Do you have plans for the holiday weekend? We don’t, as usual, but that’s fine with me. Our neighbors will be shooting off fireworks way too late in the evening and driving our dogs crazy, but the weather is supposed to be nice so we will enjoy the outdoors during the day and hide with the dogs huddling in fear at night at all the booming around us.
So in honor of the holiday, I wanted to show you this flippy little sailor dress, which is perfect for the holiday weekend. The sleeves and skirt are flared, so it’s perfect for most shapes, and it’s quick to make too. Click here to buy.
Have a great weekend and stay safe with the explosives, please.
If you don’t follow Stephanie Canada on YouTube, why not? She’s a fellow weirdling and really funny, and is a vintage sewing fan as well. Her most recent video featured a dress I shared on the Vintage Sewing Patterns Nerds group on Facebook. It’s the 50s one that she says you’d wear so your friends can drag you around by the handle if you get too drunk at a party. (See what I mean?) Anyway, the video features weird patterns over the years, and there are some doozies. Keep in mind that one of the New York ones she mentions in the video is available in my shop, and I’ve had at least one other over the years proving, of course, what I’ve always said: that there is a person for every pattern.
A couple of others that I shared in Stephanie’s comments:
McCall’s 8190. Because why wouldn’t you want to look like you’ve had a lady accident?McCall’s 5309. Just gonna leave this here without comment.
This is what my afternoon looks like. This truck is currently heading toward my house, ETA in two hours, straight from Texas. It contains five sewing pattern cabinets (YAY – I need them!) and ten thousand new-to-me vintage patterns.
TEN THOUSAND PATTERNS.
Dear Lord, what have I done to myself? Oh well, one grabs these things when one grabs these things, so I’m actually pretty excited. Husband, not so much, but he hasn’t really spoken badly of it. No matter, it’s my work to do anyway. It’s taken six months of planning this in the middle of a pandemic and a broken supply chain (and a knee replacement for the person at the other end of the delivery), but we persevered and now it’s happening. I’ll be interested to see what I find in there, and you’ll be seeing more lovelies, I’m sure.
Pray for me. Light a candle. Send good juju. I’m gonna need it in order to fit all of this into my workspace! More will be revealed after the unloading.
No sooner had I posted the last post about Cut-Ready to Sew week, then I found the five patterns the store would cut for you. These are all Pictorial Review, from 1931.
Pictorial Review 5506, pajamas ensemble of silk shantung. Sold for $7.62.
Pictorial Review 5514, sport ensemble of white shantung. Sold for $5.09.
Pictorial Review 5701, afternoon frock of printed voile. Sold for $1.01
Pictorial Review 5755, town frock of Picardy crepe. Sold for $3.46.
Pictorial Review 5391, play suit of Zephyr print. Sold for 95 cents.
I think I’d buy both the 5506 and the 5701. I love the seams in that dress, but picture myself lounging in those pajamas. Keep in mind that the prices listed included the pattern AND the fabric, and the cutting was done for free. What a deal!
I was looking around in the newspaper archive, trying to date a Pictorial Review pattern, and came across a fun little article. The week of July 14, 1931, was Cut-Ready to Sew week.
What was this, you ask? This was the week that Pictorial Review offered five different patterns that you could purchase, and the store would cut the fabric for you. Why, you ask? Here was their reasoning:
Beginning sewists could just start sewing, without the intimidation of cutting the fabric.
Experienced sewists who were hesitant to cut fabric could just sew, without the fear.
Expert sewists could consult with the reps to learn shortcuts and new techniques.
Both the patterns and the fabrics were pre-chosen, so the fabric definitely matched the pattern, but also limited choices. I’d love to know how this went over. Personally, I hate cutting, so perhaps it would work out ok for me. I even buy my patterns previously cut, because I hate cutting so much. I’d think that this probably didn’t allow expert sewists to adjust the pattern prior to cutting though, so perhaps it was more appreciated by beginning sewists.
Either way, it was a great marketing technique to get people to use the patterns. Window displays were created with the five dresses and fabrics, to show sewists the final product. I’d love to know what the five patterns were, wouldn’t you?
I’ve been missing in action lately, I know. I caught a cold from one of the grandgirls, and it escalated into ugliness in the form of asthmatic bronchitis and ear infections. Got over it and the darned kid did it to me again! I’m just starting to get better now, so hang in there — I’ll be back to normal soon, or at least I hope so.
