Pretty vintage patterns gift

A few weeks back, I had a lovely comment on one of my posts from a local lady, Jo, who offered me some vintage maternity patterns she’d found. How exciting is that?!?! Thank you so much, Jo!!!

Jo gave me four lovely patterns – three maternity ones, and one that could very easily be worn during maternity times. Here they are:

Australian Home Journal 8821, a cute maternity smock with two variations.

Australian Home Journal 5427, a maternity “frock” with two variations. I especially like View A, with the collar and little cuffed sleeves.

Simplicity 7088, from 1967. While not technically a maternity pattern, I think this would work really well due to all the volume in the back.

Australian Home Journal 8332, a maternity suit with a cute little Peter-Pan style collar and slim skirt.

So, I’m about to start work on making up one of these patterns. Want to guess which one? Just for the fun of it, I’ll send a little prize to the first person who correctly guesses which of these four patterns is next up on my cutting table. (Play fair though – only one guess each!)

Thanks Trish!

The other week I received a very exciting parcel in the mail, all the way from the lovely Trish over in Australia! She kindly sent me a bunch of vintage maternity patterns and children’s patterns, and a darling little jersey for when the bump turns into a baby and grows a bit. Thank you so much Trish, I love them all!!

She also added lovely notes to some of the patterns, which I’ve added below the pattern images here, just because I loved them so much I wanted to share them, haha!

Want to see what she sent me? Here it all is! (I’ve just finished sewing up one of the patterns as well, so expect to see one of them appear here later this weekend. Anyone want to guess which pattern I started with?)

Simplicity 9176. “A great basic tunic minus frills and lace!”

Simplicity 6865

Simplicity 5368. “Cute dress on trend Peter Pan!”

Simplicity 7100. “Love the back of this one!”

Butterick 3950.

Butterick 476.

Burda 4333.

Op shop pattern finds from Milton

On our road trip down South, Steve patiently waited while I went and explored op shops in some of the small towns on the way, in my never-ending quest for, well, interesting things.

Here’s what I picked up in the Salvation Army op shop in Milton. Quite a large op shop, considering the town is quite small (it’s a two-cafe town, Milton is) – there were two rooms to it.

I found me some patterns:

Butterick 5723 – a maternity pattern from the 1970s

Style 2845 – a maternity pattern from 1969

Maudella 4995 – a men’s shirt pattern. I’m guessing it’s 1950′s?

Academy 3038. I’m guessing this is 1940′s, based on the style (and the hair styles). It’s in very beaten-up condition, but I couldn’t leave it sitting there when I found it – after all, 1940′s wide leg trousers in my size! I’ve been wanting some of these for a while.

Vintage patterns haul

This weekend the first ‘Vintage Bazaar’ was held here in Newtown, so I wandered along with my lovely friend Natalie.

Sadly, I must admit we were both a bit disappointed. It wasn’t particularly well set up, and almost everything was vastly overpriced. (There were also a lot of ‘vintage styled’ garments, which weren’t vintage at all, selling for far higher than they should have been.) However, I did find a decent little haul of vintage patterns for $1 each, lurking amongst a couple of large boxes of most 1980′s and 90′s patterns, so all was not lost. Wanna see what I got?

First up, Simplicity 4298 from 1958. This one appeals to me as it’s a “7 day wardrobe” pattern. How neat is that? One pattern to make an entire week’s wardrobe! It even has the plan for what you wear over those seven days. Something about wardrobe patterns really appeals to me, I think it’s the self-contained-ness of them.

Next is one of my favourites from this haul – Academy 2006. Sadly the instructions are missing, but I’m hoping all the pieces are there as I think I should be able to figure it out anyway. Academy patterns never have dates on them (or none that I’ve seen have, anyway) but this one’s looking 1940′s to me.

The one maternity pattern I found is this one – Simplicity 5678 from 1963. I’m planning on making up the sleeveless version soon as I reckon it’ll look cute over long-sleeved merino tops and tights for winter.

Sadly Simplicity 4909 is missing it’s envelope. The pleated skirt in this one appealed to me, so home it came.

Poor Academy 4420. It’s missing half the front of the pattern envelope and, sadly, its instructions as well. It appears to be a formal dress or a wedding dress, probably from the 1950s. One day I will rescue it – make it up, write up the instructions, take a picture and save it from obscurity. One day….

I debated about Woman W.9 for a while, but once again the lure of a wardrobe pattern pulled me in. Everything from a work suit to a beach outfit – how many other patterns have that type of versatility?!?

While I don’t ever see myself making up the jumper from Simplicity 6276, the collars on versions 2 and 3 of the blouse are adorable. (Just don’t look at version 4. The 1980′s may have got a bit of inspiration from there.)

