Ten Years Blogging!

Ten years ago I designed a WordPress site and published my first post. I was at the beginning phase of learning to sew my own clothes. I started by mostly refashioning thrift clothes. My progress was slow and gradual. Now, ten years later, almost everything I wear is me-made, and I have achieved my goal.

It would take too long to go through ten years and find the highlights; I’d rather be sewing! But I will share a few examples. Beware: image heavy!

This was the first project I shared (it was close to Halloween):

These are some of the outfits I’ve sewed:

Some of my refashions:

from 2 pillowcases

from sarong

from sarong

Shirt to Kimono Refashion

Big Shirt Resized

Dress to Top Refashion

The main focus of my blog has been sewing clothes, but I’ve also done plenty of other needle arts and crafting.

My quilted projects:

My embroidery:

Summertime Embroidered Towel

I stopped knitting because of carpal tunnel and arthritis issues. Sewing by machine is much easier on the hands.

Some knitting and crochet projects:

Some of my favorite posts:

The Dress Doctor Part 1

The Dress Doctor Part 2

Thoughts on First Year of Blogging

What My Mother Wore

End of Summer Leftovers

Sewing During the Pandemic

My most popular post is Easy Fix For Too Small Skirt. That’s a great title! Subsequently, I’ve realized my tutorial is not so easy; I removed and reinserted a zipper. I also removed the waistband and sewed foldover elastic.

I ‘ve never been a frequent poster, but my goal has been to have at least one post every month. I’ve only missed three months in 10 years.

What has changed in 10 years? I’m older, ha! The traffic on blogs has decreased as the rise of the smart phone has changed the focus to apps like Instagram, which are more easily read on a small device. In the sewing world, independent pattern companies have gained a larger customer base, and larger sizes are now routinely included as a result from some heated debates on Instagram. A few of those pattern companies were started as a progression from blogging.

I have a free WordPress account. I am happy with WordPress, and would recommend the platform, although I find it harder to use the new editor. Ads are perfectly fine at the end of a post, but a few times I have seen ads in the middle of a post which I don’t like. I appreciate the free platform, and that my blog will remain up indefinitely without any action from me. After uploading 1,679 photos and publishing 174 posts, I have only used 37% of my allotted storage space.

So should I continue? Most of what I sew is pretty boring – everyday tees, pants and shorts. But the things I make are my story, and I like telling it, so I doubt I will suddenly stop at this point in time.

I’m always excited about the latest thing I’m sewing! Currently I’m working on a fall/Halloween wall quilt. I finished sewing the quilt top, and I will be back with the completed project, and the story about it.

To my readers, I hope you have found something of use or interest in these pages. You probably also know the pleasures of creating with your own hands, and together we inspire each other to make, to learn, to grow.

Combining Prints Sewing Challenge

For March I took part in the sewing challenge sponsored by the Instagram group Sew Over 50. It was called “pattern mixing”, #so50patternmixing. At first I didn’t even understand what that meant. The challenge was to combine two or more prints in a garment. I have combined a print with a solid, but have never thought to use multiple prints – that sounded a bit loud and overly busy to me. Actually, it can be bold or subtle.

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I have many times been drawn to a fantastic print, but not all prints are wearable to me. I wouldn’t want to wear skulls or dancing hippos. I came across an excellent blog post by 7 Pine Design on “Sewing Prints Versus Solids”. Prints are marketed to the home sewing customer, who tend to be drawn to them. I find it hard to pick out prints for clothes, especially from online photos. I’ve learned that stripes, dots, gingham, and plaids are safer to stick with. I have mixed feelings about florals; some I like, some can have a dated look.

One of my sewing goals for the year is to explore creativity, so I set aside my sewing queue: challenge accepted! Once I decided to take part, I added two conditions of my own – I would use only fabric odds and ends instead of yardage, and it would have to result in an item I would actually wear. It was fun looking through all my fabric and thinking of possibilities.

I paired a thrifted floral piece with an odd shaped gingham piece left over from pants and shorts I made previously. The floral had bleeding I had to work around.