Meantime, look at this pretty pattern. When I first looked at it, I thought it was a super cute swimsuit, but then I read the description — it’s actually lingerie. I think that you could line it and use it as a swimsuit, and it would be a perfect look with that Beach Blanket Bingo vibe. What do you think?
Purchase here. There’s a 15% off sale going on in my shop through the weekend, so take a look at what’s new and stock up.
When you reach into your stash, looking for something to list, and randomly pull out this. Wow. That top is amazing. I sell a repro pattern similar to this in the shop, but this one includes the shorts and skirt too? It’s almost too much to handle that early in the morning. That lime green is pretty eye catching too, and although as a fair redhead, I couldn’t handle that color, it’s perfect for almost everyone else.
They really overdid themselves with this pattern illustration, yes? Now available in the shop.
If you’ve never seen a vintage Spadea pattern, then you have missed out on a treat. Spadea patterns are fabulous. I came across a 1965 article about them recently and learned more about the company.
I already knew some things from reading this blog post years ago by Lizzie, of The Vintage Traveller. She was fortunate enough to correspond with and interview the Spadea’s daughter, who acted as a fit model for them. It truly was a family owned business. According to the article I read, the Spadeas had over 80 international designers under contract. They travelled the fashion shows, looking for garments they wanted to replicate into their designer pattern lines. Once they had a sketch, they draped a muslin on a size 12 dress form until they got the line-by-line duplicate they needed. If it wasn’t exact, they couldn’t put the designers name on it. Once the draping was done and it all matched the original, the pattern makers went to work making the pattern pieces,grading it to other sizes, writing the instructions and figuring out the cutting chart. This was all done by hand and then checked for accuracy by a second person.
The really mind blowing thing is how the pattern pieces were cut. Unlike other pattern companies, Spadea cut their pieces by hand. They laid the brown paper pieces on top of 100 tissue paper pieces, then cut it all by hand with a knife. The perforations were marked by hand, or sometimes with a hand operated machine, and then they were sent by folding. Folding was also done by hand. Considering the thousands of patterns they sold over the years, this is really fascinating to me. I would love to see the particular knife they used to cut with. Was it more of an X-acto knife like my dad used for crafts, or more of a box cutter shape? (I’m a little caught up in the idea of knives right now, because I bought hubby some Wusthof knives for Christmas, and am sure we will end up in the ER, given his propensity for kitchen accidents, but I digress.) But cutting 100 pieces at a time with a knife is really something of awe. It’s a far cry from this 2016 video – a VERY quick view at how a McCall’s pattern piece is cut and folded by machine.
Mr Spadea stood by his process, however, stating that in the fifteen years his company had been in business, they had had fewer than five times that they had had to admit that they made a mistake, and refunded a sewist for a ruined project. His employees said that mistakes were because “women just don’t read the instructions.” I’d take his advice, even though I’m a beginner and pore over the instructions anyway. Given the fact that Spadea patterns are for designer garments, paying special attention to the instructions is a must, in order to end up with the high quality fashion you are looking for.
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I listed this cute pattern in the shop this morning. It’s Butterick 6879 and it’s adorable. I love View A, but can’t imagine doing all that bias tape trim. It’d be worth the work, but wow. This pattern is part of the “Susie Stephens” line from Butterick.
Susie Stephens, in case you didn’t know, is a line of sewing patterns designed by students at Stephens College, in Columbia, Missouri. (Fun fact: I grew up not far from there, and always thought of it as a rich kids school. But I digress.) At Stephens, they had a yearly fashion show done by the students. It was called “Susie Stephens.” It commonly had a theme, such as in 1952, where the them was “Campus Classics from the Classics,” and featured garments and millinery inspired by books such as Little Women, David Copperfield and Wuthering Heights. These garments were shown in fashion shows around the Midwest.
A 1947 article notes that the designs were fresh and adaptable, with rompers that had skirts to go over them, coats with enough volume to carry books underneath during the rainy season, and much more. On the day of the show, it was surmised that the garment district of St Louis must’ve emptied out and headed to Columbia, along with designer staff from Kansas City and New York. Budding designers were hired straight from these shows. The next day, the show was done again for the people of Columbia, where customers could choose the garment or the patterns, to take to their dressmaker for adaptations.
By 1950, Butterick had taken notice, and started their “Susie Stephens” line. This line was specifically created from the Stephens College students’ designs, and was advertised for teenagers. By 1952, they had printed 30 designs in the Susie Stephens line, but it seems to have waned in popularity after 1953, and disappeared completely after 1954. It’s worth taking a look at this cute line of patterns.
The Vintage Fashion Librarian 