A movie and a pattern

We saw The Blue Tooth Virgin tonight at a friend's place. It's an indie film about an out-of-work screenwriter who's written a new script and his friend who reads that script and offers criticism. The dialogue and characters in the movie are very well-written - really, the script is great, which is funny since this is a movie about writing scripts. There's a lot of stuff in this movie about why movies get made and how to write scripts.

We loved this movie. It was funny and self-referential and true to life. Even the parts that started out strange ended up bittersweetly funny. If you get a chance, see this movie.

I'm excited about a pattern that I received yesterday that I've been looking for and that I was thrilled to find on etsy about a week ago. Unfortunately, the listing said that the pattern only shipped to the US, so I sent a message telling the seller that I love love love love this pattern and asking if she would please ship it to me in Canada. Well, it turns out that I was the first but not the only person to ask her about the pattern; she'd received inquiries from all over the world for it! And since I loved the pattern so much, she agreed to sell it to me. It arrived yesterday :)

As you can see, it's gorgeous:

McCall's 3687

I especially love the straight skirt version and think that it would suit me. Since I've gained weight, I've gone from being mostly an hourglass shape to decidedly pear-shaped. My shoulders are smaller than my hips, they're rounded, and I've developed fat upper arms that round out even more past my shoulders. The neckline of that dress would both hide the upper arms and make my shoulders look more balanced. 

I'm very much looking forward to making this dress. I don't know exactly what I'll make it out of, or for what occasion, but that doesn't matter... this dress needs to be made for me.

Thinking about sewing

Thanks for all of your thoughts and ideas about meal-planning; I appreciate it. I'm not very domestic, as you probably know, so this is all a new world for me. Back in the day, women were trained to be domestic goddesses and the better they were at it, the more they were valued. It's a good thing I wasn't born into that world because I don't think I'd have made it there.

I'd planned to clean up my upstairs work table today but I didn't get a chance. I needed to pick up a prescription and after I walked to the drug store it was so nice that I went for a longer walk. One awesome thing about Waterloo is the community trail system. It's possible to walk almost everywhere without being being on public roads which makes for a very nice walk. This time of year is especially nice for walking because the leaves are coming out and the flowers are blooming.

Anyways, I ended up walking for over an hour so I didn't get a chance to clean up. I haven't totally decided what I want to sew first, although I know that I want a dress of some kind. I did receive this pattern today that I'd love to make up but I'm not sure it would suit me.

Vogue Paris Original 1751, 1960s.

This is a highly collectible pattern, and I paid more for it than I'd like to, but I love it. Really, it's just a sheath dress with a half-circle drape over the right shoulder but somehow it just looks so gorgeous. I think I like it with a chiffon drape, as in the smaller pictures, but an organza drape like in the red would be more dramatic. Actually, that red drape is a crepe or something similar; organza would be sheer like chiffon and fall into dramatic cones.

What do you think of this pattern? Am I dreaming that it could work for me?

Have pattern, need fabric

Ok, I think I have chosen a pattern for the upcoming party. Thanks to all of you who sent in suggestions :)

I was having some trouble choosing the right pattern because I liked them all. As well, it's hard for both Ian and me to visualize what the pattern would look like on my body. I'm a little bit shorter and stockier than the pattern envelope illustration, you know. :) I've been known to fall in love with an illustration and then when it's made up, I don't love the garment on me.

I don't want to go to a lot of trouble tracing, grading, and making something for the party only to find out that it looks awful. So I drew a figure with my own body proportions - in other words, I made a croquis for my own body - and sketched each dress on a copy of that figure. It was immediately obvious that some dresses are not at all suitable for me. They looked awful in the drawing, and if I can't get a dress to look good in a sketch, it's not going to look good on me.

Ian and I then surveyed the remaining designs to pick our top three. From there, we chose our favourite:

... in the shorter version, of course. What do you think?

