As far as bathing suits go, this one is pretty bleh--drop-waisted bathing suits flatter no one, not even this preternaturally thin Vogue illustration lady--however, all will be forgiven because CAPE!!

The pink version would be rad made up in shin vinyl, like a raincoat (raincape?), but the best part of the envelope is View B, wherein the Vogue illustrator gave up the silly notion that any woman would wear such a cape for any purpose other than to be a Bohemian French spy. She is clearly none other than Madame Clouseau on her way home from a jewel heist and clandestine tryst.

In other news, I have finished (finally) the dress I've been working on. I'd provide a photo, but I'm too lazy to get up and find the dress or the camera. It came together well, although I had to do some last minute taking in of the bust, as well as some extra bust gathers, to make it fit at the top. I had planned to cut the dress I'm making for Bronwyn today--it's a Vogue repro design and I'm doing it up in this fabric:


Yes, those are tiny books. Tiny red books. You can't see it in this picture, but they are tiny red books that have little covers reading "LABOR." It's going to go swimmingly!

Attack of the Chub-Deb

Sized for the CHUB-DEB?

Seriously, sized for the CHUB-DEB?

Advance Pattern Company, to you I say, "WTF?!"

Mod Children Take Over Your Town!

For some reason this pattern reminds me of The Tomorrow People. Ok, so here's my question to you, dear reader: do you think I could pull off the look sported by Ms. Red Shorts here? I'm talking head-to-toe--the awesome Vidal Sassoon style bob, the red striped short-suit, the tall socks, and the awesome red and white shoes? Doesn't she look sassy? Like she solves mysteries in a precocious manner and maybe has a mini-scooter that she rides to crime scenes. If so, then Green Skirt is definitely her twin Girl Friday, taking notes and being the straight-laced one.

My real question, though, is how it can be that the two knee-sock wearing curmudgeons on the right can look so cool and awesome (and deserving of their own series of mystery novels), and Blondie there on the left looks like the most annoying thing you have ever met in your life. Maybe it's the red purse? The look on her face? The really poorly proportioned jacket and slacks? The socks? Who knows.

From the Unsalted Sidewalks of West Philly

Doesn't this live pattern woman look uncannily like Maggie Gyllenhaal?

This is one of those rare patterns in which the live-action version is more enticing than the artist's rendering. Usually I find it's the other way around--the stylized, cartoon version has the advantage of wafer-thin, anatomically malleable women and no real reference to the weight or drape of fabric. But on this pattern, that seems to be the problem. On the model, it looks chic, office-y but not overly professional. On the cartoons it looks like a bathrobe.

I don't have much to show for myself, sewing-wise. I finished one dress, but I'm unhappy with the fit, and the fact that the best bits of it are the parts I did by hand (like the hem). The other dress I've been working on (affectionately nicknamed the JesusMaryAndJoseph dress, for the frequency I felt compelled to utter that as I stood slack-jawed and uncomprehending over the directions) is having some issues with the bodice being about 1 1/2 inches too long for my little frame, and also I need to purchase a zipper for the side-closing.

The part of me that loves to start new things wants to start a new project (at least until I get a zipper for the JMAJ dress), but the responsible, see-it-through girl wants to convince myself to do some more work on the unfinished dresses before moving on. Angel v. Devil, that kind of thing. You understand.

I can't even imagine what to say about the above. Blue Dress is deranged, clearly, so maybe the rest are just phantoms of her imagination? If she weren't in the picture, I would say that Grinning Man is about to approach White Pantsuit, and that Green Dress is her future self, running from a time warp located at the other end of the bridge to warn her what an awful mistake it will be to give him the time of day. Blue Dress kind of puts a wrench in that scenario, right? I mean, from the neck down she's an all-American tourist, but from the neck up she's a mummified corpse.

What city do you think they are in? I'm inclined to say Paris. Maybe because I think Paris is the only city in which a girl can wear a white pantsuit and get away with it.




This picture is a few days old, and there is no longer snow here, but I like this picture, even though I look kind of ridiculous and even though you can't see the turkeys in the back yard. I feel like I've betrayed all my snow-deprived Southern compatriots because I didn't fully utilize my snow access--you know, building snowmen, making snow angels, having a snowball fight, finding a large and dangerous hill to slide down on some sort of make-shift sled and thereby injuring myself gravely. This photo is pretty much all I have to show for myself.

On a note more suited to my climactic tastes, I hear it's going to be in the 70s in Alabama next week. I'll skip right over my guilt at global warming and right into my glee that I can perhaps wear the cardigan that Lady gave me for Christmas.

zombies, terminators, sexy secretaries of your dreams

Currently in CT with Lady --she is writing a paper and I am fiddling around on the interwob. There are probably about 15 things I could be doing (unpacking. emailing you back. working on my novel).

