Anyone good at coming up with names?

I've been a busy little bee this week putting the finishing touches on my latest pdf pattern. However, this one isn't a knitting pattern, but rather a sewing pattern! I've designed a cute 1930's inspired hat and am planning on selling the pattern in my Etsy Store. However, I am having a terrible time coming up with a suitable name for the hat. After almost three days of trying to come up with a name, I've decided to ask all of you.

If you have any suggestions for a name leave me a comment on this post before the 30th of October. The creator of the name I end up using will get a free copy of the pattern (in pdf form). Thanks everyone for the help :) I'm just terrible at coming up with nifty names.

Here are some pictures of the design (which my friend Britt was kind enough to model):

The hat was loosely based on this image (from The Costumer's Manifesto)

Thanks again for your help!

That's All.

Thrifting Finds and Giveaway Winner

I don't often shop at thrift stores for the simple reason all the thrift stores where I live are extremely over priced and never have interesting things. However I was dropping off a resume at a nearby store and thought I would pop in to see if there was any vintage to save.  I didn't find much but I did end up buying this dress:

It may not be very old, but it is handmade. For $6 I thought it was worth a shot. I plan on styling (and possibly altering it) to make it more 1920's style.

Also, to my great surprise, amid the 1980's  sewing patterns were lurking these sweet 1960's ones! I still haven't decided whether to keep them or sell them. Anyone want to make me an offer? haha

Today, while property hunting in the country, my parents and I stopped at a little store that was for sale. It was basically a junk shop but the building was rather interesting. I had a bit of a hunt around and managed to find two little treasures. First was this Baby Ben Westclox. I have another Westclox and want to start a collection. It was a steal at $1.50

The second item I found was this cow creamer. I have wanted a cow creamer for ages! It was only $2.50 so I snapped it up and am currently giving it a VERY good wash...

And now for the giveaway winners! Drumroll please...
Winner of first prize is: #5, Perdita!   
Winner of the second prize is: #2, adarhysenthe! 

Thank you to everyone for entering! If the winners could email me at purlsofthepast@live.ca so I can send you your prizes.

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An Award and Giant Pants

A while ago the lovely Susan of Susan's Diary - Vintage style meets heavy music awarded me an irresistibly sweet blog award. I was supposed to write 7 random facts about myself then pass on the award. The problem is that I can't seem to come up with 7 random facts! After failing to think of more than one or two facts, I found Jennie of It's a Charmed Life was having the same problem! She decided to ask her readers to leave her questions in the comments, and she would answer them in a post and pass the award to those who asked her something. What a brilliant idea!!!

So I'm going to be completely unoriginal and do the same thing. Leave me a question and I will answer them all in a post :)

In other news I finished one of my many autumn sewing projects: a pair of giant pants! I have been craving a pair of 1930's style pants, especially after discovering Giant Pants of the 30's, so I decided to try and make myself a pair. This was technically my first time sewing pants but I drafted my own pattern and got to work. I LOVE the result! These pants are soooo comfortable! It is like wearing pajama pants.

One last thing, don't forget to enter my giveaway! You have until October 1st.

That's All.

I'm back!

I'm back after a week at my grandmother's cottage. It was a lot of fun, but we had to leave a few days earlier then expected (since my parents decided to go off to PEI for a last minute holiday).

I wore this 1920's inspired outfit for the car ride to the cottage:

Dress: Made by me using this method

Sweater: Thrifted

Shoes: The Bay

Necklace: Gift 

On the way there, I made everyone stop in Bobcaygeon since there was an antique fair going on. The fair was alright but very overpriced. I did however managed to pick up two new "friends". Aren't they lovely? Normally I tend to buy only women, but I thought I needed to add a guy to my cabinet card collection to balance the genders a bit more.

Despite rather chilly weather I did go swimming quite a lot (I'm nuts though. I've been known to go swimming about 2 weeks after the ice melts of the lake, which is not a smart idea by the way...). I was excited to wear my "new" bathing suit. I actually bought this suit in elementary school. I wore it to a pool party and everyone made fun of my "grandma" bathing suit, so it was buried at the back of my closet for years! I am so glad I never got rid of it, because I simply adore it now (and no longer care about being considered "grandmotherly" haha).  

One thing we always do a lot of when we go to the cottage is shopping. We have gotten in the habit of driving to Bracebridge for an afternoon (despite it is about 2 hours away!). It gave me a chance to get dressed up and wear my latest sewing project. The top of the dress is from a 1960's pattern and the bottom is from a 1950's pattern. I love the vintage lace I hand-stitched along the bottom, although it took nearly 4 hours to sew it on.