This is a vintage pattern from 1964 designed by Pauline Trigere that I already have in my collection. I love the asymmetry of this design as well as the bow thingy (note that I can adjust the bow size to suit my height and weight). A sheath dress tends to look good on me, and asymmetry is fairly stylish right now. Actually, this is a fairly timeless silhouette.

Now I need to find fabric for this dress (well, I need to trace the pattern, grade it, and make a muslin, but finding the right fabric could be time-consuming). The pattern calls for crepe, peau de soie/duchess, shantung/duppioni, taffeta, faille, or brocade for the dress and taffeta, satin, or peau de soie/duchess for the bow. I read those suggestions to mean that the whole dress needs to be made in a fabric with some body and structure.

I think a fairly matte, less reflective fabric would be best for the dress. Shiny fabrics emphasize every lump and bump - and I have a few of those! I also don't want any fabric that rustles too much, so that lets out taffeta and shantung. I've been looking online and I love love love the look of dutchess satin, 4-ply silk crepe, silk zibilene, hemp/silk fabric, and silk/wool fabric... but the price for all of these is a bit much, even though I only need just over two meters of any one type. My fabric tastes are something else, aren't they?

I'm going to look at my local fabric store, even though it doesn't have anything in the way of those really nice fabrics, in case there are some good polyester substitutes. I could also do some layering with lace or something over a shinier fabric to dull it down or add some texture. The possibilities are endless!

Before choosing fabric for the bow, I think I need to figure out what I'm doing for the body of the dress. The only thought about the bow that I've had so far is that an organza or something like that would be nice. Mostly I think the bow should be a different - shinier, brighter, eye-catching - texture than the dress, to draw the eye up to my face.

But no matter which fabric type I go with, I have another issue: colour. Do I stick with black? I love black, and it's always safe to do a little black dress... but is it too safe? The biggest benefit is that there are lots and lots of black fabrics out there so it's easy to find it and match it to other things. At the same time, I'm feeling drawn towards dark reds, burgundies, and purples. These other colours would work, look good on me, and are very current, but it's harder to match colours. What do you think?

A recent issue of Threads magazine describes how to add a foundation to a strapless dress to make it fit better. This is done by adding an inner corset-type thing; some Vogue patterns are now including a foundation in their patterns. I'm going to review the article and see if I want to use this technique with this dress, even though it's not quite strapless, or if I want to buy the shaper/corset I'd been talking about. Adding a foundation to a dress adds a bit of a couture element to the garment and definitely helps it fit better. Of course this might be way more work than I'm prepared to do, but it's something that I want to investigate.

A tidy place to work

Ian thinks that either aliens came in to the house today and removed all the clutter around my upstairs work area, or magic cleaning creatures came in and magically cleaned everything up. That's because I don't like to clean,m and yet my upstairs work area was all clean when he got home.

Yes, it was me who cleaned it and tidied it up. :) I spent this afternoon tidying up the area. Most of my time was occupied with getting rid of all the old magazines and phone books as well as sorting through and tidying up all of the beads and various pieces of paper. Now that it's so much neater over there, it'll be a lot easier to work. You see, there's a Christmas party coming up and I've been wanting to work on some vintage patterns, but I didn't have space to do that. Now I've got the space and tidiness I need.

So now all I need is a pattern :) Of course I'd love the pattern to be vintage or vintage-style! The biggest criteria is that the design be slimming on me. I'm at my highest weight ever and it's unlikely that I'll be substantially smaller before the party, so anything that can fool the eye into making me look skinnier is a good thing. I may also buy a body slimmer or corset to help bring my measurements down. I know that they're not all that comfortable, but if I look better in them, I'm willing to go that route.

I expect that the dress silhouette will be a fairly simple sheath or slight a-line style because those don't add bulk the way fuller skirts do. If possible, I might try to incorporate some diagonal ruching or light pleating across the tummy to make it look slimmer. And if I can emphasize certain lines with seams or trims, I'll do that, too. There's no way that I'll be able to completely disguise my size, of course, so my goal will be to make me look the best I can at my current size. That's all any of us can reasonably expect.