I also unearthed four books of vintage knitting patterns for the grand sum of 25c each, once again from a box of 1970s and 80s knitting patterns. (I have no shame when it comes to sitting on the floor hunting through these boxes. Sad but true.) The stall owner seemed happy that someone was interested in the patterns – the entire time I was at the bazaar, I didn’t see anyone else even glance at any of them.

While I’m not exactly the worlds best knitter, my mother is pretty amazing, and has been building up a collection of 1940s knitting patterns, so I’m always on the hunt to add some to her collection. Especially since she just knitted up a 1940s cardigan for me, and there is a promise of more to come. (Exciting!!) I’m planning on showing some of my favourite patterns from inside these four books later this week. I love 1940s and 1950s knitting patterns – so elegant and sweet. (I just wish they’d put dates on them. *sigh*)

Anyone have a preference about which of the knitting pattern books I share with you first?

Pattern recording

A while back, I started recording my vintage pattern collection on a separate blog, putting them into clear zip-lock bags, and filing them, so that they were safe and protected, easy to find, and I could still enjoy flicking through them without worrying about damaging the envelopes. (And as an added bonus, if I’m making a garment for a friend/family member in another town, I can now send them the link to my pattern blog and they can look through and choose what they want me to make them. Far easier for everyone!)

It turns out I’ve somehow collected a fair number of vintage patterns this year. For which I completely blame the Sew Weekly, as it was my portal into the wonderful world of lovely girls who sew vintage styles and write about them. What was a growing interest at the start of the year is now an obsession. Oops. Needless to say, it’s taking a while to record all these patterns!

I spent an hour or two tonight to record a few more (adding them into the Vintage Patterns Wiki as I went). And just for the heck of it, I thought I’d show you the ones I recorded, bagged and filed tonight. ‘ere they are:

Butterick 9808

Hollywood 646

Academy 4373

Druleigh 932

Butterick 6987

Butterick B4790

Weigel's 2259

I’m really looking forward to making up the Hollywood dress – it’s a sailor dress style. Cute! It just arrived in the mail today. Now I just need to decide which fabric to make it up in…..

Fabric-a-brac awesomeness

Hello lovely people. Remember how several months ago I posted about Fabric-a-brac? A wonderful fabric extravaganza held in my town (my suburb, even. Just two blocks away, in fact!) to raise funds for the local hospice? Well, it was on again on Saturday. Yay!

Just like last time, I volunteered to help out on the fundraising stall. (Fabric-a-brac raises funds in three ways – people can sign up to have a stall there to sell fabric/wool/craft supplies/etc, and the stall fees go to the hospice. They have a tea-coffee-and-cakes stall, which also raises money for the hospice. And then there’s the donations table – they collect fabric/patterns/etc donations before the fair, then sell them on the day and all the money collected from that also goes towards the hospice. And that’s where I come in – helping with the donations table! I went along to help measure and price donated fabric on Friday evening, then was at the fair all morning on Saturday (and early afternoon), helping to sell it. Lots of fun, and we raised quite a lot of money for the hospice. A feel-good, fabric-surrounded day, all in all.

I spotted quite a few of the local crafty blogging girls there as well – Trees, Ria, Karen, and for the very first time I met Kerry, who’s lovely blog I discovered recently. We had one of those ‘hey, you look familiar… do I know you? Oh, you write a blog, don’t you!’ moments. Good times.

Here’s a few pictures from the day:

Of course, one of the downfalls of helping man the donations stall is seeing all the donated fabric first, as it comes out of boxes. Um, yeah. I may have gone completely over my budget for fabric purchases for the day. But it’s all for a good cause, right?

I’m not going to list everything I bought here (I’ll save some for later this week). But here’s a few of my finds….

I’m not sure what this is – some sort of rayon or synthetic? (One day I will get good at identifying fabrics that aren’t cotton or merino….) It looks vintage, and is nice and floaty. I’ve got around 4 metres of it, so I’m thinking 1940′s style dress.

This one’s a nice, soft cotton. I have enough for a dress out of this one too – I’m thinking something pinafore style (perhaps the Colette Parfait?) so I can wear it all year around – the colours call out ‘winter’ and the softness of the fabric is calling ‘summer’, so I’m going for a compromise.

I’m not sure what this one is either – something synthetic. It’s not my usual colour/style, but it just wanted to come home with me and probably become a 1940′s style blouse. So I thought I’d humour it.

I also scored a whole bunch of patterns, mainly from the 1970′s. Since I was helping out on the day, I stayed right until the end to help pack up, and someone was throwing out a whole big bunch of vintage patterns. Eek! How on earth could you THROW OUT VINTAGE PATTERNS!!!! So I went through and ‘rescued’ a whole bunch of 1970′s ones. (I must admit to letting the 1980′s ones meet their doom. Sorry, 1980′s patterns – I just didn’t have space for you. I’m still feeling a bit guilty about that…..)