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I used my pillowcase top as a prototype to make a boxy top from my Maya pattern. I flat felled the gingham strips on either side of the floral and made two panels that I cut my front and back from.

The small scale gingham reads like a solid from a distance, so this is a subtle use of two prints. I changed the neckline to a v-neck which I have never sewn before. I drafted a v neck facing, but I didn’t make the v deep enough.

I was inspired to sew a second item!

I used an Instagram tutorial by @merrileeboniface and shared on the Sew Over 50 page for making a robe from a vintage flat sheet, and adding a second fabric as an accent. I found a forgotten fitted twin sheet at the bottom of my own linen closet, and combined it with the leftover lavender gingham I bought at an estate sale for $1 and previously made a shirt with, and estate sale 100% cotton rick-rack. The slide below is from the tutorial.

tutorial and photo by Merrilee Boniface

I was using a different size sheet so I used the length I had to make a longer robe. I made the sleeves 4 inches shorter, partly by taking some width off the sides, as this is a drop shoulder pattern. I have short arms, and these sleeves with the pretty trim aren’t made to be rolled up.

I got out my vintage daisy bowls from the 1970s for this photo shoot. I was surprised to find they were made in Italy. America is not the only country to no longer manufacture many items anymore.

It’s a pretty robe for patio lounge wear, and to have breakfast in.

Below are photos of the belt, the inseam pocket, the hanging loop, and the belt loop and a peek at the pocket from the right side.

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I became aware that vintage sheets are sold on EBay and Etsy, are very collectible, and are used for various sewing projects. The sheet I used was made in the USA by Cannon and is called Daisy Delight. The Cannon Mills Company was an American textile manufacturing company based in Kannapolis, North Carolina, that mainly produced towels and bed sheets. Founded in 1887 by James William Cannon the company remained family owned until 1982, then was sold to another company that went bankrupt in 2003. Below are the front and back of the label.

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I’m wearing it with the simple cap sleeved cotton jersey knit nightshirt that I made in 2019. It still looks good after hundreds of wears and washes.

This was a fun project to put on my Dritz dress form as I was sewing it. Most of the time I keep my sewing mannequin in the closet and don’t use it.

As I was sewing the robe, I realized I own many vintage items. I never thought much about their value, and that they are sought after by collectors. I use an iron with a cloth cord, my ironing board has a wooden top under the padding, and some of my kitchenware is old. I used to go to estate sales in my neighborhood, and buy more old things, but these sales are infrequent now. The older generation who came before me is gone, replaced by young families with babies and toddlers like when the neighborhood was built in the 1950s. Now I’m a part of the older generation, the vintage one. I hope the women who left behind fabric I later bought had already sewn many of the fabulous and useful items they had planned, and used most of their favorite fabrics. I am carrying on to do the same.

Top from Vintage Simplicity Dress Pattern 8183

It was the summer of 1969.  Young and old came together and watched in awe as American astronauts succeeded in landing on the moon.  It was also the summer of  the Woodstock music festival in New York and of two nights of shocking murders in California which were later found out to be committed by the Manson Family.

Man on the Moon -Photos from “Fashions of a Decade the 1960s”

Janis Joplin at Woodstock

Hippie Wedding

In my world, I was in elementary school with the summer off.  I was listening to “In the Year 2525″ by Zager and Evans, ” Sugar, Sugar” by the Archies and Donovan’s “Atlantis” on my transistor radio.  My library’s reading program for kids was titled “books are out of this world” and my reading consisted of books like “The Happy Hollisters” and the Beany Malone series.

The jiffy pattern, Simplicity 8183, of a darted dress with a low cut H-shaped back was released in 1969 for summer sewing.

I have a bunch of vintage patterns from thrift store shopping, but I actually set out to buy this one after seeing it on the “We Sew Retro” website.  I bare arms and legs but don’t have any clothes with an open back.

This will be my blue summer – I’m not talking about moods but fabric.  I picked up yardage of two different shades of chambray at an estate sale.

I decided to start on my chambray summer sewing with a top made from this pattern.  It’s sized for a 36 inch bust, and I’m bigger than that.   I started by doing a full bust adjustment to the pattern after I traced it off on medical pattern paper.  I made a mock-up using a sheet – too tight!  I added 1/2 inch to the seams.  I kept the front and back waist darts, but I made them shallow as I wasn’t going to use a zipper and didn’t want the top to be too fitted.

