So yes, still obsessed with the Heidi — I have been thinking about making one that’s a bit more jumperish, and came across this pattern (available from Anna at BootyVintage):
Scoop neck, big pockets — can’t you see it?
Category: Patterns
In A World …
I want to see the movie that this still/pattern image was taken from. Three college friends go to a dinner party thrown by some creepy old dude in a creepy old mansion on the edge of town (on a dare, of course, because in the movies just saying "I dare you!" makes people do all kinds of dumb things). Inevitably, they get separated and have to deal with scary stuff jumping out at them from dark corners. (Anything with that weird chandelier/sconce/creepy mirror in it has to be a horror movie, right?)
In the end, the blonde one dies (she's a bit of a ditz, and the ditz always gets it), the yellow-dress escapes (she looks too sensible to do anything but escape), and the one in the black dress, vacant-eyed, stays with the creepy old dude in the creepy old house (despite the tearful protests of Yellow Dress). Flash forward twenty-five years, and it's a group of male college friends going to a dinner party thrown by creepy old lady … dum dum dum dum … STILL wearing that beehive hairdo and the same Dior dress!
I'm assuming the weird necklace exerts a certain level of mind control. It's the only explanation for it. Bonus points if it's a scarab!
My question: who plays creepy old dude?
Eh. Meh. Whatever.
The very ordinariness of this pattern makes it special. So many patterns have Pictures! Of Exciting! Glamour! And! Hilarity! that finding one where the woman seems to be waiting for her husband to settle Saturday afternoon's golf foursome so that they can get back in time to run the babysitter home is somehow more of a coup.
I hear her inner monologue as something like:
"Did I take the laundry in off the line? It looked like rain. I have to call Joanie's orthodonist tomorrow and reschedule her appointment. I bet I have spinach in my teeth; better keep my mouth closed until I can get to the bathroom. What's taking Angela so long in there? Oh, dear, Ted really is losing his hair, but I'll let his mother bring that up. I should ask Sheila for the recipe those stuffed mushroom canapés … I bet it's packaged salad dressing, that sauce. Someone's going to have to drive Keith home again; we should leave or else it will be us. Maybe I'll grab another one of those mushrooms before we go. "
(If you really want some excitement, maybe the fact that this dress is on sale (15% off! use coupon code SUMMER!) at Out of the Ashes will help. Sale starts now, runs all weekend!)
A Cape? Why not?
I kind of miss the days (not that I ever lived in them) where it was just NORMAL for a dress to have a matching coat. Or cape, as seen here. Where you would think "Oh, sure, I'll just wear my lavender dress-cape-purple styrofoam packing peanut-hat combo! I wonder if my incredibly long white gloves are clean?"
Although, really, if you're going to match your hat, dress, and CAPE, wouldn't you go find some smoky lavender suede pumps, as well? It'd be worth the effort.
My favorite here though is the red dress — I love that neckline/midriff band combo. Such a sleek and oddly modern dress! It would be the world's best evening gown, slightly lengthened and in silver lamé, wouldn't it? It's so elegant, but you could throw a cardigan right over it (okay, not the silver lamé version) and go anywhere.
If it were one size bigger (it's a B34, anyone have it in a B36?), I would be buying this beauty … But as luck would have it, it's on sale at MOMSPatterns and for a good cause, too! Jen's very best friend in the world is visiting from England for a month, and she is a recent breast cancer survivor.. so in her honor, Jen is offering a 20% off sale with which 5% of the proceeds will be donated to Breast Cancer Research. The sale lasts until midnight EDT Sunday, August 1, 2010 — use coupon code 'sherri' to receive your discount.
A Mullet Dress
Why is this a mullet dress? Because if you can look at this picture and NOT think "Business in front, party in the back," you are a better human being than I am.
This would be a great dress to wear on those uncomfortable folding chairs they use for school assemblies — you know which ones I mean, the ones that are always painted "cafe-au-rancid-milk" brown. Built-in padding!
And this pattern and the rest of the lovelies at the Vintage Fashion Library are 20% off through Wednesday 7/21 … use code "Christmas". (Christmas in July!)
Chic Sheathness
I love this pattern Tina found (at What-I-Found):
Especially the Princess lines and the dolman sleeves together — I think that looks so "modern," in the retro sense of the word.
Of course, anything with lines like this makes me think of color-blocking (dark gray! with a chartreuse yellow center panel!) but I can't figure out how to add pockets here, other than patch ones. Hmm. Any suggestions?
I didn't buy this pattern as I have a sneaking suspicion that I already did, at one point. I just can't find it. (And yes, I know that one guaranteed way to find it would be to buy this and have it arrive in the mail, at which point my first copy would turn up, but that seems kind of wasteful.) So it's fair game, ladies. Go for it!
Yay Wiki! Go Wiki!
Did you all know that the Vintage Pattern Wiki is up to nearly THIRTY THOUSAND patterns? Holy Moly. (We only have about 700 to go. If everyone who reads this post in the first hour that it's up goes and adds a pattern, we'd be there and past there!)
This is one of my recent favorites:
Lovely, isn't it? You can find the full wiki page here.
Many, many thanks to all those who have uploaded pattern images, tagged patterns, left extra information and generally made this a fantastic resource for lovers of vintage patterns. You are awesome.
The Dress of My Dreams. Literally.
I love this pattern. Someone sent me the link last week (can't find the email, if it was you, please claim credit in the comments) and I've been thinking about it ever since.
In fact, I woke up the other morning having dreamt that I had bought and sewn this pattern (in a green-and-white gingham) and that it was hanging on the back of my sewing-room door. It wasn't … wish it had been!
Do you have sewing-related dreams? I find that if I don't sew when I'm awake, after a while I will start to I sew while I'm asleep. Either I make stuff like this (and am REALLY DISAPPOINTED when I wake up), or I have dreams where I make impossible things, like soap-bubble ballgowns. Once in a dream I made a skirt of a fabric that was made of dimes, melted and beaten thin, but with Roosevelt's face still visible. (In the dream it wasn't heavy.)
The Answer to a Question No One Seems to Ask
So a question I often pose to myself in idle hours (not that I have any "idle hours" anymore; "idle forty seconds" is the most I can hope for) is: is there a garment you could wear in any era? Say, if you were a time traveler (for example, cough, a companion to a certain Time Lord, cough)?
This pattern might be a contender (especially the cowl-neck Princess Leia version). Doesn't it say "I'm going to get medieval on your ass" and "the future has stewardesses" simultaneously? If it were made from that fabric they had in the Zenna Henderson stories which could be smoothed and stretched to any length, this would be perfect. Lengthen the skirt for the past, raise it for the future, add a nice cardigan and go anywhere in space or time!
This pattern has a very precise location in space and time: it's at CoconutPie's Etsy shop. (And Susan at Coconut Pie offers a a 10 per cent discount to anyone who mentions "dressaday" in their notes to seller.)
A Dress A Day 
