February 24, 2015

Vintage Pattern Pledge

There are some things that I get overly excited about when I discover them.  My elation will change to disbelief when I find out that someone else already knew about said awesome thing and failed to share the info with me (cuz the world can totally revolve around me sometimes, right?).  One of the times this happened to me was when I discovered vintage patterns (uh-oh, story time...).
 


I was at a garage sale a few years ago to acquire cheap sewing notions (zippers and trims and such) and came across a box of vintage children's patterns.  At the time, children's clothing was pretty much all I was sewing (cuz they have this lack-of-curves-therefore-easier-to-sew-for-thing) so I was pretty thrilled, especially since there were quite a few sizes I knew I could use for the nieces.  Those were my very first vintage patterns.



When I told my mom about them, her response was pretty much, "Vintage patterns? Oh yeah, I have all your grandma's old patterns- at least a couple boxes full."


Wait, WHAT?  You mean she kept me in the dark about the existence of easily accessible vintage patterns all these years?  Don't worry- no grudges were kept (especially if I hope to own those patterns myself some day- mwahahahaha!).  Next time I visited she pulled out the boxes and showed me a whole bunch of vintage patterns from the 60's and 70's, in an array of sizes, children's and adults, patterns my grandma actually used to sew clothes for my mom and my aunts.  My aunt told me a story of how she didn't even go clothes shopping for the first time until she was in Jr. High cuz my grandma made all their clothes.  How rad is my grandma?  



Anywho, looking at all those vintage patterns made me curious about what other kinds of vintage patterns are available or out there somewhere, maybe even from an earlier decade (cuz as my mom tells me, "Nicole, the 50's called, they want their style back.").  I started looking on Ebay at vintage patterns and even bid on some, finally winning a few, then a few more, and a few more on top of that.  I wouldn't say I have an obsession (yet), but I've definitely accumulated a decent pile in under two years.


Alas, as beautiful as they are, I've never opened one.  Not a single one- not even to see what the pattern pieces look like.  I know I didn't just buy them to collect dust, I actually want to use them.  There's even been a few vintage pattern challenges I've considered joining but didn't (call it fear if you like cuz it really was fear).  This year will be different (not regarding the fear- it's still there).  I'm making my public declaration- let it be known throughout all the land (or just a little bit of the internet) that I will participate in this years' Vintage Pattern Pledge.  Ahem-ahem-ahem, my official pledge:

I, Nicole of A Little Fabricated, will sew up at least 3 vintage patterns this year (one or more of them might be children's).


Phew!  The easy part is out of the way.  Now onto the doing part.  That only means different markings, tinier waists to enlarge, weird bust points to fix, fragile tissue patterns to attempt to not rip...  Yeah, I can do it (do I sound scared still?).


Has anyone else pledged to do something scary (to you) this year?  




February 15, 2015

Laziness Woes and Knitting


My laziness has finally caught up with me. I didn't renew my Antivirus on my laptop before it expired and now I'm having difficulty renewing it at all. Sigh... I have pictures already taken and ready for some posts (usually the biggest delay in my blogging- setting up the tripod during the right time of day then uploading the pictures onto my laptop and sometimes editing depending on how productive I'm feeling), but my lack of Antivirus means lack of posts as well. I had to get a new phone lately and decided to see if Blogger would let me upload photos from my phone (I couldn't on my last phone) so I could at least post SOMETHING. Guess what- it worked! And now you get to ignore any typos or autocorrect stuff cuz I'm doing this all on my phone (time for a tablet, yes?).


 My mom and I usually text each other photos of what we're working on. Today she covered some boxes in fabric to go in new cubby hole shelves she has in her craft room. I've been working on knitting (we had a mobile baby/toddler staying with us recently so all sewing had to get picked up for obvious safety reasons- both for the child and the projects). I've been trying to teach myself to knit, off and on, for about a year now, but would always work a few rows of a new stitch and abandon it. I decided to start an actual knitting project, just going for it (and making LOTS of mistakes) instead of trying to learn stitches individually first. While I'm incredibly slow at it, I'm sticking with it for once and enjoying it too. Yay for a project that can go to work with me/travel with me/wait in waiting rooms with me/etc... That's all for now, thanks for being my guinea pigs for testing blogging on my phone, you guys rock my socks off (if I ever wore them besides at work).

Any frustrating things that you totally could've prevented happen to you lately? Haha (my laziness is totally making more work for me).