Vintage Patterns

Back in September I entered a contest Craft Book Month. There were various prizes awarded and I won one of them. My prize was these three vintage patterns from Goofing Off . I honestly think I had that pattern for overalls back in the seventies and I made them. And thought I was right cute wearing them too. I showed this to my 23 year old daughter and she exclaimed that no adult person should ever wear overalls. I offered to make her some. I tend to agree with her about adults wearing overalls unless you are working in the garden or something.

Maybe I will try making one of those robes. I think that would be cute and useful. And my daughter would not be ashamed to be seen with me because I could only wear it around the house. I think the vest and skirt pattern may be cute in the right fabrics. I will have to think on that a bit. Anyways I am glad I won something and it is fun seeing these patterns again. I am beginning to get quite a collection of vintage patterns, many much older than these. They are fun to have and fun to look at.

Renaissance Garb

I made this Renaissance Costume for my daughter a few weeks ago. Today we attended the Maryland Renaissance Festival and she got a chance to wear it. I made mine a few years ago. In fact my Renaissance Costume was my very first blog post. It was a perfect fall day for being outside and enjoying all the activities at the festival. It is a great place to people watch and I love seeing every ones outfits. And they have every kind of food on a stick. We had a really good time and watched a few entertaining shows. And it was fun to wear our outfits.

For Rebekah's outfit I used parts of four different patterns. She liked the skirt from Simplicity 3809 view B with the bustled over skirt. However I had bought the pattern in my size and she is very tiny and there were none in her size when the patterns were one sale for $1.99. She also liked the blouse from view A with the ribbon bows on the sleeves. Since the skirt is gathered to a waistband it was easy to adjust to her measurements. I decided to use the waistband from McCall's 4090 and I had the pattern in her size. I liked the way the closure used eyelets and lacing at the back. The fabric I used for the skirt is a burgundy cotton chintz that was given to me. I was trying to use only my stash for this project but I didn't have enough of anything that coordinated well with what I had. So I went to a discount decorator fabric store in my area in hopes of finding something. I got this pretty stripe and the green that I used for the corset.

The corset is Butterick 4669. It has four different corset styles included. I picked view A because it was a very simple style and all the others had a peplum. I thought the simple style would look better with the bustled over skirt. I didn't think a peplum was necessary. I edged the corset with bias trim I made from the same fabric as the underskirt. I thought it tied everything together nicely.

For the top I used the blouse from Butterick 6196. That is the pattern I used for my entire costume. But for Rebekah I only used the blouse because it was in her size. I just added another row of elastic between the cuff and the upper arm so I could get the look of the blouse from the other pattern. The fabric is a cream colored dotted Swiss. I trimmed it with eyelet lace at the cuffs and the neck edge. And I added some ribbon bows to the sleeves.

I think she looks adorable in her new garb and we may have a chance to go back next year and wear our outfits again.

Crocheted Chicken

I have had this crochet book for a little while. Tasty Crochet. The book is full of all kinds of play food to crochet. I love to crochet useless things. I guess crocheted food isn't totally useless as it is fun for kids to play with. However I don't have any kids around to give it to. I do know of a couple of little girls who would like it. The usefulness to me is that crocheting is relaxing and it makes me feel good to get a cute little project finished quickly. It just brings me pleasure to knit or crochet quirky things.

I decided I wanted to make something from this book and looked around in my yarn stash for some yarn in the right colors. I was still in Stashbuster September when I made these so I didn't want to go out and buy anything. I actually found enough yarn in my stash to make several of the projects in the book. When I get time I will be making some more food. This time I whipped up two chicken drumsticks and a slice of bread. I was planning to make a whole peanut butter and jelly sandwich but I only had enough of the white yarn to make one slice of bread. I tried some green beans but the green yarn I had was more of a Christmas green and just didn't look anything like green beans. I plan to make more as I find time. Even though you can't eat these they are fun to make.

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Fat Quarter Apron

Several months ago I was the winner of these Fat Quarters from Miss Sews-It-All.
Don't all the colors coordinate nicely? I felt like I should put these to good use as soon as I could because Miss Sews was having the contest in an effort to get rid of some of her stash. So I didn't feel right about just adding it to my stash.

I started looking through my patterns and books to find a good project for these pieces.
I also needed a gift for a friend. I found the perfect pattern in my book Small Stash Sewing by Melissa Averinos. Apron For All used three fat quarters and a half yard of coordinating fabric. Since I only had five fat quarters and no 1/2 yard pieces I thought I could adapt the pattern to use all my fat quarters. I only had to buy some bias binding to match. I was able to make the apron using almost every scrap of the five fat quarters. I think I have enough left over to piece together the top of a pot holder. I had to adjust the size of the straps to make everything fit.

I like the way she suggest making the seams. They are sort of like french seams, they are sewn wrong sides together first and then the bias binding is sewn over the top so everything is enclosed. It is very easy to do and the finish is really nice with no exposed raw seams edges. The pattern was easy to follow with very clear instructions. I think every project in the book is very straightforward and easily accomplished.


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