A very expensive pattern

Many of you know that I love to look at (and occasionally bid on) vintage patterns on eBay. Some rare, gorgeous patterns might go for crazy prices like $100USD or more, depending on the pattern and size. There was an auction that ended today that took the cake, going for a higher price than any other single pattern I've seen.

The final bid for this pattern:

... was $361.99USD. How crazy is that? There's no way that I'd pay that much for one vintage pattern - even if the pattern is this spectacular.

I suppose money may not be much of an object if someone was making a wedding dress or other fancy dress ... or if they just wanted *this* pattern. I can imagine how beautiful, fabulous, and show-stopping the dress made out of this pattern would be, even though the pattern is over 70 years old. I hope that whoever bought this pattern does make the dress and posts it somewhere. Wouldn't that be something?

Almost finished...

The dress is almost done. All I've got left is to sew the seam below the invisible zipper, apply the facings to the neck and armholes, and hem the skirt.The last thing I did today was to put the zipper in, after which I tried this final product on for the first time.

It looks amazing! It fits like a glove and the colour is spectacular - better than I thought it would be! I'd made a few changes to the pattern before sewing the final product so I was nervous about how it would fit, but I'm no longer nervous. It looks soooo good - I can't wait to finish it so that I can show you pictures.

Putting the dress together hasn't been too bad. Because I'm layering the fabric I had to figure out how I wanted to put the two layers together. I decided on something that acts as an internlining (the top and under fabrics are sewn together) in the yoke and gusset and as a lining (the top and under fabrics are sewn separately) below. The only tricky part with that was putting the gusset in under the arm. The gusset itself has the top and under fabrics together, but the side seam in which the gusset is inserted has separate top and under layers. After a bit of fiddling I got it sorted out.

One strange thing happened while I was inserting the invisible zipper: I forgot how to do it. I developed a method for inserting it that perfectly aligns cross-seams. I knew the first step: baste the seam closed. But I didn't remember any steps after that. I tried to do it but I got it wrong, and then I muddled through and managed to insert the zipper... but I still don't know whether I used the method I'd used before.

This was a little scary. True, I haven't inserted an invisible zipper for maybe six months or so, and I've only had this method... for ... some amount of time (I don't remember when I came up with the method, but I know that it was after I left work, so sometime in the last three years). But to have totally lost the memory is a little freaky. My hands didn't even remember how to do it... sometimes, even if I can't think of the steps, my hands "know" what to do. They didn't this time.

Hopefully this is an isolated incident and it doesn't happen again.

Finally, some sewing!

I finally got around to sewing the dress today and I'm quite pleased with the results. The waist is a little tight but that's because my waist is big in proportion to my bust and hips - middle-aged spread, I assume :( . Letting the waist of the dress out will be easy because it has four darts, each with 2" taken in at the waist, plus four seams along which I can make changes.

Aside from that one fitting issue, the dress fits perfectly and looks exactly like the picture. Looking at the dress on me, I decided to make two other small style changes: bring the neckline in a bit as I find it wide for me; and bring the skirt in a bit on the sides as I find it sticks out a bit more than I like. After that I have to test the matching jacket, but I'm fairly confident that the jacket will fit as well as the dress.

Once I'm finished the adjustments on the test garment and the paper pattern, I'll go ahead and draft all of the facings. Then I can pick out a fabric (hopefully from my collection of fabrics, but I'm not adverse to buying new fabric :) ) and sew an actual dress and jacket.

I'm very pleased with my work this time. For the first time, the grading is *perfect*. Not only that, but I sewed the test garment without having to rip out and re-sew any seams! These are both firsts for me, and I'm quite proud of myself, if I do say so myself. It's about time that my grading and sewing went right. :) Yay for me!

