Sunday, June 19, 2011

Let's get started!

Route 66 ran right thru the town where I grew up.

My friend Tilly suggested I start a blog, as I usually send out more than a few emails when I complete a project (with photos, of course).  So here goes.  I've recently purchased 2 vintage sewing patterns via Ebay (thanks to Tilly's suggestion) and it jives nicely with the vintage knitting pattern I made last winter.  So here's a Slenderette pattern (Simplicity 2847 - 1950s?) I completed a few weeks ago (just in time for Tilly's DC trip, of course), made with Route 66 print fabric.  (You'll soon notice that my husband & I like "cool" prints.) I happened to have a red belt that I got at Esprit in SFO back in the late 1980s with great western-style icons on it (horse, cactus, etc), and it works perfectly.  


I don't know about you, but I think those old patterns take a lot for granted.  They seem to have less instructions than patterns do nowadays, even though the patterns are more difficult.  It must be a reflection of the good old days when most girls learned how to sew and would already know things I've had to figure out.  I wish my mother lived closer--she is an expert seamstress and can figure out things so quickly. 


Fortunately, as I've gotten older (I'll be 50 soon), I've realized that do-overs aren't time wasters.  Instead, they fix the item so I won't be ashamed to wear it!  I am also better about not getting bored with something...I either stick with it 'til the end, or I put it aside until I feel like working on it.  (I have a wool cardigan that I lost interest in when the temperature outside got to 85F, but I'll get back to it this September.)

Update: I have been wondering about the date of this pattern, so just did some research: ©1958

2 comments:

  1. About women knowing more about sewing, I think that's a very accurate comment; my mother learned in highschool; it was just a given that women needed that grounding in home economics to be good homemakers. I remember her making some really complex items, and I imagine that her patterns were about as easy to figure out as the one you were grappling with.

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  2. Hurray for your blog! I feel very honoured to have seen this dress up close - I particularly like the turn up cuffs (with buttons? Or did I imagine them?). Here's to lots more sewing... and lots more blogging! x

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