Here’s my Tumblr archive for February…
Category: inspiration
The History of Underclothes
This is my new favourite book. Originally published in 1951 (the Dover edition above is from 1992), it’s a detailed history of underclothes (the clue is in the title!) from the medieval period to the 1930s. The information is collected from magazines and catalogues, as well as museums and the study of extant garments.
The tone of the writing, as you might expect, is rather dated, and reveals perhaps more than the authors intended about 1950s attitude towards underwear! But the descriptions are invaluable, and extremely detailed.
I only wish that the book had continued to write about one more decade. At the moment I’m interested to learn about underwear of the 1940s – specifically the Utility Clothing Scheme. There’s quite a bit of information out there about CC41 clothing, but I haven’t turned up much about the underwear. Was it included in the brand? Were people expected to just keep wearing the same old worn-out underpants? Did many people make their own? I’m still at the “googling vaguely” stage of research at the moment, so if anybody has any links that might be useful, please feel free to share!
Tumblr: January archive
Simplicity 2184: Vintage dress pattern holy grail!
Well, it’s taken me almost five years to find it, but here it is – my vintage dress pattern holy grail, in the form of Simplicity 2184.
Raglan sleeves. Short and long sleeve options. FRENCH CUFFS. Convertible collar. In a size that I don’t have to re-draft too much. HALLELUIA! All I need to do is add pockets in the side seams (and 3″ to the waist) and it will be PERFECT! It even still includes the embroidery transfers for the monogram. *swoons*
It’s probably just as well that I need to wait for it to arrive all the way from Canada (I bought it on Etsy, from HoneymoonBus), hopefully that will ensure that I’ve calmed down a little bit by the time it arrives. I’ve already mentally sewn it in about 153 different fabric combinations, and thrown out every other item of clothing in my wardrobe. I need to slow down.
I posted the link on Facebook, and several people were somewhat boggled by the term “Slenderette”. Thankfully a friend discovered that Gertie (whose blog I am now reading obsessively) had contacted Simplicity to find out what on earth. Apparently the term was used for patterns that were specifically designed to make you look more slender. Not that this is going to work for me, as I’m going to have to let out the waist by at least three inches to make the dress fit – or invest in some fairly serious underwear.
Yes, underwear is still an ongoing issue. This stupid annoying fibromyalgia thing that I’ve got going on means that wearing a bra is absolutely excruciating, so I haven’t done it for the best part of a year. (And the Fashion Police didn’t arrest me or anything! It’s been a revelation!) Those “secret support” vests – sorry – camisoles with a soft bra hidden inside are a bit better, but they still have a constricting band of elastic around the body, so they’re not ideal. I did make a lovely soft teddy from bamboo fabric, but there were some issues with the fit (which is why I haven’t blogged about it yet), and Paul said it looked “like Victorian underwear – in a bad way”. Clearly some improvement needed there!
I keep looking at Kiss Me Deadly, whose vintage-inspired underwear would be perfect underneath this type of dress. But sadly their pretty things are outside the realms of my budget at the moment (anybody want to buy me a Vargas dress? Go on, you know you want to!), and I’m not 100% certain that my body will tolerate being squished by powernet all day.
So perhaps while I’m waiting for this pattern to arrive and fill me with wonder and glee, I should concentrate on doing some experiments with underwear. I’ve only made a couple of bras since I went on LCF’s Structured Lingerie course, and that was two years ago. Now I really want to do their Lingerie Workshop, but again, budget, and the courses take place in the school holidays, which is when I tend to be doing extra hours at work. Hey ho.
In the meantime, I’ve been reading blogs such as Ohhh Lulu, and reading my 1970s and 1980s lingerie-sewing books, in the hope that these might encourage me to get over my terrible fear of wasting fabric, and actually cut something out. I think now’s the time!
Bloom
This is a Winx Club Bloom doll. I have no idea what that means (it says Nickelodeon on the box, so maybe she’s a cartoon?), but she was reduced to £6 in my local toy shop, so I brought her home with me.
I’ve been reading forums on customising dolls like Liv, Moxie and Monster High, but I thought it would be better to practice on a cheap doll before I effectively ruined something that a little girl might like to play with. I chose this one because I liked the shape of her face (I thought it might customise nicely into something pixie-ish), and because her proportions aren’t as ridiculously exaggerated as some other fashion-type dolls. She also has a little x-shaped hole in her back specifically for the addition of wings, so she might turn into a really nice fairy of some description.
Sadly she’s not very poseable, as she’s only jointed at the shoulders, hips and neck. This probably makes her useless for my original idea of customising her and taking photos, but it also hopefully means I won’t be too precious about having a few goes at repainting her face or replacing her hair.
Of course, what I really want is something like this beautiful Luts Super Senior Delf, but in the absence of a spare $546, I think Bloom will have to do!
Tumblr: December Archive
Tumblr: November Archive
Tumblr: October Archive
Microscope photography
As I was catching up with all of your blogs (500+ unread posts, eek!), I came across Resurrection Fern’s fascinating iPhone microscope photos. Aren’t they beautiful? I was very disappointed when a quick search revealed that the microscope gadget doesn’t fit my poor “old” iPhone 3. A bit more searching ensued, and revealed a little usb microscope for attaching to your computer. Then a penny dropped – I’ve seen one of those at work! I unearthed it from the bottom of the Science Box yesterday, and brought it home for a quick play.
So far I can say that I’m really enjoying playing with the camera, but the software leaves an awful lot to be desired! First of all, this camera is too old to be properly Mac-compatible, which is very frustrating. Not to mention the ridiculous mini-cd that houses the software, which doesn’t fit into a single computer in this house. Thankfully the computers at work are old enough to have a proper cd tray, and I was able to copy the software to a usb stick. I installed the drivers on my netbook, which was easy enough, and the camera worked straight away.
Sadly, after I’d named and saved all 30 photos individually (no batch operations, how unhelpful!), half of them wouldn’t open. The jpegs turned out to be corrupted, so they obviously hadn’t saved properly. When I got the remaining photos onto a nice large screen, I could see that most of them were out of focus, which was disappointing. The focus wheel is pretty much the entire body of the camera, which means that as you’re trying to sharpen the image you’re also moving the lens. That’s never going to work, especially not at 200x magnification!
But, the microscope + netbook combination is easily portable, which means that I’ll be able to take the whole lot outside with me and see what I can find. And the newest version of the microscope looks to have much better software and higher magnification, even though it’s still only a 2mp camera.
I don’t think I’m quite ready to give Richard Weston a run for his money, but I do have some ideas for incorporating designs inspired by these images into some new textile work. The question is, will I ever have time to make it?!
Tumblr: September Archive
Here’s my Tumblr archive for September…
You can see the archive in more detail, here.
I haven’t had much free time to spend browsing tumblr lately, so my queue of saved images is getting shorter and shorter. I’ve set it to automatically post fewer pictures each day, so future archives will be smaller too.
I keep wondering about the possibility of printing these little collages, and actually pinning them up around the Shed. If their purpose is to inspire me, it would be nice to see the pictures without having to fire up the computer every time.