Finally, some work on my dress

I cut out and marked my fabric today for my sample dress. For the sample, I'm using a lovely 1/8" periwinkle gingham fabric; it's actually quite a pretty and flattering fabric for me. I doubt that the dress will be perfect right from the get-go, but I'm hoping that it'll fit well enough.

The picture on the front of the pattern isn't quite right because it shows the dress ending somewhere around the knee, but in fact, the dress ends at the mid-calf. I was looking at the main dress pieces and they looked long but I couldn't figure out *why* they were so long. I'd shortened them by the right amounts. But of course I hadn't shortened the dress from a mid-calf to a knee-length dress, which is a separate alteration.

I have Pamidronate tomorrow but I'm hoping to get the dress basted together to see how it fits. Cross your fingers for it to work out. :)

Getting some grading done

Believe it or not, I actually managed to grade the vintage pattern I'm working with today. Yep. Well, except for the small pieces like the facings and collar, as well as the gusset piece. The gusset piece actually acts as the undersleeve; the yoke and sleeve design doesn't leave enough room for the entire half-sleeve on each of the front and back. As well, the gusset gives the arm better range of motion.

Even though I finished the grading, I'm not finished working with the pieces yet. I'm not used to grading some of these pieces and I wanted to look at my work tomorrow with fresh eyes. Heck, even the pieces that I think I graded correctly could use a once-over. :) Still, I'm pleased with the work that I've done so far. Up until now, it's been taking me longer than this to get this far with my pattern. Who'd have thought that I could work this quickly? :) Now I hope that the work I've done is correct.

It's so nice outside... welcome to spring!

It's been a gorgeous weekend! The sun has been shining, the air is clear, the flowers are out, and it's been warm. Really, it's been a perfect spring weekend, and I wish that we had this weekend off instead of last weekend. Not that it matters to me, of course, because I don't work, but then Ian and I could spend more time outside together in such great weather. Hopefully it'll be just as warm next weekend.

We didn't spend the whole day outside, of course. I can't work on the pattern outside, after all :) I got some work done on the pattern although I'd have liked to do more. It turns out that some of the pieces are hard to grade and shorten and so I've had to do some thinking to figure out exactly what to do. At least most of the other pieces should be straightforward to grade and shorten.

We also watched Sukiyaki Western Django today. It's like a prequel for the Django, I guess. I don't really know anything about Django or other spaghetti westerns, but I still enjoyed this movie. Basically, a solitary warrior enters a town with a huge treasure and two warring factions and pits one against the other. Almost all of the actors - except Quentin Tarantino - are Japanese and the dialogue is English. It's a pretty funny movie with some gore and over-the-top action.

Even if I hadn't liked this movie - which I did - seeing a spaghetti western and reading about them might help understand Quentin Tarantino's next movie: Inglourious Basterds.

This evening we watched Futurama: Bender's Game because it was the only thing on tv tonight. It's funny in a Futurama sort of way - it doesn't always make sense, there's lots of cultural and movie references, and it's silly. Yep, it's an awesome as it sounds!

Saturday fun

I was able to trace out a pattern today. I had three vintage patterns on the shortlist and Ian picked one, so I'm working on that one first. This first pattern is for a knee-length A-line dress with the yoke and sleeve in one piece, and with center front and back seams and bust and hip shaping darts. The pattern also includes the cutest little short jacket with elbow- or three-quarter-length sleeves to go with the dress. It's the jacket that makes the outfit; the wedding will be outdoors and some kind of cover-up is needed.

The person who had the pattern before me had cut out only the jacket and it looks like that person didn't line it (it's supposed to be lined, and if this pattern works out, I'll definitely be lining the jacket)... and it looks like the person cut off the extension for the lining on the back jacket piece. After reading the instructions and checking the pieces, I was able to correct this problem on my traced piece. I'll put a note in with the pattern noting that this piece has been cut off.

