tried to look up the tartans of my particular kilts, but have not had any luck matching any of them… except a Black Watch scarf that I have.

I love the kilt pins that have come with some of them… particularly the fat little thistle with a purple sparkly in it’s top. Fooling around on Wikipedia today, I have only just found out that you aren’t supposed to put the pin through multiple layers, only the top of the apron… the extra weight of the pin being enough to hold the fabric down. I guess I’ve been overly cautious in ensuring a pesky wind doesn’t whip open that top layer by pinning the two together. :0)

ANYWAY… back on track Denise… I’m looking through this rack of clothes when I spy a plaid… it’s in the jackets section… wait a second… this has bias cut pockets and shell buttons… why… it’s a Pendleton ‘49er!! Woooooooo!! Mine!

Even better… it’s works beautifully with the Simplicity 4911 skirt.

There’s a tiny little hole in one of the sleeves and there was no belt… but I love it… and the weather has, of course, turned lovely and warm and completely unsuitable for a wool jacket. Grrr…

Still, I have it now and it will keep until next year when the wind and rain returns.