Marvelous

Ok, I'm a little late in getting this up (by several months) but here's the results of this year's comicon costume scramble.

I have a personal rule that whoever I cosplay as, they have to have hair that is similar enough to mine that I don't have to cut or color it. 90's cartoon Rogue fits that bill perfectly. I even have greying forelocks. Unfortunaly I've been coloring those grey hairs purple for the last few years, and purple doesn't bleach as well as I'd hoped...hence the orange streaks where there should be white.

My husband is a good sport and even offered to do a bad Cajun accent while in costume.

My best friend wasn't enough of a good sport to be Captain Marvel in a skin tight leotard, but she was thrilled to be Carol Danvers in a flight suit.

         

Rogue's suit and Gambit's shirt and boots were the only things I needed to really make, the rest are altered thrift finds. Way easier than the Gundam Wing VIPs from last year!

The hardest part was finding good spandex in bright yellow. For some reason I guess there isn't much demand for a nearly see through color for skin tight clothing, huh...

YaYa Han's bodysuit pattern was easy enough to follow and alter to my size/shape, though I do wish there were more finished measurements given on the pattern itself to make the altering process easier.

Working with spandex and stretch pleather was a new experience for me. The pleather especially was a bit finicky, and I had to put tissue or tracing paper on each seam for my machine to sew through it at all without missing stitches.

Still, it was a fun challenge, and I can't argue with how well it turned out!

Vintage Craft Book Feature: Spinnerin Vol. 181 (1967)

Another of my many needlework hobbies is the collection of vintage craft books. Found in dusty corners of second hand shops, in pride of place in used book stores, these old tomes often contain beautiful nuggets of crafting wisdom, and a heaping helping of vintage charm. Reviving the techniques, tips and retro projects is just one more way for us to bring back the wonders of the handmade.

Spinnerin Vol. 181 - 1967

As you can see from the tag, I got this quality knitting magazine at a good bargain. You can also probably guess what styles will be inside just from those first two models and the phrase "poncho parade"

Spinnerin doesn't disappoint with a bevy of retro

styled sweaters and dresses. They also manage to make the whole magazine look like a guide for how a well to do man can score himself a threesome.

I get that the intent was to show two sweater models on each page, but trying to set up the domestic and romantic looking scenes just makes each image kinda creepy.

There are no men's sweaters in this book, so the male model is clearly just for decoration. Far from making me focus on the sweaters, the scenes in the photos just have me writing soap opera-like drama plots in my head as I flip through the magazine.

Also, in quite a few of the pictures the women look oddly bundled up in heavy sweaters for what is clearly an indoor setting with an attendant man in a suit.

Those argyle socks are very distracting too.

That's not to say this magazine is all bad. Quite a few of the sweaters and dresses are neat, or at least have elements and patterns that could be easily reused elsewhere. These sequined sweaters are officially at the top of my knitting goals list. I really want to make the one with the sailor collar.

And as promised, here is the Poncho Parade :)

The Internet is for Kitties

I shop at thrift stores a lot.  Really, a lot.  Clothes, books, decor items, cookware, raw materials for my shop; most of the goods I buy come from second hand shops.  This is partly because I am cheap and refuse to pay full price for new when perfectly serviceable things are available used.  Mostly, however, I shop at thrift stores because they can offer some hidden gems found nowhere else.

Sometimes these gems are beautiful and unique vintage clothing, or really high quality kitchenware for a bargain, and sometimes the value of a find is because it was created for or by crazy cat people:

Go ahead, name as many as you can.  I'll wait :)

This lounging cat portrait was painted on black velvet, and is at least 3 feet tall.  Somebody clearly loved Fluffy very much indeed. Fluffy looks less than impressed with being told to hold the pose. 

The cookie jar just makes me smile.  Something about a looking at a contented sleeping cat can always make me feel a little better.

Unless he's contentedly laying on what I'm trying to work on, that is...