The fabric frays easily so I sewed french seams to enclose the raw edges. I planned on swapping bias binding for the facing pieces.  After I started working on the top I had the idea to substitute red piping as an accent around the very long neckline.   For the armholes I made  bias binding from the chambray fabric.

I had scraps around from the denim skirt refashion so I made the strap from denim.

A big goal with this top was to keep my bra from showing.  Initially, I tried to get the strap on the top to cover my bra, but it wasn’t quite working so I raised the back 3 inches.

I tried machine stitching a little section of the piping to the inside of the shirt, but didn’t like the way it looked.  I wanted a clean look to the front of the top as if I were using facing.  Instead I invisibly hand stitched the neckline, armholes, and hem.

No

Yes

view of inside

The finished top:

It has a front too.

I had a devil of a time getting the strap straight, and unpicked it a few times.  The thread is a great match, so both my fabric and nerves were fraying.  I think I was trying to attach it too close to the curve.

In the photos of me wearing the top, I noticed some strain lines across the back and I was thinking of removing the strap.  It was a cute part of the design that attracted me to the pattern, yet I raised the back and don’t really need it.  I also belatedly thought of making a strap with buttonholes on both sides that can be buttoned on or left off.

What do you think?

I wish you a happy summer of ’17.  I doubt it will be as historically memorable as the summer of ’69 but I hope it will bring you memorable days of enjoyment with family and friends to look back on.

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The Dress Doctor Part 2

Last week, I reviewed the book I bought at an estate sale,  “The Dress Doctor” by Edith Head.  Miss Head won 8 Oscars for costume design, and dressed most of the leading ladies in Hollywood movies in the 1930s through the 1960s.

This week I’m going to get personal, and show some fashion examples from my own life.

At the end of the book, Miss Head offers her prescriptions for dressing for everything from sports to housework.  (Sorry Mrs. Cleaver, high heels are not appropriate for doing the dishes).

Pictured above is her prescription written in 1959 for dressing for amusement parks. Let’s see how our clothes stacked up some years later, in the mid 1960s at Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

Pretty much spot on! My mother and I, the towheaded girl, and the hand-on- head woman are all wearing what could be described as sport dresses or simple street dresses. I’m not sure about the redheaded woman – could she be wearing shorts? The pig is dressed up a bit more but is still within the rules as hats and gloves are optional, assuming that the dress code for males is the same.

Within about five years of this date, the dividing line for which clothes are appropriate for school, work, and play had blurred and changed. The fashion prescriptions of Miss Head, which had been the norms of society, would be discarded by young and old alike as a new casual style of dress took over.

Miss Head advises to experiment with clothes, and to be objective when trying on an outfit. “If it were possible to have a Polaroid camera along, snap your own picture and develop it at once, you’d make fewer mistakes”.  Just imagine lugging a big Polaroid camera into the dressing room, snapping a shot, waving the picture, and waiting for it to develop!  Of course this wasn’t practical, but this advice certainly works in the age of the “selfie”.

I fit Edith’s Head category of “too short” and her advice to my figure type is to use one color, never cut the body line, omit belts or use narrow belts, avoid a too-long dress length, and keep the silhouette slim and simple.

I decided to try my own experimenting in a department store dressing room.  It’s the store with the big balloons.  I’m keeping in mind Miss Head’s advice to accentuate my good points, and camouflage my figure faults.

Now, I wouldn’t ordinarily post unflattering photos of myself as I have a feminine sense of vanity about my appearance.

And I know the importance of the right accessory.

You’re never too young or too old to develop your own style!

Back to my experiment:  Here I try on a tent or trapeze shaped dress. The fabric is linen which is what I liked about it.

 

 

 

 

 

All wrong! Too long for me, and even though the dress is so big and baggy it still manages to cling in an unflattering way to my high hip or haunches. Maybe I could wear this shape if the dress was belted, and hit just above the knee.  I find that waist definition is important for my figure.

