pattern junkie

Bar Bets

First of all...hello again!  It's been too long (over a year since posting?!  Bad blogger!  Bad blogger!)  I won't bore you with the story of lack of work, a plethora of work, etc.   For too long patterns have gone unadmired and unmocked. 

But first...a digression.  To me one of the interesting questions artists who work for others face is how to put their own spin on work-for-hire projects.  I grew up in Denver, and in the natural history museum there, you can find about eight elves hidden in the painted dioramas.  According to museum lore, diorama Kent R. Pendleton wasn't allowed to sign his work -- so the hidden elves serve as his "signature."  I love his solution to the work-for-hire dilemma. 

 

What about pattern illustrators?  How did they sneak bits of themselves into their work?  Are the little quirks in illustrations -- like a random chair or a floating mini-helper -- actually an artists' way of saying "hey, this is me!"?

Or were the illustrators just drunk?

Imagine, if you will, the bar across from Simplicity headquarters.  It's 1968 -- but while free love reigns outside, in here it's whiskey and cigars.  Two grizzled pattern illustrators are delaying returning home.

"Joe," says the first.  "I got one you'll never get past management."

The second chuckles.  "You mean like 8806 when I made two of the girls float and lost one of their legs?"

"Child's play," Frank tells him.  "This is even tougher than those girls we made look possessed."

"2971 and 2995, yeah.  They never could figure out why those didn't sell well."

"They didn't sell 'cause those girls looked like they were gonna eat your soul.  A pretty notched collar can't undo that."

"What's your challenge, Frank?"

"8190.  The Jiffy pattern."

"I'm listening."

"Put one of the girls in brown.  With a rope belt."

"Hood up or down?"

"Hood up."

"You want me to make her look like a Benedectine monk?"

"Yup.  And no hiding her in the back.  I want her right in the front."

"Why don't I just put her arms out to the side while I'm at it?  Make her look like she's on a cross?"

"Nah, they'll catch that.  Just tell them the kids these days are into it.  Kids these days are into all kinds of weird shit."

"It'll never work."

"No, it won't.  But it'll be worth it to see the look on their faces when we turn it in, won't it?"

 

 

Have You Seen This Sun Hat?

It's summer, and my thoughts have turned to sun hats. 

Actually, let me clarify that.  What I really mean is that I've become obsessed with searching out one very specific hat pattern.  One that's been marked in my etsy favorites for quite a while:

I don't think I need to explain the siren-like call of the hat.  I mean, what's not to love?  The baggy top!  The oversize pleated brim! It's REVERSIBLE!  Clearly I need to make one or twelve RIGHT NOW in the brightest colors imaginable.  I live on one of the streets doomed to be clogged due to this weekend's "Carmageddon" in Los Angeles, so if I'm going to be trapped in my house for the weekend I might as well hunker down and make obnoxious sun hats while drinking mojitos. 

But...the item listed as "Lady's Vogue Reversible Sun Hat PDF Pattern" is on Etsy no more.  The seller no longer exists, so the ghost of the item can't even be viewed.  Only this scrap of information remains.  I scoured the Vintage Sewing Pattern Wiki and have yet to uncover it, although after stumbling across Vogue 6805 I feared to explore summer hat territory further:

Is it a bandana?  A veil?  A veindana?  Are those fake flowers on view 3 -- and could it be a wedding version?  I'm very, very confused.

While I ponder the conundrum of Vogue 6805, please report any sightings of the Vogue Reversible Lady's Sun Hat to PatternJunkie HQ.  Do not approach the hat or make eye contact with it, as it may be armed and dangerous!

Monday Morning Eye Candy: Baby Got Back, Part II

Usually back views are relegated to the background, but they're the main attraction in Vogue 348:

Not that there's anything wrong with the front -- I'd say it's pretty sharp.  Still, I'd find a reason to walk backwards into rooms if I were wearing this.  Having to look over your shouler while talking would cramp your neck, sure, but I think it'd be worth it.

Unfortunate Fashion Friday: The Day Pass Edition

Butterick 4489, on its own, isn't bad enough to qualify as Unfortunate Fashion.  The "pocketed pull-on outfit" is boring, sure, but it's the institutional blue and the ice cream cone that push it into UFF territory for me:

With that smile, that pose and that outfit, she has the look of someone who has finally earned enough Good Points for a Trip Outside.  Maybe she was committed for making Crazy Caps?

