Another pattern from my past

The Sewing Lawyer developed an early interest in tailoring. It's hard to believe, but in those ancient days when she was in high school, a course in tailoring was in the public school curriculum.  Thus, as has been mentioned before, in grade 12, she made a plaid coat.

When you are young and fearless, you just carry on and do the most amazing things.  So I went on tailoring, not realizing that this was actually pretty hard to do well.  Attending the University of Toronto brought with it an introduction to the wonderful nearby garment district and the mysteries of the stores that supplied real tailors.

And in the 1970s, it wasn't considered all that strange for a student to wear a 3 piece suit, on occasion.

In my memory, it was perfect.  Luckily I don't still have the suit.  I'm pretty sure the tailoring wouldn't measure up to my current standards.

This pattern is on offer at Lanetz Living today.  Only $3.00.

More patterns from my past

Let's get something right out in the open - the Sewing Lawyer is not above shopping in thrift stores or accepting into her life items that were picked up at the curb.  It's astonishing what people will give or throw away.

As has been mentioned in these virtual pages before, the Sewing Lawyer's parents seem to have tossed out many of her cherished sewing patterns from when she was a teenager.  This happened so long ago that it ought to have been forgotten (those teenage years were in an era now known as "vintage"), and in reality of course I'm just having a bit of fun with the idea of wistfully yearning towards those semi-ancient styles.  However, truthfully I would welcome many of those patterns back into my over-stuffed pattern drawers, for old times' sake.

So imagine The Sewing Lawyer's delight when her husband (who thrift-shops so effectively he is practically a pro at it) found a pattern-stuffed basket sitting beside the curb one day (a few years back). The first funny thing about this story is that he was originally attracted to the lidded woven basket, because he recognized it as the twin of a basket in  the sewing room at home.  The second is that the patterns it contained were, in many cases, equally the twins or close relatives of many in The Sewing Lawyer's own past, and they were her size!  Cue up the theme from The Twilight Zone...

Here are a few examples.

Vogue 9301 dates from the mid-1970s, and I made the knee length culottes when I was in first or second year at the University of Toronto.  That was either 1974 or 1975.  They were scratchy wool, a herringbone, if memory serves, and supremely comfortable except for their itchiness.   These days I'd choose to line such a fabric, but then I was all about getting it done, and outward appearances.  I did not own a cable sweater with a cowl neck big enough to wear as a hood, but did coordinate them with turtleneck sweaters and high boots, as I recall.

I should make them again, I've often thought (BTW my copy is size 10).

Then there is this wrap skirt.  I rarely purchased "See & Sew" patterns but I adored the photo on the front of this one. I made the skirt from a light bottom-weight warm beige poly-cotton and I took it with me on my solo trip to Europe in the summer of 1978.  It was perfect - went with anything, did not wrinkle, was modest enough to wear in churches and dressy enough for anywhere a backpacking student-hostel staying girl was likely to go, and drip dried in a matter of minutes, it seemed.  The back wrap is generous enough that wearing it in the wind was no problem, and the ties are definitely not skimpy.  What a great skirt (sigh).

I should make this one again too.  The pattern from the basket is still in its factory folds.

The third example is a simple dress gathered via elastic at the waist, which also hails from the mid-1970s.  I made Vogue 9467 from a black and cream narrow-striped lightweight polyester fabric.  I remember thinking it ought to look more elegant.  I think my disappointment was a product of poor fabric selection and I do not think I have ever purchased such a difficult, staticky and generally flyaway fabric again.  I didn't wear it a lot but I've always had the nagging feeling that it could be a fantastically wearable dress made from something more suitable.

Maybe I have such a thing in my stash.

Or maybe I ought to get back to my grey summer suit...

Kids coats

Making garments for little kids is very liberating.  You can test out new skills and techniques and the recipient, if little enough, appreciates the end result (or at least can't refuse to wear it) and always looks cute.


This is a pattern I bought when my son (now almost 21) was an infant.  I made many little jackets for him until he grew out of it.

Here's one I made when he was 2 years old.  I realized that on little kids' clothes, I could combine colours that really popped - here, purple and green.  I'm not a big embellisher but I had fun making the dragon appliqué for the back of his jacket.

The dragon design was lifted from a strange little stuffed object, which you can see at right.  I have no idea what its origins might be.  I think it was mainly red on the other side.










I traced the shape from the original and cut it from some sturdy green fabric.  I must have interfaced before applying the eye and machine stitched decorative zig-zag pattern since there is no puckering at all.  The teeth and nails were little folded pieces of white fabric, and the tufts were made from some white yarn.  The eye is a black button.