Next I try on a knit top with a draped neckline, and a gathered skirt.  Better!

Cons: they are both polyester, the skirt is unlined and doesn’t have pockets, gathered skirt adds bulk to waistline, top is wrong length to wear untucked.

Pros:  draped neckline on top is flattering, like the deep blue color of the top, skirt will go with all solid colored knit tops.

I didn’t buy any of these pieces.  I feel fortunate that I have sewing skills, and can make/alter a garment to be more to my liking.  As I’ve gotten older and  the letters in my closet have changed from S to L, I find that the fit is “off” on most of the clothes I try on.

One of my favorite stories from the book is about the clothes for Connie Stevens, who was playing a small town girl in the movie “Rock-a-Bye Baby”.  Her co-star, Jerry Lewis, suggested that since her character didn’t need fancy clothes, she could just go the the store and buy something to wear.  When Jerry was shown the result of her shopping trip he said to Miss Head, “Make ’em!”  Apparently, the clothes weren’t very flattering, even to a young, slim starlet.

“Ready-made clothes are made to fit anyone and each individual has figure differences.  In making your own clothes, you can adjust to those figure differences, play up your good points, see that the waist fits at the waist, the shoulders are exactly the right width, the darts in the right place.”

“Clothes are the way you present yourself to the world; they affect the way the world feels and thinks about you; subconsciously they effect the way you feel and think about yourself.”

According to Miss Head, the most essential thing that clothes should do for you is to make you feel comfortable and assured.  Now that’s a prescription that never goes out of style!

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The Dress Doctor by Edith Head

I noticed a book at an estate sale with a dress form on the cover, picked it up, and discovered I had a first edition copy dated 1959 of the book “The Dress Doctor” by Edith Head.  I bought it!

I got a good deal. The book is selling on Amazon for $61 and up.  The 2011 reissue is not the original book, but a very abridged version.  However, many libraries have a copy.

I remember watching Oscar telecasts as a little girl with my mother, and  hearing Edith Head’s name being called as a nominee in the costume design category.  Miss Head was nominated 35 times in her career, and won 8 Academy Awards, 6 of them in the 1950s.

In the book, she tells of being a French and art teacher at the Hollywood School for Girls in the 1920s, where her pupils included the de Mille daughters.  Some days they would shut down school, and go to Paramount to watch Mr. De Mille direct a scene.  Evidently, Miss Head found the movie business to her liking; during  summer vacation she answered an ad for a sketch artist at Paramount. Even though she couldn’t draw,  she got the job by bringing to the interview other students’ drawings from the art school she was attending.

She began designing for silent pictures and westerns.  Her first  design that garnered attention was the sarong dress designed for Dorothy Lamour in the 1930s.

In 1949, a category for costume design was added to the Academy Awards, and Miss Head received her first nomination.  She didn’t win until the next year, for “The Heiress”, in which she designed  clothes whose purpose was to make Olivia de Havilland look plain and unattractive.  Up until 1968, the Academy awarded two costume design Oscars, one for color, and one for black and white.  Six of Miss Head’s wins were for black and white pictures, including “All About Eve” in 1951 and “Roman Holiday” in 1954.

Edith Head worked with all the top female stars of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, and in the book describes costume fitting sessions with Clara Bow, Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Barbara Stanwyck, Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, and many others, and offers little anecdotes about their personalities.  Nothing snarky here – all the best stories were doubtless omitted as a dress doctor has an oath of confidentiality  to consider.

Miss Head worked on some of the greatest classic movies and my all-time favorites: dressing Bette Davis in “All About Eve”, Audrey Hepburn in “Roman Holiday, Grace Kelly in “Rear Window”, Kim Novak in “Vertigo” and Tippi Hedren in “The Birds”.

In the book, fashion advice is also given to the ordinary woman.  Miss Head appeared on a radio show with Art Linkletter in the the 1940s where she gave fashion pointers to the women in the audience.    I thought it very quaint to give fashion advice without any visuals, but then I remembered that the designer Mr. Blackwell, best known for his “worst dressed” annual lists, had a radio talk show broadcast from Los Angeles in the 1970s in which he did the same thing.