Dress and Necklace: Made by me

Shoes: The Bay

Belt: Vintage

I bought a few little things, but my major purchase of the week are the shoes in the below picture. I have never spent so much money on shoes in my life, but I just fell completely in love with them. They are very comfortable and fit perfectly <3

I'm now home and working on reorganizing my entire room, as well as sewing some new clothes for fall. I will however miss the few lazy days I managed to have at the cottage. I will never get tired of looking at this view:

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What I Normally Wear, Birthday Gifts, and Some Projects

I was going to do a proper post but instead here is a collection of photos of things from around my room. I've been taking lots random pictures of stuff with the camera by parents gave me for my birthday.

I will do a real post when I'm less sleep deprived, I promise! I actually do have some stuff I want to post about, including a blog award from the lovely Nabby. I haven't forgotten, just too tired to do a proper post! Also apologies for my lack of comments on everyone's blogs lately. I promise if I follow your blog I really do read every post. I've just been too busy and tired to come up with anything clever to say (although my "clever" comments normally sound something like "Lovely outfit!"...)

 Left-over chocolate butterflies are lovely with fresh local strawberries!

I knit myself some slippers from here. I think I just liked them because of the name!

I have plans to embellish them a bit but who knows when I will get around to that.

 When I was home on the weekend I managed to sew myself this fancy little 1930's top from one of the Vintage Vogue patterns. It looks rather purple in the picture but it is actually a light smokey grey colour. Now I just have to come up with an excuse to wear it... 

 I used to keep my sewing pins in a box but I wanted a pincushion too. This jar pincushion is the best of both worlds. Tutorial found here.

A couple of my birthday gifts. Ok, the Bob Hope boxset was actually a gift to myself. My dad wouldn't buy it for me. He thinks I have awful taste is movies :p 

 I am completely in love with this 1959 Needlecraft book I also got for my birthday. I actually have an earlier edition from 1947 and it is really interesting to see how the information and style of the book changed. The earlier version assumes the readers have a lot more knowledge and provides lots of "inspiration ideas" but very few real tutorials. The 1959 version assumes you can't sew without a pattern and provides a lot of easy projects! 

I always think it is interesting to see what bloggers wear on a day to day basis. Often only "interesting" outfits get posted, but I thought it would be fun to take a picture of what I normally wear to class. As much as I love wearing dresses and skirts, when I'm getting up at 6am for class it is rather the last thing on my mind. For my long days of classes (8am until 9pm!) I often opt for mens-wear inspired items.

Blouse and Vest: Smart Set

Trousers: Winners

Earrings: Made by me

Tie: Shamelessly stolen from my dad last time I was home

What do you wear on a daily basis?

That's All. 

Buttons, Bows, and Earrings.

It has been a busy week! I am finally getting time to set up my room. Hopefully it should be done within the next week and ready for pictures, but as a sneak peak what do you ladies (and gentleman of course) think of my hair accessory 3-tiered tray? I have been making even more hair bows lately and needed something to fit all my flowers, bows and clips.

Despite not going outside due to an injured foot, I wore my new sweater today. I took several 1920's knitting patterns for inspiration and came up with this (sorry it's a bit of a dark photo, still experimenting with lighting!):

Before the foot injury, I did manage to get to my favourite antique store for the first time this term. I bought a big bag of buttons, some gloves that actually fit (!), and some clip-on earrings (which I will likely convert to something else).

Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

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DIY 1920's Inspired Dress

Spring weather is almost here and summer is just around the corner. It is time to start wardrobe planning for the warmer months ahead. Here is a (hopefully!) simple tutorial for a 1920's inspired dress.

I love the 1920's but clothing from the 1920's comes with a hefty price tag and if often too delicate to wear. This dress is very basic but gives a 1920's look using a minimum of fabric. It looks best when done in a light sheer or silky material. (The pink version of this dress was created with a sheer fabric that already had a ruffle along the bottom)

1920's Inspired Dress

You will need:

-a couple meters of fabric (2 meters should do it but you may need more or less depending on your measurements)

-thread

-pattern pieces for armhole facings (you could make your own but using some from an existing pattern is easiest. I used some from a 1960’s dress pattern)

-about 1 meter of trim for the bottom of the dress (if desired)

Note: All seam allowances are 5/8” unless otherwise stated. Most of my seams were also finished with pinking sheers.

