First item of business: Lisa at the Vintage Fashion Library is a donation/sale event: Now through April 19th, you get 15% off your purchase price with keyword PINK, and 10% of your purchase price will be donated to the Susan G. Komen Foundation for breast cancer research.
(I really want this pattern at the VFL but it's not my size. Anyone got one in a 36/38? I don't have time to grade stuff right now …)
Check out these super-cute uniform dresses! (Thanks, Jesse, for the link.) I haven't clicked through to the source page because I'm sure they are depressingly expensive. If I'm wrong feel free to let me know.
Just an update: did you know that the Vintage Pattern Wiki is one of the top sites on Wikia, in # of articles? (We're the top site if measured in pure stylishness.) Let's get cranking and knock those World of Warcraft guilds back on their heels!
Hana tells me there's a Duro-like tunic dress pattern available as a free download on the Burda site … it looks pretty cute!
That's all for this random Friday; check in next week for slightly more ordered posts.
A Dress A Day 
Oh mrspost2u, as long as you stay with marked patterns, you may not have to shudder so much! Patterns all were marked with today’s markings after the mid 50s, and some even before that. Learning the unprinted ones is a learning curve, but we’ll save that for you to learn later! 🙂
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I like this fashion illustrator! It’s amazing just how MANY of the models drawn in the 1960’s are made to look like Jackie Kennedy…she was such a huge influence! It’s funny about that uniform thing; I was flipping through a book of Barbie fashions the other night, imagining putting together a skeleton wardrobe for a normal person, and ended up thinking, “Well, that plain white nurse’s uniform, without the cape, is pretty sleek and simple…it could go a lot of places, with the right shoes.”
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Well they don’t even have prices on the site — so that usually means untouchable by the average person. It looks even cuter on the dang model!
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Hey who would have figured the odds Erin posted my next project? I have it in 39 Bust, can’t wait to make it.
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Those uniform dresses are adorable. Makes me want to dig out my old Cherry Ames books and wipe that rouge off my face.
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CHERRY AMES! I wonder why Old Hollywood never made a movie series out of that, like they did with Nancy Drew. The books were so popular. Here’s my review from Amazon:Can This Girl Hold Down a Job?, September 24, 2007 (4 stars)(SPOILERS) I just read the first book in this series, where plucky Cherry Ames (who, on the cover, strongly resembles actress Jennifer Jones) scampers off to Spencer Hospital in 1943 and makes friends with seemingly everyone she meets. I love our heroine because she has eyes like sparkling black diamonds – – that’s a new one! – – but also because she keeps a 7-year-old from turning into a traumatized adult by assuring him the face that’s been burnt off by an exploding water heater will be good as new any day now. Also highly dramatic is the dorm room scene in which Nurse Ames takes on jealous fellow student Vivian Warren, a bitter loner with the shady habit of wearing too much lipstick. Musing that a “surprise attack” often works best, Cherry knocks on the taken-aback Vivian’s door one evening, invites herself in, and says, “You probably know this without my telling you, that I think your tactics against me in class are pretty unfair. I want to tell you very plainly that I don’t like them. I also want to tell you that I won’t stand for that sort of thing.” Since the sullen Vivian hasn’t broken a lamp over her head, at least yet, Cherry goes on, “I can’t help wondering why you feel you have to resort to such tactics, when you’re every bit as capable as the next student, and why you’re always alone.” Cherry has got her digs in, but then cleans up the bloodshed by complimenting the cheap little viper, and even tops it all off by inviting her to a movie. Highly impressive! PS: This chat changes Vivian’s life. What I’m mostly worried about, though, is that for all her gifts and capability, can Cherry Ames prove to HOLD DOWN A JOB? Does she work any job longer than a few MONTHS? In addition to “Student Nurse, the series looks to include Cherry Ames: Senior Nurse, Army Nurse, Chief Nurse, Flight Nurse, Department Store Nurse, Boarding School Nurse, Jungle Nurse, Dude Ranch Nurse, Rest Home Nurse…etc. etc. etc! This is a dangerously spotty resume for a career woman to be building!
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oooooh! i have that pattern!!! that never happens that one of the sweet little patterns you show here resides in my little pattern collection. but it did! just felt like screaming that to somebody- does this make me cool now? sorry, not only have i failed to make it up yet, but its in the same size as your one that you’ve pictured.good luck with finding it though:)
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If you go to the Burda website for that Duro-like dress, make sure to check out the ‘hippie dress’ listed right under it: that’s a full length Duro-style dress, which is also free and unlike the Butterick version does have a neckband at the back as well.
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I went and bought two patterns from that sale – 30’s pajamas and Rosie the Riveter outift – can’t wait!Cherry Ames! I just discovered her while I’ve been living in Quebec (found some at the local Value Village). Being a life-long Nancy Drew fan, I found them great.
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Anonymous: It’s actually two dresses in one pattern. Two variations on the same pattern in one file. At least it is when I download it from the German version of the site; I didn’t try it with the English version somehow…
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I clicked through on several links before I ran into prices. At the listed boutiques, prices will range from $75 to $365. How much you wanna bet the $75 is for matching hosiery? Or maybe a dicky?
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Hey I read Cherry Ames when a was 7!
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here were some great sartorial moments in the Cherry Ames books. There was her red wool “sports suit” that made her look like she was wearing rouge, the time she got sent to the hospital’s sewing room(!) to fix the hem on her uniform, the bridal gown they made out of a bedsheet for Ann’s wartime wedding, and of course, the day all the student nurses got together and threw their hated black stockings in the lake!
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I really have to read more of Cherry Ames’s adventures. I think the Department Store Nurse should be exciting; does she tend to people who get trampled at a White Sale, or who faint when they realize they’ve gone up a size. There just HAS to be a scene where an overly-eager tot pulls a toy of a shelf, and gets bonked on the head? And isn’t there a volume one Cherry moves to Greenwich Village for a job? I do remember that when she went to the sewing room, she “quickly” fixed the hem on her apron…can’t wait to see how she does with that wartime wedding dress conundrum! It sounds very Project Runway.
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Wow…that was some A-1, cr@ppy typing I just did! Sorry : (
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I just found your site…your pattern stories are hilarious! Love all the vintage patterns, of course!Thanks for the laugh!
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