I balanced the back's fanciness by making up a star and moon for the front pockets.

The coat itself is super simple.  For the shell, I used an outerwear fabric called Commander (according to the MacPhee Workshop site, it's a 75-25 poly-cotton blend).  To line, I used a 200 weight polar fleece.  With a pair of bib-front overall snow pants (from a Kwik-Sew pattern, also much-used) in the same fabric, the suit kept my two-year-old warm and dry all winter.

The following winter, my toddler had turned into a little boy who was pretty interested in fire trucks.  He told me he wanted a snow suit that looked like the uniforms then in use by Ottawa firefighters.  I found the guys on the trucks quite willing (after they had verified the call to our street was a false alarm) to talk about the features of their suits so was able to take notes and sketch the details, including the distinctive pattern for the retro-reflective tape.  It's different for the front and back which is useful in a dark and smoky environment.   The hardest part was locating yellow retro-reflective tape but somehow I did it.

Again, the outer shell was some sort of cotton-poly water resistant stuff.  This coat was insulated with Thinsulate.  The collar is black corduroy, apparently traditional.  The matching snow pants have red elastic shoulder straps, repurposed from a pair of men's braces.














The year after that, dinosaurs were the all-consuming passion.  You've already seen his Hallowe'en costume.  Well, his winter jacket had dinos on it too, but they were pretty subtle... (click to enlarge).

This coat also incorporated retro-reflective features - piping at the collar, shoulder and forearm.  I probably put some in the back too.  It's a really great safety feature during our long dark winters.

If you have a little one, experiment and enjoy!

Happy Hallowe'en!

I made a costume for my son when he was about 4 and obsessed with everything to do with dinosaurs.  I had a book called Sew a Dinosaur - 21 playful prehistoric beasts to follow you home, which included a pattern for a kid-sized Triceratops costume.

The problem is, my son REALLY wanted to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex. They look nothing whatsoever like Triceratops.

Somehow or other, I did it.

 

Details:  The head pieces were cut from cheap alligator-print knit over 1" foam backed with lining (bloody red for the inside of the head).  The teeth and claws were more of the foam.  I had to bone the head to keep the jaws out front, and to prevent the top one collapsing.  Even so it wasn't the easiest costume for him to see out of.

The body is made without the foam.  The tail was a cone of the alligator print sewn over foam.  The base of the tail is circular, sewn to the back of the shirt.  To keep the tail from dragging, I attached an elastic belt to the SAs on the inside, and it fit snugly around my son's hips.  The tail stayed straight out and wiggled as he walked.

It was extremely cute, if I say so myself, and it was worn many times by many kids.

If there's a sewing gene, I got it from her

Photo explanation (to respond to some confusion in the comments):  these 6 young women are my grandmother (second from left) and 5 of her sisters.  The picture dates from sometime in the 1920s.  The oldest sister is on the far right (born 1888) and the youngest on the far left (born 1910).

My mother's mother (second from left) and her sisters sewed.  It was a practical necessity but my grandmother made much more of it.  She made many of her own and her 5 children's clothes.  For my mother and aunt, she made play clothes, school clothes, suits and beautiful prom dresses.

To the right, she's captured in a happy moment with my grandfather in the year before they married.  She was 24, wearing a coat of (perhaps) her own design with fur cuffed sleeves and a matching fur muff.  I would kill for those shoes!

To the left is a picture of my mother (taken when she was in her teens), wearing a gorgeous strapless dress that my grandmother made for her.

I never saw that one in real life, but clearly remember the fairy-princess white strapless ballerina-length prom dress that my mom would sometimes let me try on.  It had a  heavy satin "crumb-catcher" bodice with basque waist, a boned under-bodice with crumpled tulle scattered with rhinestones and seed pearls at the upper centre, and multiple layers of frothy tulle skirt.

It must be a gene that I inherited, because we never lived near my grandparents so she couldn't teach me to sew.

But my non-sewing mother did what she could (thanks Mom!) to encourage me and nurture what I seem to have inherited.

From my grandmother, aside from the sewing gene, I have souvenirs.

Her well used featherweight which replaced the treadle that may have been just like mine.

A length of celadon green silk brocade.

A gorgeous beaded sweater.  Taking it out of its annual summer storage yesterday made me think about my elegant and talented grandmother.

