That's what Rita at Chez Cemetarian called this dress, and I agree. Wholeheartedly.

The pattern's up on eBay right now; click on the image to visit her auction.

This dress has me completely bowled over. That's one … engrossing … project, right there! I've seen simpler skirts on wedding dresses. In fact, this would make a pretty kick-ass wedding dress. Or I'd love to see someone wearing it at the Oscars. Heck, I'd love to see someone wearing this in their living room. I just want it to be worn!

Also, I'd never seen an "Advance Import" pattern before, but you can be sure I'll be looking for them now. This one, as you can see (and is discussed more in the listing) is from Battilocchi of Rome.

Oh, and if you check the back of the pattern (helpfully provided by Cemetarian) you can see that the width of the Incredible Skirt at the hem edge? THIRTEEN YARDS. That's five or six packages of bias binding, to put it in perspective. Thirteen yards of hem … again: serious project.

I wish I could see just one version of this made up — actually, I wish I could hover unseen over the shoulder of someone making this up, back in the day. I've never really been into sewing shows, but I'd make an exception to watch someone putting this together … of course, if they were filming me they'd have to bleep a lot. Those godets! The in-seam folds! Matching all those seams!

I think I have to go lie down now, and I just got up. Thanks, Rita!

So Lisa sent me a link to this dress/jacket combo on eBay, and I'm in love (click on the image to visit the auction) … but, of course, it's not my size. (Is there a Sturgeon's Law of internet vintage? Something like "90% of everything isn't your size"?)

However, I can't believe that this particular idea hasn't occurred to me with any force before: the print bodice with the solid skirt. What a great way to use teeny yardages of lovely prints (while placating the naysayers who don't want prints anywhere near their hips)! And you wouldn't necessarily have to line the jacket with the same (fancy expensive) print; you could use a solid coordinating color. In fact, since jackets get so much less wear than skirts (at least for me) you could do a jacket lined with a color that coordinated with TWO dresses …

I can see this is going to need serious thought (and fabric shopping). I want to drop what I'm doing now and run right out to find the right pattern and fabric … I'm thinking Simplicity 1510 would be a great option (although it doesn't have a jacket, I have plenty of appropriate jacket patterns in my stash):

Of course, that one (on eBay, too, click on the image to visit the listing) isn't in my size *either*, but I'm sure I have something similar somewhere. Not that I'm going to go rummage around and look for it now … really, I'm not. Honest.

A long time ago I posted about this pattern, McCalls 5147:

And now Toi has found it all made up, for sale on Etsy ($40, B36, click on the image to visit the listing):

I love it when I find handmade vintage for which I can identify the source pattern — it's like CSI: Sewing, isn't it (except with fewer splatter marks)? And it really helps when I'm trying to decide which of the embarrassingly large number of patterns in my sewing room should be worked up next — look how well this one worked out! I love the rick-rack, and the orange & plaid combo. How fancy would this look in plaid taffeta and velvet? (It'd also look about six years old, but I don't usually let that stop me.)

Has anyone else ever found a dress and known what pattern it was sewn from? (It doesn't count if you found it in your own closet …)

So, for my birthday, my marvelous sister Kate sent me this:

Isn't it awesome? Just the thing to hang in my sewing room.

Of course, I am now consumed by curiosity: who drew this? Why? How did it end up in a junk shop in Park Slope, for Kate to find?

It's marked "DeZine Studio, 105 W 40 ST. NYC", and the style number is D-1725. The illustration is marked "Peau de Soie" (and it's spelled correctly!).

Here's a slightly closer view of the actual dress (sorry about the flash glare):

Anyone have a clue for me? I could just *invent* the story, a la "Secret Lives," but I'd like to take a stab at finding out actual facts, first.

Michelle sent me this link (from Janet at Lanetz Living) and asked me what I would assume must be a rhetorical question: "Is there such a thing as a too-big pocket?"

Okay, okay … maybe there is such a thing as a too-big pocket. And perhaps, just perhaps, this jumper is in possession of it. But I can certainly think of extenuating circumstances that would justify needing a pocket this large: what if you had freakishly long arms? You'd have to have a deep pocket to hide the extra foot of forearm, right? Or what if you needed to transport yardsticks, or sawed-off shotguns, or small table lamps? You'd be glad of this pocket then!

I like the look of resignation on the face of the woman in the be-pocketed jumper. It's that same look I get when I know someone is about to play a practical joke on me and the only thing I can do is to endure it and get it over with. I think she knows that there's something yucky at the bottom of that pocket (poorly wrapped PB&J sandwich? slobbered-on post-dog tennis ball? open safety pin?) and that it's only a matter of time before she finds it, the hard way.

India bought a vintage pattern on Sunday, in honor of my birthday (I'm now 36, woot!).

Lo, here it is (from FuzzieLizzie) and it is made of great:

Those pleats around the neckline … marvelous. (I also eBayed a copy up for myself: who's the bad influence NOW, India?) I'm thinking about adding piping to that neckline … everything is more fun with piping.

I would like to point out that if you need excuses to buy vintage patterns, you really can't beat "I have to buy one; it's the traditional observance of Erin's Birthday"; like making a flag cake for the 4th of July (or, I don't know, are there Guy Fawkes-themed cakes?), it's just Something People Do.