Just like the fabric, I’ll just show a few in each post. Here’s the first bunch:

Butterick 4661 – a square-neckline, raglan-sleeve fitted tshirt and a back-wrap skirt with big patch pockets. I’m totally going to make this tshirt – so cute in stripes!

Butterick 3037. Not all that exciting, just a jacket and a skirt, but hey, it may come in handy one day. Or it may become a giveaway. Dunno yet – I probably have plenty of jacket and skirt patterns already…..

Check me out! I’m doing my best impression of a banana in full sunlight! Woo-hoo!
Ahem. Yes. Simplicity 8830. Who knows what they were thinking with the fabric choices for either of the illustrations. From 1970 – too much acid, perhaps?

Yep, that is what you think it is. A shirt onesie. There was no way I could leave this pattern behind – every time I’m having a bad day, I’ll just pull it out and look at that onesie and laugh. Brilliant.
I’m almost tempted to make it, just to see what it’s like in reality. (I can’t quite figure it out – why on earth did someone think this was a good idea?) Don’t worry though – I won’t be making it up any time soon. Unless I particularly want to scare small children.

Want to see what else I got, both pretty and ugly? Tune in later this week and I’ll show you some more!

Vintage pattern finds

Here’s a few of my recent vintage pattern finds that I haven’t shared with you yet….

McCall 6696
This beauty is from 1941. Sure, it’s two sizes too big for me, but I couldn’t resist buying it! I figure I’ll just adjust it. It’s still in uncut factory folds – I’m even wondering if I’ll ever make it up as I’ll feel a bit guilty unfolding it to trace around it after it’s stayed in it’s pretty folds for so long! I love the draping detail and the yoke on the skirt – so, so pretty.

Butterick 6049
This little pretty looks like it’s from the 1950′s. There’s no date on it though, so I’m just going by the style – if anyone knows when it might be from, can you let me know?

Australian Home Journal 5035
This pretty suit is a skirt and jacket combination. I love the pockets on the jacket, and the way the back seams on the jacket and the skirt match up, with the skirt seams ending in little kick pleats. This would look so pretty and classic made up for work.

Academy 2305
Not that I have any real need for a pattern for a shirt for 12 year old boys, but when I saw this one sitting at one of the local op shops, I just had to pick it up. It’s rare to find patterns older than the 1970′s in op shops here, and I suspect this one is from the 1940′s. At the oldest, it’ll be somewhere in the 1950′s. And it was only 20 cents. How could I say no? I figure I’ll probably want to make a shirt for a boy at some stage in my life, so now I’m prepared for that occasion. The poor envelope is a bit battered, so I’ve given it refuge in my collection. Kind of like a “feel good” pattern adoption, in a way. It just couldn’t be left there, getting even more damaged. That would have been the Wrong Thing to Do.

Simplicity 5549
I’m oddly excited to have found this pattern. Like the Academy boy’s shirt, it was in the op shop down the road for 20 cents. Which seems like a heck of a bargain to me! I’ve been thinking about making some long witches-britches for under skirts for quite a while (if you’ve ever tried wearing a full 1950′s style skirt in Wellington’s winds, you’ll know why), and now I don’t even have to draft my own pattern for them. Yippie! I’m going to make up some of these culottes slips and long slips for wearing under skirts and dresses. The idea of this makes me happy.

So there we have it – some more patterns, added to my collection, loaded onto the Vintage Patterns wiki, recorded on my new patterns private blog, plastic-bagged, and ready to be filed. Bit of a mix this time – from 1941 to 1985, and from boys shirts to women’s lingerie. Which one’s your favourite?

Storing patterns

As my pattern collection has been building up, I’ve been wondering – how best to store them? I’m getting a few older patterns (1940′s and 50′s) and I want to make sure they won’t get damaged, while still being able to look through them easily.

Finally, last night I think I figured out what to do. Yay!

Step one was to go and buy some snap-lock clear plastic bags that are big enough for my patterns. So I went out hunting today and found some and bought 2 x 25 bag packs. I figure 50 bags will keep me busy for a while.

Step two was to start a private blog, where I can do an entry for each pattern I own and make notes such as if I’ve made it up yet, what fitting adjustments I need to do if I make it up, and so on. I’m also putting photos of each pattern on the blog. The idea behind this is that as time goes on I’m likely to find it a lot harder to remember what I’ve made up and what I wanted to change about the pattern the next time I make it up. So having them all located, tagged and categorised on a private blog means I can look up those sorts of details nice and quickly.

