Miss Catherine's Pattern Mysteries

I do love it when I can pick up any vintage item and see traces of the previous owner, like second hand clothing that has been altered or handbags with small notes left inside the pockets. But my favourite things to find are the tiny notes on sewing patterns from a hopeful seamstress or from a fashion loving daughter to a mother.

When this pattern - Simplicity 5670 arrived the other day, the notes written so many years ago were quite interesting!  

Fabric-a-brac 2014

Hello dears! How is your weekend going? 

For me, this weekend was successfully spent splurging my pay on vintage fabric and patterns, eating bagels, listening to ukulele bands and "sewcialising" with Susan from Measure Twice/Cut once and lots of other fabric lovers

The shops, crowd and merchandise was substantially bigger then last year, which was awesome. If you remember I attended last years Fabric-a-brac at Newtown and had quite a bit of luck with my buys - you can see last years post here. I didn't spend as much time in the notions baskets or button jars this time - I had my eyes on fabric and the huge amount of vintage patterns which filled the boxes, cute suitcases and baskets around the tables

Photo by Susan Goodwin

Dressing the Decade - 1964

It's been a fair while since the last installment of Dressing the Decade, and I do apologise as I've just been too busy to spend the time researching and so on. But this weekend was a lot more relaxing. Catching up on blogs, baking and catching up on some TV shows has been really nice while writing this post. 

Speaking of which, if your in Australia I hope you've marked Mondays at 8:40pm in your diary to watch Love Child! For those not familiar with the show, Love child focuses on the lives of the Nurses and girls at a women's hospital in Kings Cross, Sydney set in 1969. The main story line focuses on Nurse Joan Millar who has just moved from London back to Sydney and discovers her new place of employment engages in illegal forced adoptions on un-wed mothers. A poignant and sensitive topic for Australian women's history as forced adoptions were something practiced quite often - so much so that the government was compelled to make an apology in 2013 to the Mothers and Children involved in the practice. I highly recommend watching it not just for the story line, but also for the music and of course costumes!

Anyway, so back today's blog post. I last left you in November with 1963. That year we started to see the emergence of youth fashion with silhouettes slimming down and the cinched in waistlines almost disappearing 

So lets continue now 1964!

Dressing the Decade - 1963

I spent way to much time this last weekend looking at all the 60s patterns in Etsy, and picked up 3 new pretties to add to my collection. It also reminded me that I need to continue with my series on 60's sewing pattern appreciation...

So here is the next installment of Dressing the Decade - 1963! 

Dressing the Decade - 1962

Oh my it's been a rather busy few days for me! Sewing and visiting friends, working late and birthday dinners. Very tricky to fit in more than one blog post a week sadly.

How has the past few days been treating you? Nicely I hope! 

I've decided to make up for my absence with a chunky new addition to Dressing the Decade! 

Here we go with 1962!

Dressing the Decade - 1961

Oh my, this cold is a brute – pair that with my lovely new orthodontic spacers (I’m getting braces next week) and I’ve got the sorest head in the Southern Hemisphere!

To distract myself from this (and to avoid watching snoozy election night coverage) I bring to you the next installment of Dressing the Decade – 1961!

Cue the dorky modelling music!

Dressing the Decade - 1960

One of my favourite things to do when I need some sewing inspiration or just some ideas for what to wear to work is to look through the Vintage PatternWiki.

I love pattern illustrations. The fine details in the drawings - the perfect hair, dainty shoes and the fabric choices all give me lots of ideas! Making wool look like wool with tiny little brush flecks is always fun to see. 

Sometime the models can be a bit suspect or being doing some very odd poses - take a look a pattern junkie if you need a good giggle! 

There are of course obvious issues with the illustrations - the models legs can sometimes be a little unrealistic and some illustrations for plus size women are still drawn with the same template as the misses patterns - but that's a whole other kettle of fish that we might discuss another time. As un-PC as they are, it definitely shows how far we have come to be more accepting of other body shapes. 

My favourite years to look at are mostly 1967 to 1968 patterns, but I decided recently to look at earlier years and compare how the styles have changed through the decade.