I don't know about you, but my mind immediately went to the scene in Girl, Interrupted when Whoopi Goldberg took Winona Ryder, Angelia Jolie and all the other beautful mentally-ill girls out of the hospital  for ice cream.  It didn't necessarily end well, but anyone who's ever seen a movie could've told you that.  (Of course, by "didn't end well," I mean it ended in a "unfortunate yet endearing way which let us feel like we were laughing with mentally ill people instead of laughing at them, even though the movie was doing just that.") 

Here's the scene -- in Spanish, because it's always better to watch WASPish characters with telenovela voices:

 

So Noted

I always love patterns with notations on them.  Jottings about hem lengths, fabrics, adjustments...all are peeks into the lives of the seamstresses who used these little pieces of history. 

And then there are the notes scrawled in frustration and madness...those moments all too familiar to anyone who sews.  McCall's 6079 from 1961 has both:

"Dark print," "Summer or winter," "Make in suiting or washable tweed."  Such great planning, don't you think?

We all know what they say about God and plans.

Check out the note to the left of the brown skirt:

"do not make this in brn, short sleeves, looks like an overgrown brownie!"

I'm assuming she meant a Girl Scout-type brownie, but it's just as amusing to imagine someone laboring over the washable tweed just to put on the finished dress, gaze in the mirror and think, "Shit.  I look like a giant pastry."

Like the pattern?  You can get it in a B32 -- complete with the notes -- over at DellaJane!

EEEEEKKK!

Simplicity 6696, 1984

You can have the thread.  All of it!  Even the good Gutermann silk!  And the metallics...here, take the rayon, too, I really don't need it.  You want the plain black cotton?  Sure!  Take it!

Just please, please, PLEASE be gone in the morning.

Monday Morning Eye Candy: 60s Cool

Ah.  To be as hip, as cool, as "with it" as these women in their gowns from Vogue 7148:

They don't merely walk.  They slink.  While your hair is sliding out of place and sticking to your skin, theirs remains perfect.  Their champagne glasses are always filled.  Witty bon mots and sly double entendres drop from their lips with ease.

Yeah, I hate them too.  But I do love their outfits.

Sensational Accessories!

I know lately I've been reserving Fridays for Unfortunate Fashion, but I can't bear to put Betsey Johnson in that category.  I love her over-the-top stuff, and have several of her 1970s patterns.  Check out this early wonder that just showed up on the Vintage Sewing Pattern Wiki, Butterick 3850:

What Sensational Accessories!  Can you resist a carpenter's apron with pockets for pencils, keys, lipstick, junk and tools?  A tote bag with "hello" suspended from a woman's lips?  I can't!

And yet...the hat.  Betsey Johnson, my pop-punk princess rebel, you fail me here.  The "Don't bother me...I'm pretending to study!" just screams Fabricated Teen Rebellion.  (If you're pretending to study, shouldn't it say "Please Bother Me"?) 

You're a hair's breadth away from getting an Unfortunate Fashion stamp, Betsey.  Watch your step.

Kwik Sew 1179: Modern Dance and Road Kill

There are a few baffling and downright disturbing things on the pattern envelope for Kwik Sew 1179:

1. The child in the rabbit towel appears to be engaged in some form of modern interpretative dance.  What, you think a rabbit head towel would be too bizarre?  Trust me: I was in a modern dance troupe in college, and anything can happen.  For one piece, the choreographer instructed us to come to rehearsal with "kneepads, long underwear and a flashlight.  The long underwear should be small enough to fit on your head."  During one concert, we realized there was a nail sticking up out of the dance floor, so during the pause between pieces another dancer and I crawled onto the stage with a flashlight and a hammer to find it.  (Why didn't we just turn on the lights and walk out there?  I don't know.  Dancers aren't known for logic.)  We pounded it in and crawled offstage.  The audience broke out in rapturous applause.
2. What's happened to the child between photo one and two of the cat sleeping bag?  Has the sleeping bag digested the child?  Or was a vanishing spell involved?
3. Speaking of which...I'm not a parent, but I imagine that it might be distressing to make your young 'un a sleeping bag that essentially made her look like she was sleeping in a piece of roadkill.  A piece of roadkill wearing a vest.

Monday Morning Eye Candy: Baby Got Back

Nothing has made me want to put a few extra yards of fabric on my tush as much as Vogue 484 here:

And with perfectly matched stripes, no less!  It's simply scrumptious.