I'm hoping that the whole ensemble looks good, but if it doesn't, I have other patterns to try out.

This evening we watched S. Darko. It's sort of a sequel to Donnie Darko, which is a favourite movie of ours (and which has a huge cult following). S. Darko hasn't lived up to the expectations of the Donnie Darko fans, for whatever reason; I'm not sure what those expectations were, but it's clear that they're not being met because many of the reviews for S. Darko by Donnie Darko fans are bad.

S. Darko is the story of Sam, Donnie's youngest sister, who is traveling across the country with her friend. The two are stranded in a small town on their journey. Sam has been sleepwalking and while in this town, she sleep-visits the local outcast. Time travel stuff happens, too, as in Donnie Darko.

While there are connections to the first movie via some of the characters and the time travel idea, but the movies are not the same. At the end of Donnie Darko, the universe is reset and the bad things that happened are undone... but that's not exactly what happens at the end of S. Darko. It's implied that some of the bad things are still happening or going to happen, but maybe not in the exact same way. One of the other crucial differences between the two movies is that Donnie Darko starts off weird and gets scary and intense as time goes on, whereas S. Darko has a lighter feel. It isn't as creepy or scary - it's more interesting, as though it was a drama with time travel stuff. I do wish that some of the events had been explored more fully... like the meteor's effects, the fireworks show, and what happened to the kids. I'd love to see a sequel explaining all of that.

So we actually liked S. Darko because it wasn't exactly like Donnie Darko and because it had an interesting story with interesting characters and good acting. I don't know that you have to have seen Donnie Darko to get S. Darko, because there isn't that much crossover, but it probably helps in getting some of the subtext or background pictures. The only thing that might not make sense if you haven't seen Donnie Darko is the tube-y thing that shows where people will be walking.

Whether or not you've seen Donnie Darko, S. Darko is well worth renting. It's an interesting, quirky movie that we liked very much.

Sleep, sleep, and more sleep

I wouldn't have thought that having a CT scan followed by a walk in the afternoon would have made me soooo tired. But it did.

All I did yesterday was the scan and the walk, and today I ended up sleeping until 2pm. Plus I was exhausted all day; every time I turned around I was ready for a nap. Of course this means that I didn't do all that much today, and that's ok.

What I did do was put away the patterns I've received lately. That doesn't sound like much, but I've bought more than a few vintage patterns lately and they need a home. My four comic book boxes are now filled to bursting with patterns; I'm going to need to get more boxes.

I also spent some time looking at my patterns and my fabric. I've got a wedding to attend in a couple of months and I'd hoped to make a dress for it. I have several patterns that I love for an event like that so I've puled them out and am trying to figure out which fabrics might work with which patterns. I do have some lovely fabrics - both new and vintage. Several of my 50s fabrics are quite similar: a light-coloured background with flowers and squares sprinkled all over. I hadn't realized how similar those fabrics were until I took a good look at them.

Over the weekend I hope to trace out the pattern I'm going to use - or, if I still can't decide between the three I'm currently considering, trace out all three patterns - and hopefully get the pattern(s) graded up so that I can make some test garments this week. Since I don't have much to do each day (and honestly, I get bored of surfing the interweb), I *should* be able to actually get somewhere with this dress.

Thinking about sewing... again

I've made a new decision about what I want to sew next. I'd been thinking that I wanted something that was easy to wear, comfortable, and that didn't look or feel fussy. So many of the dresses I love are more dressy and I just wouldn't wear them every day. Sure, I might wear them when I go out somewhere - like if I leave the house and do something other than walk to the nearby grocery store or walk around the block - but I don't do much these days. It would be different if I was working, of course, but I'm not.

