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!

Finished Sencha Blouse!

From this...


To this!



I cheated a lot on this... I used the skirt hem as the shirt hem, cut the front from the back and the back from the front, using the pre-existing button band. Which all added up to a two day sewing project. Yay!

The skirt I used was made from a slippery cotton lawn. It was a bit tricky to sew, even though I starched the heck out of it. This was also my first time sewing french seams and darts.

Colette Patterns rates the Sencha blouse as a beginner project, but I think I would have gone a bit nuts if this had been my first project. Or even if I had done all the button band and hem work. The blouse also requires fabric with a lot of drape, which in my experience means slippery. Not so easy right off the bat. I would say it's more of an intermediate beginner pattern? Definitely a fun, well drafted pattern with clear directions.

Have I mentioned I love highly tacky prints? 'Cause I do.

Preparing for Me-Made-May

My sailor pants, based on the Ruby pattern from Burdastyle, are nearing completion! The inspiration for these came from this post by Zoe at 'So Zo...' but it looks like quite a few people have tried pants with this pattern. The fabric I used was super ravely, so I've been binding all the seams. I doubt I will ever do this for another garment, especially once I get my serger back from storage, but the practice on all those seams has been great. All that's left are pockets and button holes. And hemming. And likely some other things I've forgotten about.

Vogue 1120 is traced out and ready to be cut. I'm a little apprehensive about the slippery rayon, so I think I'm going to tackle something simpler first. I got a wild 90s patterned Ports skirt made out of cotton lawn at Goodwill yesterday, and I think it's going to be the perfect start for a Sencha blouse. The skirt buttons up the front with big mother of pearl buttons that are amazingly high quality. They're on par with some vintage ones I got in a lot a while ago, very thick and milky. I'm going to cut the back of the blouse out of the front of the skirt and the front from the back. It should work, and then I don't have to do all the finicky buttons and such. Which means I might actually get this done for May.

Also under consideration is the bwof 02-2009-124 dress in a crazy pink 80s print I inherited from my mother. The dress has a deep v back and needs something casual to keep it from being too dressy. That and I possibly have an obsession with wacky 80s and 90s prints. Just saying. It also only goes up to a 46, so I'll have to draft it up a size. The 46 fits me just fine in Burdastyle patterns though, so maybe I'll have to recruit a measuring tape and see. I got three issues of Burda Plus in the mail on Monday (my last big purchase until the fall. Accursed student budget!), and I'm thinking of whipping up this simple top (Spring/Summer 2009 top 405) in some leftover navy cotton shirting from the Ruby pants. Once again, inherited from my mom's stash. Same with the corduroy the pants are made from. Actually, pretty much all of my fabric is from my mom or Goodwill. My only fabric purchases from a proper store of late have been remnants, interfacing and 3.5 yards of gorgeous leaf green cotton sateen. The sateen is for Simplicity 6194, a 1965 shirtdress I got from Gremly Girl. I haven't worked up to it yet - soon though!

I had a bunch of photos of the handwarmer pattern I've been working on, but the computer at work won't read my camera (okay, phone). The first draft of the pattern came out way too big in the hand, so I'm working up another smaller one to see if it's better. I'm also changing the thumb around a bit to minimize holes. I meant to have this done a week ago, but it takes way longer than I expected to write out a non-hat pattern. Should be up in the next couple days.

I'll also be updating my etsy shop in the next few days with some great 50s and 60s patterns, as well as some 80s knitwear books. Lots to do, so I better get cracking!