The show with Art Linkletter made it to television in 1952.  It was a fun show: contests to shop and select accessories, fashions shows, and a staple of women’s daytime entertainment: the makeover.

My favorite part of the book is the section on what clothes can do for you.

“You are a woman with weapons, why not use them?  Why be a sheep when you can be a self?”

“Everyone has a day’s work, a career, in home, office or wherever, and why not express your individuality?  See how you can best dress for the day’s work to give yourself assurance.  Life is competitive; clothes gird us for the competition.”

Miss Head sums up her advice in three rules:

1.  Be dressed for what you are doing.
2.  Have the right accessories.
3.  Don’t wear your clothes too tight.  A dress should be tight enough to show you’re a woman and loose enough to prove you’re a lady.

How do you think that advice holds up in the 21st Century?

Next week, in the The Dress Doctor Part 2, I will apply some of her concepts to myself, past and present.

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New Clothes for Old Dolls

I went to an estate sale within very close walking distance, and immediately noticed these Kai pinking shears. They were on a small table right by the front door!  Before I bought the Kai shears I went home for a scrap of fabric to bring back and test them out, and they were sharp, easy to use, and cut beautifully.

 

I also came away with this vintage and charming embroidered tea towel.

I was happy with what I bought.  But then, because the sale was so close, I went back the next day to see if there was anything else I might want, and to see what I could get at a marked down price.

I noticed that that the former lady of the house had a large number of dolls, doll clothes, and doll parts, all in a jumble in boxes.  Some were expensive collector type items, and others had obviously been played with by a little girl or girls.  I started picking out some little rubber dolls about 4 inches tall, the type that would be used in a dollhouse.  I estimate these dolls date from the 1950s or 1960s.  I didn’t know anything about the dolls, but as soon as I showed an interest, a woman asked me if they were valuable, and another said “You got all the best ones”. Ha!

This red haired family was in good shape.  The mother appears to have her original dress. Unlike the other dresses, her dress is stitched and hemmed.

The dark haired couple were played with more, and their tattered clothing was clearly homemade.  The baby just had a piece of fabric wrapped and tied.

I was keen to spruce them up, and set myself the challenge of making them new clothes.

The woman doll was easy to dress.  I used a scrap of rayon fabric left over from a previous refashion, and I painted her shoe.

 

The gent was harder for me to dress, as I had never made pants. The fabric scrap I used for his pants frayed badly, making them hard to hem.

He cleans up well!

 

They’re ready for their own photo shoot.

They live in a beautiful land where the flowers grow very big!

A piece of eyelet made a new dress for the baby.

Much improved!  A well dressed nuclear family circa 1960.

And they lived happily ever after in their magical doll land.

Learning to Knit Booklets: Vintage Style

Let’s start with the oldest one from my collection.  It doesn’t have a date on it, but I am guessing it dates from the 1950s or early 1960s.  It features a cute cover, illustrations of a prettily dressed young miss, and a cartoon format to the instructions.

 

The back cover shows a few simple projects.

 

Wait a minute – what is that?  A creepy face on the back of her kerchief!

What was the designer thinking?  Well, we need some kind of embellishment to make the hood appeal to the younger set, and what girl wouldn’t want eyes on the back of her head.

I first learned to knit and crochet in 1973 or 1974, and I still have the little booklet from the class.  Those faces on the yarn are  actually cute.

One of the projects:

Owls were very popular in the 70s, but I’m thinking maybe that’s not the best placement for the owl eyes.

The Gitche Gumee Headband is another groovy design from the same booklet, although it’s neither knit nor crocheted.

 

I  also have a few early 1970s copies of a knitting and crochet magazine called 101 Sweaters.  Seventies fashion wasn’t just ponchos –  although the hairstyles and makeup are dated, many of the patterns hold up well.

 

 

The magazines also have a section for men’s patterns:

The guys on the left are cool, but could the guys on the right be any more dorky in those outlandish sweaters?

That wraps up a look at the good, the bad, the ugly, and the weird knitted and crocheted patterns and fashions of yesteryear. Do you like to collect old patterns or make things from them?