Once upon a time ... I used to knit

I have not knitted for a very long time.  It's because I'm too impatient.  It takes SO long to make the fabric,  in the very shape of the (untested) pattern.  It fills me with dread and despair.  What if it the fabric isn't all that great AND it doesn't fit, or suit the intended wearer?  Ack!  I content myself with buying the fabric, ready-made, which reduces the variables and the likelihood of abject failure.  My oldest (by far) UFO is a knitting project. It has been "almost finished" for over 25 years. 

It wasn't always so.  Once upon a time I did knit.  My husband and I spent a year in the UK, during which I was mostly without access to a sewing machine.  And in the UK then, great knitting yarn, and fabulous knitting patterns were easier to find.  The activity of knitting suited those long nights (Cambridge, where we were living, is WAY farther north than any city in Canada where I have ever lived so has WAY less daylight in the depths of winter) in front of our little electric "fire".  I found fabulous vintage knitting patterns, including some gathered into book form and updated.  I still have The 30s Family Knitting Book and The Man's Knitting Book - classic patterns from the '20s to the '50s (both edited by Jane Waller).  Fabulous.  I even made a couple of items out of each.

I was recently reminded in the nicest possible way of my past prowess as a knitter.  Thirty-two years ago I made a little sweater and matching hat.  The set was intended for a first baby about to be born to a relative.  I went all out.  The sweater was mainly ivory, with a Norwegian-type snowflake border that had repeating blue snowflakes (approximately 2.5" wide) with a little red border.  Along the lines of this sweater, only change the colours, and it was a cardigan:

I even knitted the little spots in the body of the sweater (they were blue on the ivory background).  The snowflake border was repeated in a little hat with ear flaps and a pompom.  SO cute!

Well I finished the set before the baby was born and presented it to the parents-to-be, then waited for the blessed event to occur.

You can hardly imagine the mixed emotions which came along with the news that the expected baby was born, beautiful and healthy and ... there were two of them.  Identical twin boys.  I gritted my teeth and made a second sweater set, exactly like the first one except a different snowflake pattern.

Last year, one of the twins became a dad.  They sent a link to some photos on Picasa.  His little daughter looks adorable in the sweater I made for him 32 years ago.  Such a nice surprise to find out they had kept it (and its twin) for the next generation.

Patterns from my past ... continued

I'm tired tonight - apparently too tired to sew a Q&D muslin of Vogue 2770.  Again I find myself aimlessly trolling for vintage patterns.  Tonight I'm looking at MomsPatterns.  I like this site because it's well-organized, and the thumbnail photos are a decent size.  

I came across a pattern from the late 1960s or early 1970s with a little drop waisted skirt (either pleated or flared) and had an almost visceral memory of a dress made from some sort of sleazy nylon print of the type that was de rigeur when I was in high school, in cheery red, white & blue.  I'd swear I never actually owned the pattern that prompted this reaction but I'll work on the memory and see if it sharpens any.

Anyone who looks at these sites regularly knows that some patterns turn up over and over while others live on only in one's memory.  Obviously the common ones were big sellers in their day.  Some of my past patterns must have been relatively unpopular (perhaps I had off-beat taste) because they are still eluding me.  However, in the offerings for this month, there are two copies of this old chestnut, which I remember making.

Quick!  It's only $6.50 (size young junior teen, 11/12).  I made it when I was in grade 9, I think.  The future Sewing Lawyer chose to make the vest and simple, A-line skirt in a stunning coral-orange hi-lo corduroy.  I think I wore it until the pile came through to the wrong side, I loved it so much.  Who'd have thought that coral corduroy would be so versatile?  (Maybe it presaged my current orange kick...)

Another pattern that's frequently spotted on the vintage sites is Simplicity 6895.  Now this is one that never made it into my sewing room, but I'm still pining for its close contemporary that did - I'm pretty sure it was the same "Designer Fashion" run of patterns, and had the same model (wasn't she just gorgeous?).  Shown in teal, it was a wide-lapelled pantsuit with the waist drawn in through wide elastic sewn through 2 parallel channels.  Sigh...  I'd make it again in a flash, if only I could find it.

Finally for tonight, here's one I still have (thankfully, since like so many others of my past, it has never appeared to me on the vintage sites).  I think view B would be a good choice for a casual summer shirt in 2010 - do you agree?

Sewing in (my) history

The idea for this post, which will perhaps be the first of a series, is my husband's.  He found me wasting time on the www trolling for vintage patterns.  It's all Carolyn's fault... well, for today, that is.  I have several "vintage" pattern websites bookmarked which I look at compulsively.  I'm searching for the patterns from my past, you see.

