Yesterday in Photos

Just a gorgeous afternoon in Toronto... Working on my sub-par photography skills. The first photo is of a cat brick. They show up all over my neighbourhood, apparently from an outdoor brick factory back in the day (possibly the brickworks?). I am now obsessed with them.

I'm still doing me-made-May, but the photos were getting so boring I had to let them go. I also decided that my handknit lace scarves had to count, or I was going to go insane from clothes boredom.

Tab Details

Marian Martin 9460

I'm a little obsessed with tab details at the moment, and I've been hoarding mail order patterns for a while. I love the idea that no matter where a woman lived, she could have access to modern fashion patterns through the post office. Brilliant! These three Marian Martin mail order patterns from the 70s have fantastic tab details. 9460 is a prime candidate for a future of the past outfit. There's something about stand up wide collars that always makes me think of 60s and 70s sci-fi, and the buttoned tab fits right in.

Marian Martin 9477

This is my favourite of the three dresses. It's a pull-on dress that gets most of it's shaping from a button-on belt. Its construction reminds me of the tie waist of Vogue 1120, which I currently have lying out on my kitchen table. It's such an easy dress to wear, but doesn't have the sack shape of many house dresses from the same era. If this had been a little closer to my size I'd probably be sewing it up right now.

Marian Martin 9075

The front tabs on this dress remind me of overall straps. I like the way they aren't functional, but hint at a piece of garment design that was highly functional. It also works as an evolution of the collar, migrating out to the sides of the neck and needing to be buttoned in place.

These three patterns just went up on my etsy shop, but they are also being catalogued for my thesis, which is on the history of home sewing! Specifically, I'm looking at it from a design perspective (I do go to art/design school after all), but I am also looking at the social and economic aspects of home sewing. Mail order patterns are definitely taking up a big chunk of my research.

What about you? Do you have any mail order patterns in your collection? How do you think sites like Burdastyle continue or change the legacy of mail order sewing? I'd be very interested to hear.

Day 6 - Worst Photo Ever

Cellphone mirror picture, because I am classy like that. This is also a way more accurate picture of my skirt length. Still thinking of taking 2 inches off the bottom though. My head was removed from this image for the sanity of all. Was not a good shot there.

Tonight I had best well tinker myself up some new duds, or this is going to get really boring, really fast.

Days 4 & 5

Day 3 was just the dress from Day 1 and the jacket from Day 5. No photo, but I'm sure the outfit will be repeated. The me-made skirt I'm wearing today isn't as long as it looks in the photo, it actually stops right at my knee. Brian keeps taking pictures from way above me. Usually because he's taller than me, but this time he had extra help from a flight of stairs.

I finished the skirt last night and decided it was a bit too wide, so I removed a couple inches from the back this morning. The front section has a waistband with interfacing and the back waist is a channel with elastic, just like the one I was checking out in a rather overpriced store yesterday... Their version also hit me right at the widest part of my thigh, and I wasn't having any of it. That said, I'm going to hem this one up another couple of inches so that it's just above my knee. A little more flattering I think.

About an hour after today's photo, it started raining pretty hard. I was on my bike. As such I've discovered the nice thing about mystery synthetic fabric from the Goodwill is that it dries really, really fast.

Browsing through the Flickr group before the start of Me-Made-May, I was impressed by how many garments everyone had managed to make for themselves. I'm hoping the desperation of only having two garments at the beginning of the month will spur me on to finish my half finished projects and inspire me to make new ones. If not for the dread of wearing one of the first too garments again I don't think I would have worn this skirt out of the house today. I'm glad I did, since it ended up a lot more wearable than I expected. I also learned a lot I wouldn't have otherwise, like it needs to be shorter, needs pockets and next time I'm using a cotton with a bit more drape and heft.

Now I'm off to do the blog rounds and see what everyone else is wearing!

In other news, there are new patterns up in my etsy shop as promised. I'm also running a special this week where if you buy three, I'll add on a free fourth mystery pattern (trust me, they're good ones). It's a belated celebration of the end of term. Wasn't entirely sure I'd make it through by the end there... I've been hearing that a lot this year. Hopefully four months of rest and sewing will re-energize me for next year. Wait until you hear about my thesis plans!

Me-Made-May: Days 1&2

I'm wearing a variation of Day 1 today, but I should have 2 new me-made garments finished tonight, which will expand my wardrobe somewhat.

Longer post and store updates later tonight, but now I've got to run and meet an awesome friend who's helping me remake my banner. Yay!