Late-summer pastels

click photo for larger view

It's been a warm September so far - I've been dying to pull out my sweaters, but it looks like I'll have to wait. In the meantime, please enjoy this gorgeous 1960s photo from My Vintage Vogue - I love the combination of gauzy white with a pastel embroidered cardigan. It looks very September to me: still very summery, but with a bit of fall thrown in.

Other pretty things are from Queens Wardrobe (lovely pleated-skirt dress and fab shoes) and Anthropologie (cute gathered skirt, gorgeous embroidered cardi, and adorable bow belt).

Cover Judging: Stardust of Yesterday

I've not done one of these in awhile. This one is pretty great, though.
First Glance: I'm thinking tale of a lost love - there's a hazy overlay on top of the portrait of this man's eyebrows, plus it seems that a rose has been laid, possibly on his grave. Causes of death? Perhaps Sandra Bullock wasn't there to push him out of the way of a train. Or maybe that Orange County car wreck turned fatal. Or, most likely, that ballerina freaked out after he told her she didn't have great feet and she attacked him. Feel free to extrapolate on any other Peter Gallagher roles I'm forgetting. Score: 4 out of 5

Picture from last week.

Me and little brother on a short Labor Day jaunt to Bear Lake.

Another DI find post

In which I display the remainder of my vintage pattern haul:

probably mid-1950s

McCall's 4344: This is the illustration from the instructions - I couldn't find the cover picture anywhere. I probably won't make this dress - I've nowhere to wear it! - but it's such a classic 50s silhouette that I had to buy it.

DI find of the week!

Trips to the DI (Utah's Goodwill) are a good Monday adventure. Sometimes I go through the whole women's clothing section or I browse through the records and books. But Deseret Industries Adventures always include three stops: the dress section, the furniture section, and the sewing pattern section.

Most of the time, the patterns are from the 80s-early 90s, occasionally going back to the 70s. Rarely, I'll find a pattern or so from the 60s. But today, this day of days, someone cleared out their extensive collection of patterns - someone who probably owned a fabric store during the 40s and 50s!
Behold:

pattern copyright 1948

Simplicity 7260: This might be my favorite, because it's so wearable. Just a simple dress with some cute detailing at the top - it's kind of summery, so I might need to wait until next year . . . unless I can find the perfect fall/winter fabric!

probably early or mid-1940s

Simplicity 2676: This one is in the most delicate condition - it's falling apart pretty badly and the pieces are traced copies of the originals. But I picked it up because I really like the top right dress - I'd do the skirt knee-length, but I'd leave the rest because I love the princess-seaming.

pattern copyright 1950

Simplicity 3215: I love a poufy skirt and I think all skirts and dresses need pockets. I couldn't leave this one on the shelf, even though it's missing the instructions. This one is pretty versatile, too: it would work with a summer or winter-weight fabric. I'm liking the separates option - the top is cute and the skirt is everything I love about skirts!

Most of the patterns came in manila envelopes, so I found the corresponding images at Vintage Pattern Wiki and glued them to the front of the pattern (Simplicity 2676 is my copy, though). In all honesty, I'm having fun just looking at them. Vintage pattern illustrations are so sweet!

I have several more, so look forward to those later - one is a Gidgit-style swimsuit!

Picture from last week.

My little brother returns from a two-year sabbatical in Georgia!

Late September dreaming.

I'm looking forward to sweater weather - August is usually the time I start daydreaming of crisp autumn wind and multi-colored foliage. I'm working on a sweater right now (it'll be up on Ravelry soon!). In the meantime, enjoy these adorable sweaters, found in vintage '40s knitting patterns from Iva Rose. I love all the little bow accents on these sweaters! I also love the belted sweaters - especially the double-belted sweater on the bottom. It's such a cute, feminine look.

The pink shoes are a pair I missed out on, but I saved the listing because they are so inspiring to me. I think they're 60s, because they look kinda mod (my favorite!). They're just so simple yet so girly, which is my favorite style always!

Spreading the gospel of Margaret

It's not often that I'm asked for book recommendations beyond asking my opinion about The Hunger Games (very favorable, btw). When I am, my go-to rec is "anything by Margaret Atwood," with a particular plug for The Blind Assassin.

(cover loving!)

A few years ago, in between school semesters, I spent my summer devouring any Atwood book placed in my path. She's an author with the amazing ability of creating a complete, believable, and absolutely unique first-person voice for each novel she writes. Her narrators are realized so fully that initially I thought she wrote autobiographical fiction. And while some aspects of her stories are probably autobiographical, Cat's Eye in particular, most of them are simply life stories told by complete, rounded characters.

Many of her books deal with feminist issues, some through realistic fiction and others through science-fiction. One of her most-read titles is The Handmaid's Tale, often referred to as a feminist 1984. While I like The Handmaid's Tale, I think The Blind Assassin is her most interesting and successful combination of genres.

The Blind Assassin is a "novel within a novel," a science fiction/romance book that's broken up and woven between the story of two sisters and their lives in Toronto. The younger sister dies as a young woman, but becomes a beloved literary celebrity when her science-fiction/romance book is published posthumously. Her novel is interspersed between the voice of the oldest sister, now an old woman, explaining her decisions and coming clean about all the mistakes she's made. It's extremely engaging - the stories are placed together and combined perfectly.

All of this is to say that a patron read The Blind Assassin on my recommendation and came in to tell me about how much he loved it/Margaret Atwood. It made me feel happy and I decided that I've picked the right career.

Sewing Machine Attack!

I've been sewing up a storm lately. I seem to go through a sewing phase every year or so, where I'm obsessed for weeks and then drop it for months and months.

Anyway, I've done a couple of skirts in the past few weeks - I'm most proud of this one:The fabric is a linen I found on clearance at Joann's - I really loved the super-girly stripey pink. There was just enough left on the bolt to make this skirt!I've had this pattern - Simplicity 2444 - for several months and never got around to making it. I own a very similar dress already, so I've not felt a pressing need for another one. However, I really love the pleated skirt (with pockets, of course!) from the dress - it's also super-girly, so I thought it would be a good match for the fabric.

Pictures from this summer

I'm not big into photography (hello, Nikon Coolpix!), but this nifty little application makes me want to take pictures everywhere I go: AnalogColor has several different presets that make your photos look like vintage polaroids. It costs about $12 and the site goes through the Google translater, so that's always amusing.
I had some fun today, running through a few pictures from this summer:

Festival of Colors, May 2010 - green polaroid filter

Seattle trip, May 2010 - toy camera filter