I made my first garment (a dress, pattern lost) in grade 8 which was many decades ago.  Through high school, I sewed and sewed.  At the very beginning, I favored Simplicity patterns.  It was the late 60s and they were fresh and cute.  Later on into the early 70s I made Butterick patterns - the ones designed by Betsey Johnson and Kenzo were my favorites but I continued with Simplicity, especially the "Young Contemporary" ones.  Only later, in university and beyond, would I graduate to the occasional Vogue.  I can only remember ever making a couple of McCalls patterns and I don't know why they didn't grab me.  That was my entire world of possible sewing patterns, then.

I have many of my patterns from the university days but unfortunately, most of the ones I made before then were lost when my parents moved (sniff, Mom & Dad, maybe I'll forgive you someday...).  They would have been gone forever but the internet gave us all a way to reacquire the ephemera of our past lives.

Here's a little dip into my sewing memories and my collection.

I'm still looking for the very first dress pattern I ever made.  It was ca1968 and it was (natch) a mini dress.  I made it out of a lurid cotton print featuring hot pink flowers, which had a nice substantial weight and texture.  It was A line with puffed sleeves, a square faced neckline and big patch pockets.  But the most astonishing feature of the design (I can hardly credit that I chose, and successfully made this pattern for my FIRST EVER garment project) was the bust darts.  They originated in the side seams, charged out horizontally at a level just below the bust and then took a hard (square) turn upwards.  CUTE!  But DIFFICULT for a beginner, no?  My Home Ec teacher must have sighed deeply when she saw it, but kudos to her for not insisting that we all make the same boring and ugly navy blue cotton top with back zipper and V neck that would never be worn.  I wore that dress a lot, and the positive charge I got out of making it set me on my way as a lifelong sewer. 

While I can't show you the 1968 dress, I can show you another pattern which was perhaps the 2nd or 3rd one I made, and has the same kind of darting.

You can best see the darts on the pink dress but the great shape they gave to the dress is more evident on the white one.  Every time I look at this picture, I smile.  I remember those flippy hairstyles (which my hair would never ever do) and those little skinny knees (unlike mine at the time) and the cute girls in grade 9 (which I wasn't).  I remember that I made this dress twice.  I vaguely remember that there was a first pink version but my total favorite was another substantial cotton print with a warm mid-beige background and abstract print in yellow, a nice fresh green, white, black and perhaps other colours.  I think the coordinating scarf was green poly chiffon (way to go ME for tackling this difficult fabric, if I made it, which I can't remember).  I must have made that dress in 1970 since I think I was wearing it for my grade 10 photo.

My memory of the cute girls in grade 9 has had a serious boost recently as my mother found and returned to me my yearbook of that ancient day, only this Christmas.  She gave it to me along with my report card from grade 1 (where is the museum conservator for this ancient paper?).  I got a huge laugh from the report card when I read as follows:

ART
Shows self-expression ... yes
Evidence of particular talent or unusual ability ... no


MUSIC
Enjoys musical activities ... yes
Evidence of particular talent ... no

Can you who are parents imagine reading this about your little darling, whose every accomplishment is a marvel and whose lives and futures stretch out, unblemished and full of promise?  Boy, they really knew how to throw cold water on creativity in those not-politically-correct days at the Mountainview Elementary School!  (To their credit, I don't think my parents put any stock in the artistic judgment of my grade 1 teacher, and I like to think she was a little bit wrong.)

Since I am reminiscing about grade 1, there I am, sitting nicely in the front row of my class picture in regulation navy box pleated tunic and white shirt, complete with skinned knee.  I didn't realize I was doomed to have no artistic or musical talent! 

Anyhow, Simplicity 8805 was lost to me until I acquired it from one of my favorite vintage pattern sites, Lantez Living.  I have considered making it again, though a bit longer.  What do you think?



One more for today, accompanied by a photo of yours truly wearing it at her high school graduation (with BF of the day). 

OKAY YOU CAN STOP LAUGHING NOW!

For your information, the dress was made from a soft and beefy but seriously synthetic knit fabric in shades of off-white and dusty rose.  One side was a check, and the other was a heathery solid.  I used the contrast for the collar and cuffs.  Looking at the photo, I believe I would have thought the dress a little on the long/modest side.  I used to measure the "right length" in those days by whether the tips of my fingers brushed the hem, and I have short arms(!).

I didn't like this pattern enough to buy it again (and it was the wrong size by a mile) but I saved the image. 

Tell me if you found this post (a) illuminating or inspiring, (b) amusing, or (c) embarrassing.  Based on your responses, I'll decide whether to share more of my ancient sewing history, or sulk and keep it all to myself.