Vintage Craft Book Feature: Art of Dressmaking (1927)

Another of my many needlework hobbies is the collection of vintage craft books.  Found in dusty corners of second hand shops, in pride of place in used book stores, these old tomes often contain beautiful nuggets of crafting wisdom, and a heaping helping of vintage charm.  Reviving the techniques, tips and retro projects is just one more way for us to bring back the wonders of the handmade.

Art of Dressmaking- 1927

A fair bit older than most of my craft book finds, this one is a real treasure.  This book is small, but filled cover to cover with good advice and instruction on many topics of sewing and dressmaking, and step by step guides for many types of beautiful detail work. It is also filled with wonderful illustrations with a good dose of 1920's charm.

I feel like Paris wasn't then and isn't now the only place that people do this.  Although our dressing rooms are probably a lot less fancy now.

I wish my sewing room and table were this neat and organized, and that I had such a large cutting table to work on.  These illustrations accompany a chapter on how to set up a good sewing space, tips for how and where to cut fabric, and how to hand sew without getting a crick in your neck.  All very good information that I feel a lot of modern books leave out.

Also among the things you won't find in a modern book unless it is specifically about cotoure dressmaking is how to do things such as sewing a rolled seam in sheer fabrics, and gathered darts.  Lots of little dressmaking tips and tricks like these are spelled out with illustrations, and surrounded by guidance on how and where to use them.

While a lot of the fashion advice is nearly 100 years out of relevance, the techniques and instructions are not, and there is a lot of good information to be found in this little book.  Much less of a coffee table visual than some of the other books I've featured, but much more of a solid resource of instruction.

I imagine it was much easier to make dress forms back then when nobody had any curves.

New (to me at least) Supplies!

The latest haul of vintage craft treasures!  Thanks so much to my lovely friend for passing all these lovelies on to me! I love spreading out my newest acquisitions across my worktable, sorting and dreaming about what they could become.

Though it's hard to tell with the sunbeam lighting them up, that bag is full of bits of old lace: collars, cuffs, unfinished trims.  It's a treasure trove!

Each of these little bundles of yarn was hand dyed with some natural plant: purple cabbage, walnuts, onion skins, etc.  Way cool!

In amongst the lace collars was a stack of hand embroidered baby clothes and crocheted doilies. Not sure yet what those will become, but they are lovely all the same.

The bag holding all these goodies was sitting on my table for a few days before I got it all out and sorted.  Can you guess why my cat kept hassling that bag?

Free Pattern Collection III

Here's the past few weeks' free pattern tracings collected together for your convenience, Enjoy!

Vintage Craft Book Feature: Golden Family Craft Treasury (1975)

Another of my many needlework hobbies is the collection of vintage craft books.  Found in dusty corners of second hand shops, in pride of place in used book stores, these old tomes often contain beautiful nuggets of crafting wisdom, and a heaping helping of vintage charm.  Reviving the techniques, tips and retro projects is just one more way for us to bring back the wonders of the handmade.

Golden Family Craft Treasury- 1975

 

I found my copy of this book missing it's dust jacket, so I don't have a good cover image.  This, however, is a pretty good representation of most of the photos in the book.  They are filled with garish color and busy patterns, and many quirky, wonderful projects.  This book has instructions for everything from leather working, beading, and sewing to bookbinding, printing, and furniture making. The sheer breadth of projects makes this book a very worthy addition to any crafter's shelf.

That said, there is some very goofy stuff in here. The presentation of many of the projects is delightfully whimsical, like the crochet tie modeled by a sand sculpture. There are a lot of 'reuse everyday objects in a weird new way' sort of projects too, like the flowers made from feather dusters. If nothing else, this book will certainly have you looking at mundane items in a new light.

There is a lot of useful technique guidance throughout, even if the designs are a bit dated. The instructions for replacing book covers and printing fabrics are just a few of the countless bits of useful knowledge among the kitsch.

Maybe it's just me, but a lot of the projects and pictures in this book just sing to me.  Reusing old bed sheet fabric, using a paper cup as a circle template, filling a shadow box frame with random bits and bobs (I have something of a collection of old empty bottles...) is all exactly stuff I would do.  I even have that exact same embroidered ribbon in my stash somewhere!