Step three is to make pattern file boxes. At the moment, my patterns are in shoe boxes or lined up on shelves, and not all in one place. (Also, as I slowly record and plastic-bag them all, they’re gonna get slippery and it’ll be a bit tricky coaxing them to stay on shelves in nice, neat rows!) I’ve got a cupboard where I want to store my patterns, so I’m going to make some filing boxes for them and then group them all by era.

I am geekily excited at the idea of having them all nicely recorded, protected with plastic bags, and filed by era. It’s my Virgo organisational tendencies coming out, I guess.

I made a start with recording and bagging some of my patterns today – I’ve done this little pile so far:

I’m also searching the Vintage Patterns Wiki as I record my patterns, and if they’re not already on the wiki I’m adding them in. Lots of recording, all over the place. I figure this is going to keep me amused for a few weeks. And at the end, I’ll have easy-to-find, protected and recorded patterns, which will make me happy.

Friday’s vintage patterns

Turns out I still have some vintage patterns I’ve purchased over the past couple of months that I haven’t shared with you all yet. So, here we go!

Simplicity 7927 from 1968

It’s a bit mod, and a bit Christmas Elf too, with that red with white trim. (Not saying you have to look like an elf if you make it up, but that lass over to the left looks somewhat Santa’s-helper like, don’t you think?)

I quite like how this can be either a dress or a cardigan or a coat, all depending on your fabric choice and whether you add a belt. Now that’s versatility in a pattern!

Academy 2551, year unknown

Now I must admit, I don’t think I’ll ever make this one up. I’m not entirely sure what possessed me to buy it, but it is rather interesting, so maybe it was a curative moment I had that made sure it made it’s way into my collection. Who knows? *shrug* It’s quite an interesting pattern, don’t you think? I suspect this is one that would be very easy to get wrong and end up looking like you’re either wearing a bib, or were from the 1980′s in a not-so-good way. Anyone got any great ideas on how to make this pattern work?

Druleigh 932, year unknown

This is a cute wee pattern, I’m guessing from the mid-late 1950′s. (Anyone better able than me want to give dating it a go?) I like the floral design they’ve sketched onto the fabric – very cute, no?

I can see myself making this one up for summer – that fitted bodice with the flared skirt and shoulder straps, and the little matching bolero – pretty!

New Idea 7885, year unknown

Late 1950′s, early 1960′s maybe? The pill box hat, the fur coat, the gloves in her hand – that’s one stylish model on the right.

The collar was what attracted me to this pattern – the deep v softening into a semi-shawl collar at the back. Something tells me this pattern won’t work so well in those quilting cottons I’m so fond of making dresses up in. Guess I’ll have to branch out a bit in my fabric choices…..

from 1974

And just to round it off, here’s one from 1974. I really like this pattern – it’s very sweet with it’s little gathered cap-sleeves, it’s sweet-heart neckline and it’s bows. And it’s also slightly daring with the diamond-shaped cut-out in the back. Bring on summer so I can make this one up and wear it!

Pretty vintage pattern finds

Ok, so I did say I wasn’t going to buy any more vintage patterns online. But then I wrote about the little collection of vintage Australian Home Journal magazines, and I gave into the temptation of having a look to see if there were any more online. Oops. Next thing you know, I’ve bought a bunch more patterns…

Which means I get to show them off.

Here’s the first five. (Yes, I may have bought a few. Oops.)

Paulette 217. Paulette Patterns were a New Zealand pattern company that I haven’t been able to find out any information about at all. (Does anyone know anything about them?) I don’t know when this pattern is from – there are no date markings anywhere on it. I’m guessing maybe 40′s or 50′s?

McCall 7785 from 1948.

Australian Home Journal from June 1st, 1946. This is one of my favourites – it contains all three of the patterns on the front. I can’t decide which dress variation I like the best – the one with the faux cross-over front, or the one with the peplum detail….

Academy 4373. Academy patterns were a New Zealand based pattern company, and just like Paulette patterns, I can’t find out any info on them. So if anyone knows anything, I’d love to hear it! I’ve got quite a few Academy patterns now, so they must have been pretty popular back in their day. I’m not convinced about the gathering detail on the bottom half of the skirt of this pattern, but the overall dress concept is quite interesting – I may have to make it up just out of curiosity!

Academy 4577, year unknown. One annoying thing about this old NZ-based pattern companies – they don’t ever seem to put years on their patterns. *sigh* I’m guessing this one, and the one above it in this post, are from the 1950′s though.

So there we have it – the next five vintage patterns I’ve added to my stash! I think I’ve decided – the blue faux-cross-over bodice dress from the Australian Home Journal pattern is my favourite from this lot. Which one is your favourite?