They Don't Make Them Like This Anymore

At the risk of sounding like one of those grumpy muppets, I have to say that they do not make patterns as cool as this one any more. The dress with those awesome pockets! The elegant lines, the no nonsense neckline, the perfect pushed up three quarter sleeves...but the piece de resistance is that white cape collar topping - sheer genius.

J'adore the brooch pinned at the impossibly thin waist. Gloves like these need to come back in style right NOW this minute - I want some!
Love how Miss Turban with the flashy feather has her shawl so elegantly tied about her tiny waist. Love that little white cap -that outfit almost looks like a nun's, but not.
These ladies are members of the Church Auxiliary, I think, planning their annual Fundraiser and Jumble Sale. Miss Green Gloves is Madam President, and Miss Red Feather Turban is rolling up her sleeves, getting to work on rounding up volunteers and donations. They run that auxiliary with the ruthless efficiency of the Allied Command planning the Invasion of Normandy. Women's talents were so under-utilized then! Nowadays they would all be College Presidents, Senators and CEOs. We've come a long way baby...except I miss the clothes.

Time Travel: Simplicity 2409

Vintage Simplicity one piece dress and Redingote

The dress, seamed down the center front, is fitted with tucks at the front shoulder. The gored skirt joins the bodice at the natural waistline under a self or purchased belt. Extended shoulders and a V neckline finish the dress. The princess redingote, styled with long sleeves, features rounded lapels and is secured with a single button.

Do you read the suggested fabrics and imagine how you'd make this up? Suggested fabrics: silk or rayon crepe, spun rayon, canton crepe, rayon jersey, foulard, surah, pique, linen, chambray, cotton broadcloth, balloon cloth (???)
Redingote: Silk, wool or rayon crepe, rayon or wool gabardine, or flannel, satin faille, bengaline, shantung, spun rayon.

Where to wear it: Kentucky Derby (with a splendid hat), New York luncheon, shopping in Rome, matinee in London, followed by afternoon tea.

Sadly, this pattern is incomplete. It's missing the skirt pieces, and the back of the redingote, and the center front piece. Sigh. However, it does have the redigote facing, so the front could be reconstructed, using the remaining pieces as a guide.
If only the previous owner had been more considerate, and thought of us 70 years later!
How would you go about replacing the missing pieces? I think I know how to do it, (the dress skirt is easy), but suggestions welcome.
Who said Time Travel was easy?

Cautionary Tale

Be careful when making pencil skirts not to make them too tight, or your head will correspondingly expand.
Penciled notes on the envelope read: Dec 1960, White fur-Carol. E-skirt 6/89- material left from folding seat covers.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm not feeling the folding seat cover fabric idea.
Pattern found here, if you have a better idea.

A Simpler Time

Was it ever really all right to wear giant bowls of fruit on one's hip? And those sleeves! My inner five year old Carmen Miranda is in LOVE.
If this were my size I would totally buy it and make it.
If it is your size and speaks to you, find it here.

Time in a Box

On Sunday Mr. Hunting Creek brought up a cardboard box full of patterns out of the depths of the garage (who KNOWS what else in in there) and asked if I still wanted them. In the box were the very patterns I had used in high school to make my dress for the Christmas Formal dance! The top I was wearing when I met him at college orientation! The pattern for my favorite outfit my freshman year in college! I did not even know that these patterns still existed. So YES, I did want them.
The Christmas formal dress was made of view A with the high neck (I was a modest girl), but the fluttery sleeves of view F. We were in Southern California, after all. I am still a sucker for fluttery sleeves, although I suspect I'm a teensy bit too old for them now. My dress was Christmasy-red and I made a shawl to go with it. I also had a purse and shoes dyed to match. I still have the purse.

Of course my daughter was very interested in these patterns from a historical, Mom-monitoring aspect. A couple of them she held up and said, "Mom, what were you thinking!", but most passed inspection. My son very nicely pointed out that I sure was skinny back then. Gee, thanks buddy, I know!
I loved this top with a passion; I still remember making it. It was made of cream colored eyelet with tea dyed lace inserts. I wore it all the time. I made another with pink ribbon inserts and dotted swiss, but I didn't like that one as much. Even then I liked to experiment with different embellishment ideas and see how they would work.

High school in Southern California in the seventies was very different than high school in Northern Virginia now. I love to tell my kids stories about how we wore shorts to school and swimsuits under our t-shirts so we could go to the beach after class. Much more fun than telling tall tales how we walked to school backwards ten miles barefoot in the snow to get to school. (I miss California!)
I can still amaze the kids with how far we've come, because when I was a freshman in high school, girls were not allowed to wear pants to school. The prevailing wisdom was that wearing pants, jeans etc. would make us "wild". It was a far, far more sexist world back then, than we have now. Thank goodness for that.
Here is the outfit I wore when I was a freshman in college and dating Mr. Hunting
Creek.

I made a couple of these tops, one in a flowered lawn with eyelet trim, and the other top out of white eyelet. (I still love eyelet. As the twig is bent...)
I made the short skirt of the flowered lawn and also had pants that went with both tops. I used to sew almost all of my clothes and tried to make coordinating outfits even then. My mother encouraged my sewing and would take me fabric shopping on weekends. She did not sew much herself but she was a fabric enabler. I know where I inherited my fabric stashing tendencies.
I mentioned to my daughter that McCalls 4133 was my favorite top of 1975, and I still loved it. She said, "Don't even THINK of making that now!" So bossy!
I bet she would not even recognize it if I made a 2009 incarnation.
Do you still have your old patterns?