Vintage Finds

It's been a great few weeks for vintage shopping. These are a couple of my favourite finds, but I've also been having great luck with fabric. I'll update some of those soon. I also really need to update the shop because I'm starting to drown in patterns. I keep finding wonderful ones in sizes not at all near mine.

Scored a new pattern for myself at one of the cute new shops in my area. I'm totally blanking on the name right now, but it's across the street from Mrs. Huizenga's Keele Street location.

Cute, right? I was super tickled to find the only 40 bust pattern in the lot, and it's for such a great dress. You can't really tell on the envelope, but it has a huge full circle skirt... So deliciously drapey! I'm thinking of cropping it to knee length and making it out of some fabulous black rayon in my stash. I need a new dancing dress!

This pattern came in a lot of older patterns I won on eBay a while ago. As the weather gets colder, I'm realizing I need something a bit nicer/warmer than my current coat. I'm tempted by the elegant shape on this gem, buuuuut... The size is completely missing. There's what looks like the beginning of a red "1" in the top corner, so I'm guessing it's not a size 20. When I measured the back lining under the armpit, subtracted the seam allowances and multiplied by 4 I got 48". Does anyone know what the ease would be on a garment like this? I was thinking 10", but that would make this a 38" bust and a size 20, so probably not if I'm to believe the "1" on the front. It's Butterick 4317 if you were wondering, all the pieces intact, and I think it's from the late 1940s.


And here's a sneak peak of my favourite find this month. Click to see larger images. I'll be adding some more scans of the fashion pages and some of the full colour pages later this week...