And, speaking of not-so-bad influences, you should check out this wrap dress, modified for a member of our Dress A Day junior auxiliary! I'm glad to know there's a whole generation of little girls wearing cool dresses and not mini-J.Lo ensembles.

My DSL went down at about 11 last night. "No worries," I thought, Pollyannaishly. "I'm sure it will be up in the morning."

Of course, this morning I awoke with a start just at seven, filled with foreboding …. something was wrong! Something terrible!

Whether my body just recognized the lack of a wifi signal permeating my bones, or whether I just sensed the sad lack of blinkitude of the DSL light on the modem, I don't know, but there was no connectivity again this morning. A good night's sleep, it seems, is not what cures an ailing internet connection.

However the good folks at Speakeasy (LOVE them) got me back up and running in just about four hours, so I was able to see that I'd won this:

How tempted am I to do the striped version of the skirt? Extremely tempted.

I bought this pattern from eBay seller sewingwithdogs. She's got other stuff up, mostly vintage girl clothes …

It being August, of course, and 95 degrees everywhere I look, I'm starting to be obsessed with autumn clothes again. Even though I'm making at least two, and possibly three more dresses before September, if I can swing it (wedding this weekend — not mine — and trip in early September), I am starting to think about wool in dark colors, specifically for this skirt (I prefer the view with gathers):

And this one:

(NOT the one with the drape, isn't that just a tragic subway-car-door accident waiting to happen?)

I believe I asked McCalls for the skirt above and it actually is a Vogue pattern (click on either image to go to a pattern-buying page), but I'm not picky about which brand delivers to me the skirt I want. Not *exactly* sure how to go about putting pockets in the Vogue skirt above, but I'm sure it's doable. (It must be, because I really want this skirt to have pockets, and if the political events of the past five or so years have taught me anything, it's that wishing makes it so.)

Of course, I mostly want narrow skirts because I'm completely enamored of the new heeled oxford I have seen in ALL the September fashion magazines (so far). I love that shoe and have worn it faithfully every time it's come back since 1981. So faithfully, in fact, that I wear them *out*, and have to purchase new pairs … this time I want oxblood or cordovan (like that will happen). Like these, in fact, only not: four inches; patent; over $100.

Anyway, even though I bought these patterns at the JoAnn sale this past weekend, I've resolved not to make any fall clothes until I figure out fall shoes, because I've finally realized (after 36 years on the planet) that it is easier for me to make clothes that match the shoes, rather than vice-versa. Of course, what will probably happen is that I will just keep wearing the perfectly-fine ankle-strap shoes I already have, and wait for the oxfords to come down in both price and heel height, and go ahead and make some skirts anyway … I have this giant fuzzy houndstooth check wool, you see, that would go with any color …

At *least* fourteen. If you want to make view A, of course, and who wouldn't?

Marie Christopher just sent this to me, completely bumping what I was going to post today (don't worry, it'll keep), commenting "Totally Katherine Hepburn — buttons! Hat!", which sentiments I echo.

As much as I love 1930s clothes, though, it's always accompanied by the tristesse that comes with knowing that I am totally unsuited to them. Totally. And not in the good way — the way where you KNOW something doesn't suit you, but it makes you so happy that the wearing of it casts a glow, a glamour of happiness over you that cancels out the unsuitedness — but in the way where I look like somebody's least-liked bridesmaid.

If I could only go a couple minutes in Willy Wonka's taffy-pulling machine, like Mike Teevee, then I could "do" 1930s. A few more inches, spreading my body mass across a slightly longer frame, and voilà! A Hepburn's life for me.

Until that technology is perfected and marketed on late-night cable (as the Wonkamatizer?), though, I'm afraid I just have to look. But some of you, I know, can rock this look backwards and forwards, so go ahead and click on the image to visit VicVelvet's auction. And start looking for those buttons …

Do you remember that bird fabric I was moaning about missing? And how y'all helped me find some (I bought five yards from CraftyPlanet, which, if you remember, was the place that featured the sock monkey dress in their windows).

Anyway, before I went traipsing about the globe, I actually made it up into a dress, to wit:

Here's the full-length view:

Annnnnnd the close-up:

I can't remember (or find, in my messy sewing room) the patterns I used — it was another bodice-from-one, skirt-from-another Erin Special Combo, though. When I dig them up I'll post them.

At first I was a bit dismayed by exactly how much it looked like the waitress uniform at a diner called "Birdland" or "Nettie's Nest", but the more I thought about it, the more pissed off I was by my own first reaction. How sad and telling is it that clothes that remind us of honest labor (and let's be honest: low-paid, female honest labor) are somehow less beautiful? Why is is denigrating to say that a garment looks like the uniform of a waitress, or a nurse, or any other female service job? Why is the ideal to look as if you've never done a lick of work in your life? Why are clothes that actually facilitate Getting Stuff Done less worthy than clothes that actively Get In The Way (stiletto heels, I'm looking at you)?

Anyway, after getting myself comfortably indignant (it's good for the liver) I resolved to wear this happily, and if anyone points out the entirely-fortuitous resemblance between this and the traditional uniform of the great American waitress, I will pull a little pad out of my (convenient) pocket, take the pencil stub from behind my ear, and write them a thank-you note. After which I will continue on my merry way, working.