So anyways, I wanted to make something that I would just throw on if I was bumming around at home or going to the store or whatever. And I wanted something that would look nice on me and maybe even be a little flattering, The pattern I've chosen is this simple wrap dress from the 1960s:

As you can see, it has an a-line skirt, and is quite simple. I'm going to try to make it with short sleeves to start. There are actually two front panels, one on top of the other, so I won't need to worry about wind or anything like that. I've traced out the pieces and need to grade them up. I was going to do that this evening but I ended up watching the original The Picture of Dorian Gray (a fantastic movie, by the way, and definitely worth seeing).

If the dress works out, I might make it in different fabrics. I've been buying vintage pattern/fabric combos and I now have a large collection of fabric from the 50s... it's so pretty, and most of it is still current and pretty.

There are so, so, so many dresses I want to make.... so many, in fact, that the choice can be overwhelming sometimes. For example, I'd still like to make a couple of good-quality slips to wear underneath many of the dresses I still want to make as much of the fabric I have is sheer. I have a few slip patterns that I've collected and put away, and I need to check them and see which (if any) will make slips that will work.

But one step at a time: for now, I'll try this dress, and see if it works. If it doesn't, then I'll try something else.

Lazy days

Today's movie was not a horror movie, which might surprise some of you. :) Nope, instead I watched The Green Mile, a movie based on a Stephen King serialized novel of the same name. It's been a while since I read the novel, but as I recall it was pretty good, aside from the repetition that you always get with serial novels. The story focuses on a healer on death row - the green mile of the title - back in the 1930s.

The movie is fantastic; at least as good as the novel, or maybe better. The novel was short which usually translates into a better movie (at least for Stephen King adaptations... his long novels have too much stuff in them to really make a good movie). Maybe it's because Tom Hanks is starring, or maybe it's for some other reason, but the movie is compelling. I'd planned to sort of watch it and surf the internet but ended up watching more than surfing... and it's a rare drama that holds my attention that closely.

The ending was a little sad for me, though. Tom Hank's character ended up living a long time with even longer to go.... and he didn't want it. I'd give almost anything to live decades ahead, let alone hundreds of years ahead. I think I'm feeling a bit melancholy.

No matter what I felt about the ending, the movie is still fantastic and I highly recommend it.

I did manage to do a little bit of Internet surfing done. Mostly I was looking for specific patterns on eBay... and amazingly enough, some of them are actually up for sale! I'm not going to say which ones they are because I don't want to advertise that I actually *want* them... I'm hoping that their prices won't go through the roof.

Finally, a decision

I finally made a decision about what to sew next. I have so many patterns that I've increased my vintage pattern storage boxes to four and I spent quite a bit of time today organizing and putting away all of my vintage patterns. After that I went through each box and picked out the patterns I want to sew. Out of the ones I picked out, this is one I'm going to prepare first:

I'm going to sew the pencil skirt and most likely the long sleeves, unless I don't have enough fabric or decide that I want short sleeves.

Of course I don't want to prepare a pattern without knowing what the final fabric will be. As you know, this is one of the reasons that I've had problems choosing a pattern; I have *so* much fabric that I was having trouble matching the fabric to the pattern.

Fortunately, looking through my fabric stash, I spied a vintage Liberty Jubilee fabric with cream polka dots on a steel-grey ground. This fabric is a 72% cotton, 18% wool twill weave and is *gorgeous*. I rummaged through my remnant pile for the contrast tie and found cream dupioni silk that perfectly matches the dots. I'm so excited; I wanted something I could wear in cooler weather that's neither dressy nor casual and I think I'm going to achieve that with this fabric and pattern combination. I can hardly wait to get started!

Although this dress is being made with a fabric containing wool, I think I'm not going to line it. Instead, I'll make a full-length slip which will protect my skin from the wool as much as a lining and can be re-used. I've got a bunch of light-coloured fabrics that I'll be sewing into summer dresses but they're too sheer to wear on their own. Full slips will help to de-sheerify the dresses and have the additional benefit of helping the dresses stand away from my body, reducing the appearance of my lumps and bumps.

