Fashion Backwards

I've always been a sucker for twirly skirts, crinolines,and watching old shows/movies from the 50's and 60's.  With a resurgence of this fashion era over the past couple of years, I can have my wish and wear the clothes of this time period. YeeHaw!!
After watching the sewing bee I thought, I need to improve my sewing skills and I wanted to make true authentic clothes from the era, rather then buy a knock-off. Enter Gertie. I picked up her book along with a couple of vintage patterns from etsy.

 Now I've sewn lots of things before, but I'd read that sewing with a vintage pattern can be a little tricky. I thought the blouse looked like a fairly easy place to jump off.

Here it is!

Things you learn from sewing from this type of pattern- It may not be your size and it wasn't, so I had to learn to re-adjust a pattern. Next, I had to make a mock up to make sure my newly sized pattern to make sure it would actually fit me!
-Darts. I've always hated making darts. This pattern had 12 to sew into it. In the end it wasn't so bad. There was a lot of going back and forth between the book, internet and the pattern itself. Interfacing wasn't mentioned once in the pattern, but I did add it.
-Collar. I haven't been the best at making a nice crisp collar, and usually avoid them, but really like how this one turned out.
-Patience...lots and lots of patience. Sewing slower, makes me a better sewer.

In case you're wondering this was from a 1957 pattern. It was fun ( and will be ) bringing these clothes back to life 50 years later. :)

Annnd we're back!

For those of you who had noticed, I had shut down the old blog, because I was pouting over a few things that had happened. The main one being that my hand had begun to have more frequent flare ups of arthritis. Painting anything had become a painful endeavor. Actually, anything involving my hand from holding a silly teacup had became scary. Soo... insert pout here. I took some time to analyze the situation and although it will be slow going on major projects, I do have some fun things that I've done.

About a month ago, Ashley turned me on to The Great British Sewing Bee. Luckily these can be found on Youtube, and inspired me to make some sewing projects. (thats another day).

Then we watched The Great British Bake Off. About 5 minutes into the show, they were baking a Lavender Shortbread, using Lavender Sugar.  This sounded like something I could make, so I goggled it  and yes, its plain sugar and lavender.

 Then using this lovely recipe, I made my cookies.

Oh how yummy they were!! And in keeping with British style, I made them using a duck egg, which are wonderful for baking because of the extra big yolks.

                                                                                   And of course, a cup of tea was needed. :)

Things I like on Thursdays

I'd like to tell you that my kitchen reno is moving right along but it stopped last week when Roger came home with a sore knee that bloomed into a lovely infection, that him and I several times to the hospital this week. But antibiotics finally kicked in, and he is up and around again.

So I thought I'd do something new and share with you on random days what tickles my fancy.

Downton Abbey. Or Highclere Castle as its known in the real world.

As for the show, I will sit with a book and take in all the little things. Signage, furniture and make sketches of things I like or paint colours that are used.

As for the house, this has got to be one of my favourite rooms.

If you haven't watched the show you really should check out Highcleres site for some spectacular photos of an amazing building with a rich history.

Last but not least is my fetish for the hats. This week I've been humming "Easter Parade" and yes I do have my hat all picked out for Easter. But its nothing like these.

Happy Easter!:)

Progression

This morning when I woke up, all was good. Then my furnace quit and we have been huddled in our family room till things get fixed. Thank goodness we are almost there.

In the meantime I'd thought I'd show you what's been happening. We added a new beam to the opening. It just seemed to need a little more umph to it.

Then we got fancy.

And added an archway! See those posts. I bought them 6 years ago for around $20. They were going to be used for something else but I like them sooo much there, that this is there new home.

They have actually already been painted white and they do look purty. :)

The Snowball effect.

Whenever we start a project it always seems to snowball into more. I think thats because we live in old houses and you never know what's lurking behind those walls.

In this case, before we did anything, we did a whole lot of "what ifs" before we moved a single thing, so the few surprises we found doesn't change a whole lot. Just how to rework them.

So yesterday we started doing this.

Those ceiling tiles had been up there since we bought the house, and although I looked at them everyday I kind of forgot about them.

But I don't live in an office, so they had to go.

Then we had this.

A door, a window, and a new ceiling!

This used to be an old porch before the previous owners closed it in. The I played Scott McGillvray and gave us Option One and Two. One was to keep going with original plan and leave this alcove part of the kitchen, or two, turn it into a screened in porch. Option one won over.

A long time ago I mentioned we bought an old tin ceiling, which is what we are going to use to recover  this.

And this.

And the rest.... I'll keep you posted :)

Welcome to the Sixties!

I adore all things old, but once in awhile I get drawn to a more "modern" piece. The date on the back of   this dresser was 1968, meaning I was one when this was made. ( you can do the math to figure my age ;) )

I made this colour up with a little bit of this and a little bit of that. But I'm seeing this shade, pop up all over the place lately.

I saved the handles from another project. They didn't suit it, but I thought they'd work well with this dresser.

Then I raided my stash and found fabric to match. The lighter of the two is an actual vintage piece, the other is new, but I like how they go together.

Considering it looked like this, I'm quite happy how it turned out.:)

Warm Woolies.

For Christmas, M'lynn had an idea for Amy's present that came from pinterest. She's had the idea for a while, but decided to finally let her inner fashion designer out and just do it.

She started with a sweater that we had picked up at a thrift store. The arms were to become leg warmers, the tops of the sleeves, head bands, and the body of the sweater a scarf.

And sooo.......here's Amy, all decked out.

I helped M'lynn out by crocheting new tops for the leg warmers and headbands, and we lined the scarf with polar fleece. We also took the buttons from the sweater and added them to the leg warmers for a little detail.

The nice thing about this sweater is, it was 100% wool, making her new outer wear super duper warm.:)