Instead, I've been debating about whether or not to write a new entry for this blog, which is very new and therefore shiny and fun to update. The debate goes like this: "Sure, this is shiny and new and therefore fun to update, but if I update three times a day now, then it'll only be more sad when it's old and dull and I never update except to say, 'gee, sorry interwob for not updating more often.'" It's sort of like when you are dating someone new, and they seem so fancy and awesome you want to spend every second with them, but are afraid to seem too desperate for attention. You know?

Then I came across this:



For serious, I want to be the woman in the glasses on the left. And I don't mean that I want to wear that outfit, 'cause I'm fully aware it would look stupid on me, I mean I want to be that woman for a day. Or maybe a week. You know she must have a cool job--something really specific and random that involves Dossiers and Number Two Pencils. She lives in a Modest Flat. She has a cat named Grover Cleveland. She might in fact be a spy--or, judging from the completely inhuman and incomprehensible location of her right leg, perhaps a Terminator From the Future(s). She appears to have tied Annie Hall there up with a thin leather thong (wrapped around her waist and then tying her wrists?). Will Annie Hall survive? Are her glasses some sort of hi-tech device? Are those polka dots inside polka dots? And stripes inside stripes?

And speaking of Zombies who want to eat your soul:



What is even happening here? Although (no lie) I kind of like those shorts. And that headband. No go on the matching striped shirts of doom, though.



As for this one--I don't even know. Roving artists/vampires/furies? I mean, clearly the "2-hour sampler" is warning you that if you cross these ladies, then your soul will become their appetizer platter du jour. Maybe the smocks are for easy clean-up after Red skewers your eyeballs with her threatening pointer finger.

That's all the pattern snark I can muster for the moment. More soon--perhaps about Christmas and its glories. Hopefully all of it at least a bit more substantive.

Happy Holidays!

Patterns

A few weeks ago, just after moving here to the City of Fraternal Affection (as Lady calls it), I bought a sewing machine used off of Etsy. She needs a little work, so I haven't been sewing much yet, but have spent a lot of time (almost obsessively... well, let's be honest, actually obsessively) reading dress making blogs and looking at patterns online. I've bought a few, ranging from the simple to the complex, and I've pretty much convinced myself to hold off on buying anymore for at least the next month, but regardless I can't stop looking. It's so. very. addictive.

Why? Partly it is because vintage patterns are beautiful--pretty lines, lovely colors, amazing hats--but mostly it is because they are hilarious. For instance, what is going on in this pattern:




Why is Blue Lady so angry with Orange Lady? Maybe because she has a better blouse than Blue? And I love that Orange is all, "I ain't even care." Meanwhile, Green Lady is having her own personal conversation with no one, and she clearly thinks she's being incredibly witty (we know better--those greens are not even complimentary. She looks like The Jolly Green Giants hot but vegetable obsessed wife).

It's like a soap opera!

Then there are the 60s and 70s patterns where they have included a Real Life Fashion Model to show you how easy it is to look like a space alien/cylon/terminator/Stepford wife:



If this lady isn't backlit by a landing mothership, then I don't know space aliens. Also: what is in Pink Lady's left hand?!?!?!

And just so you are assured that this isn't a fluke, check out Simplicity 7903:



She is clearly thinking, "I killed your brocade couch to make my infiltrator dress. Show me to your leaders and your Laughing Cow miniature cheese wheels or I will kill you with my perfectly coiffed hair."

This one, however, is my absolute favorite evar:



Maybe it's a holdover from my pre-teen obsession with A Separate Peace, but I have definitely developed something of a taste for clothes that look like they are prep school uniforms. Additionally, doesn't this look like the cast of a really awesome tv show about snotty rich girls? The brunette girl in the tan jacket is clearly the show's protagonist. Unlike her cohort here, she's on--gasp!--a scholarship to Snooty-Snooterville School (hence her angsty expression and no-nonsense tie). The girl to her left is her one and only friend, the down-to-earth and perfectly preppy BFF, kicked out of the it-crowd for being smart (she wants to eschew social life and deb balls for something like math or marine biology). Plaid Shorts Ensemble Girl with the Pink Bow is the Queen Bee Bitch. You can tell from the Bow. And the Hideous Shorts. Because all Bitchy evil princesses have bad shorts and giant hair bows. White Beret is the Quirky One. She likes fashion (obvy, she has a beret on) and is the nicest of the Plastics here. Sometimes she shows up in ridiculous outfits and she is inexplicably biffles with Pink Bow--probably due to some childhood kindness that will be revealed via flashback near the end of season one. The two on the end are also Plastics, but the ones with no actual interiority. Houndstooth Skirt looks like she might be The Sporty One--she's the physical enforcer of Pink Bow's evil plots, but secretly she just wants a boy to think she's pretty. And the one on the end? She's the class-prez, a grade-grubbing good girl who is obsessed with being the perfect student. Everything she owns is monogrammed.

Ok, so maybe I just convinced myself I need to make that show happen. Wouldn't it be amazing. I have a feeling I'd find Tan Cardigan really obnoxious, but I'd be really in love with her BFF there on the far right.

What do y'all think?