I also started preparing this dress:

Every time I turn around it seems like I'm looking at this pattern. I really do want to make this dress. I think I  want to make it out of a black corduroy with a red cherry design for the dress together with a light green contrast fabric and green buttons for the tabs (and maybe the cuffs and collar).

So why haven't I prepped this dress? Is it because I don't want a waist seam? Or because I don't want the kimono sleeve? Yes. I do have this similar dress pattern:

... and I think I could use that to make the kimono bodice into separate bodice and sleeves, maybe. And I'm pretty sure that I know how to remove the waist seam. But all of that is a lot of work and I don't know if I want to do *that* much work. So we'll see; maybe I won't make all of those changes and sew the pattern as-is... or with shorter sleeves.

Either way, I'm starting work on a dress. Yippee!

More vintage fun

I seem to be having a sleepy day. A normal person would get up in the morning but I managed to sleep in until 3pm. That's crazy late! And it's not like I get much done on days that I sleep that late, either... I can only guess that I need the sleep.

I bought some 1950's Australian Home Journal (I didn't get this one, but I do *love* that green dress in the picture!) magazines off of eBay because they have sewing patterns in them. They arrived today and they are so much more than just sewing patterns! There are knitting patterns for awesome sweaters (called jumpers) as well as an advice column and of course there are ads. Many of the ads are centered around losing weight or looking thin with girdles. The advice in the advice column is very dated, with a strong message to love and support your husband no matter what. They're awesome reading :).

The styles in these magazines are similar to their US counterparts from that era but they're a bit harder to sew. They're sort of comparable to today's Burda World of Fashion patterns, which are gorgeous and fit well but which are a little harder to sew.

One of the things I love about these magazines (and the Workbaskets that I received the other day) is that they offer a peek into what life was like back then. They don't just show what formal dress was like which, when it comes to actual clothes, is mostly what we know for pre-1850 women; the common woman's clothes just didn't last that long, and the clothes that museums do have tend to be formal garments. The patterns and ads show what women wore and what their life was like.

More vintage fun

The last pattern is on its way - it sounded like the person is about as organized as I am. I went and checked everywhere the patterns had been in case the one had been separated from the others and even after I emailed the woman who sent them, I went and checked yet another time, just in case.

Speaking of gifts from people, someone gave me a box full of old Workbasket magazines; the box is hugely heavy and contains issues from the 50s to the 80s. The best thing about these magazines, aside from the old ads, are the tatting and crochet patterns. Of course there are lots of doily patterns but there are also patterns for trim and edging as well as whole blankets and afghans. My mom did a lot of tatting when I was growing up and I thought I'd seen almost everything, but they had this "twisted tatting" stitch in some of the patterns. Then again, I didn't much like the effect in the patterns so maybe my mom didn't like it, either. There was also tatting with beads which looked cool.

Seeing the tatting patterns sort of made me wish that I could tat... it's a dying art these days, and I've always liked the way it looked. People used to do a lot of it back in the day but it's something that you almost never see anymore.

Gorgeous vintage patterns

A little while ago, someone emailed me and asked if I wanted some size 16 vintage McCall's patterns. You might know that I have a vintage pattern obsession, and that I especially love McCall's vintage patterns, so of course I said that I'd love to have them. The person suggested what I thought was a fair price, sent me an invoice via PayPal, and once I'd paid that invoice, mailed me the patterns. PayPal offers protection if for some reason the items weren't as described so I wasn't nervous about buying the patterns this way.

The patterns arrived today and although one is missing (9385, in the lower left-hand corner), I'm still thrilled. They're gorgeous!!! These are the ones that I received:

Aren't they awesome? There's a 1920's Butterick pattern, a 1930's Simplicity pattern, and the rest are all 1930's McCall's patterns. The pattern pieces are used but appear to be in great shape and the envelopes themselves are in excellent shape. The designs themselves would still look beautiful today even though they're more than 70 years old. I'm so in love with them!!!

I'm going to need more vintage pattern storage.

Life moves on

I used my cane to walk to the store today. My leg was hurting a LOT and the cane actually helped quite a bit while I was out. Who'd have thought that it would make a difference? :) Getting the rhythm right with the cane takes a bit of work but I think I got it in the end.

Of course I felt a little weird while walking around the store. Was it my imagination that the senior guy did a double-take when he saw me with my cane, or that the other guy looked embarrassed when he tried to get his cart past me (another cart was blocking the aisle) and saw my cane? Or am I just self-conscious? Of course I'm a little bit self-conscious but I do think that people were reacting to my cane.

On a brighter note, I excited to say that think that I'm finished my pattern alterations on the pattern I've been trying out. I'm super-excited to be able to use it once I'm finished the final check that my latest changes actually work. Working on the patterns (or making earrings, which is also something I've been wanting to do) helps me stay in the present. It's ok - and normal - to be overwhelmed with grief for my dad and to be consumed by tears, but it's important to continue living my life. When I create things, I find myself immersed in the project; it's very similar to meditation, which has a calming effect on me.

A year ago today (by the day - the date is actually February 8), my dad went into surgery to have an aortal-bifemoral bypass surgery. Basically, they were replacing the aortal and femoral arteries because they were clogged up and he had no circulation in his feet. If he hadn't had the surgery, eventually his feet would become gangrenous due to the lack of circulation and they would have needed to be amputated. We knew that the surgery was risky; he'd had a heart attack about 22 years before, still smoked, and didn't get much exercise, and so there was about a chance he'd have a heart attack during surgery. If he had a heart attack, there was a 50/50 chance he'd die of it.

The morning of the surgery, I remember driving him, my mom, and Ian in my dad's car - the only time I ever drove my dad - to the hospital. I don't really remember much about the day except that the surgeon was supposed to talk to us afterwards and I don't remember him doing so. We finally got to talk to the doctor on-call in the ICU and he said that my dad had had a heart attack during surgery but that he was stable right then. I wonder now if he was trying to convey how serious the situation was without scaring us. We left the hospital that night and returned in the morning. I remember being so scared that my daddy would die. Now I'm so sad that he's gone. I miss him so much.

Shopping all day

I spent the day shopping with a friend. It was great fun; we went to a number of stores, had lunch, and chatted about everything. I had a great time! Our first stop was Vicanie's, our favourite lingerie store. I've been going there for a number of years now and even though I hadn't been there in a couple of years, the owner still remembered me! Now *that's* great service. They have bras in tons of sizes and lots of pretty ones, too, as well as swimwear and nightwear. If you're in Guelph or Waterloo, I highly recommend the store.

You might remember me saying that I didn't think I was all that well-endowed. Well, it turns out that I was wrong and my sisters were right - I'm definitely more endowed than I used to be. The staff at the store did a bra fitting for me and it turns out that I've gone up one band size and one cup size. I was amazed at the size of the girls when I'm wearing a bra in the correct size. This isn't a bad thing, really, because my butt is also big, so at least now they'll be better balanced.

I was able to get two bra-and-panty sets on sale in my new and improved size. At another store, I also bought the cutest little waist-length black cardigan with 3/4-length sleeves, charcoal round buttons, fur trim on the peter pan collar, and wool lace and sequin trim beside the buttons. It is soooo adorable!!!! It'll be perfect with pencil skirts and the vintage dresses I'm making for the colder months.

Now I just need to find another waist-length, 3/4-length sleeve, light-coloured cardigan for summer. I could make a bolero to match each summer dress I'll be making... but that seems like a lot of work. I don't object to making one bolero that matches a lot of things, but I don't want to make more than two, so I'll be needing a cardigan as well.

All in all, it was a very fun and productive shopping day. And because we bought everything on sale, we didn't even spend that much - yippee :)