1) Cut out two armhole facings and two large rectangles. The rectangles should be half the width of the widest part of your body plus 2 inches (I made mine 22” wide since my hips are about a 40”) and the length should be 2 or 3 inches longer then the desired length of your dress.

2) Decide what type of neckline you would like (I did a square neckline for my dress). Cut out a facing for the neckline (as shown in the diagram below) and sew right sides together to the top-center of one of the rectangles. 3) Cut out the excess material on the top of the rectangle. Turn the facing inside the dress then stitch in place to finish the neck of the dress. You should stitch very close to the edge of the neckline.

4) With right sides together, stitch the top of the two rectangles together. Press the seam open and stitch along the back part of the neck opening. Stitch very close to the edge like you did for the front of the neckline.

5) With right sides together, sew the sides of the rectangles together leaving a 2 inch gap at the top.

6) Sew your armhole facings according to the original patterns instructions (this will likely be only one seam joining the short edges to make a circle). With dress right side out, pin the armhole facings to the dress. It may take a bit of time to correctly position them on the rectangle.

7) Cut out some of the extra fabric on the inside of the armhole and sew the facings to the dress. The stitch line is shown in red in the below picture. Turn facings to the inside of the dress and stitch in place (as was done for the neckline).

8) Hem the bottom of the dress as required. Attach the trim if you are using any. This dress would look great with some beaded trim around the bottom (I looked everywhere for some but I couldn't find any in my price range!).

9) Cut strip of fabric about 3 ½ “ wide and 5 inches longer than your hip measurement. Use a zigzag stitch to finish the edges. This will be your waist tie. When wearing your dress, simply tie this around your hips to give the effect of a 20's style dropped waist.

And voila! You know have your very own 1920's style dress. Here are some more pictures of my two dresses:

Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions for tutorials you would like to see!

That's All.

Postponed DIY and a rather boring weekend.

I wanted to thank everyone for their positive comments about my DIY seamed stockings post! I especially wanted to thank those who posted about my post. I was very flattered but due to my computer not letting me comment I was unable to express my appreciation. I have decided to try doing more DIY tutorials on here. If there is a certain type of project you would like to see leave me a comment! I will try to accommodate any requests :)

I had actually planned to do a DIY post today but the fabric store didn't have the trim I needed to complete the project. So here are two pictures as sort of a sneak peak. Can you guess what it is? (I'll give you a hint, the two pictures are actually two versions of the same project.)

This weekend has been quite boring since my mother decided to get sick and has now made me sick as well. At least it has given me plenty of time to work on my knitting for the Briar Rose knit-along. So far I have the back done and the collar.

I also went completely mad and turned my books the wrong way. I decided the books on my bookshelf looked ratty (all my pretty books are on display elsewhere in my room) so I turned them so you see the pages rather than the spines. I like how it looks but it might make locating books difficult (well slightly more difficult since they were already double stacked. 400 books do not fit very well on one tiny bookcase!).

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DIY Seamed Stockings

I love stockings. They are about a hundred times better than pantyhose in terms of look, feel, and cost (when one legs gets a run, you don't have to throw out both legs!).

When it comes to seamed vs seamless I would always choose seamed. The only problem is that around here real seamed stocking are nearly impossible to find! When I do find some (either in store or online) they are at least $20! Being a university student means that at the moment I have very very little money (stupid tuition...) so spending that kind of money on something I can only wear a few times is not an option.

For daily wear I have some seamless stockings I buy at the Bay for $4 or less. I suppose I could always draw seams on with eyeliner like some ladies did in WW2, but I would worry about getting eyeliner on my dress! Instead I have come up with a simple method to create the look of seamed stockings.

Instructions

1) Do a trial pair! Buy a cheap pair of pantyhose at the dollar store (or use an old pair of stockings) to practise on. It is very likely there will be some areas on your machine that will snag the fabric. Make note of these areas.

2) Thread your machine with a thread that is the same colour as your stockings. Now tape over the areas of your machine that snag the material with scotch tape.

3) Turn your stockings inside out and iron a crease where you would like your line to be. Use the coolest setting on your iron so you don't melt the material.

4) Set your machine to the zig-zag stitch. I used a width of about 2.5 and a length of 2.
5) Start sewing along your crease, starting from the top of the stocking. You should be so close to the edge of the material that on part of the zig-zag the needle is no longer touching the material. Do this very carefully and very slowly. If you don't sew your seams straight they will never be straight when you wear them!

6) End the seam about an inch before the toes. Cut off any excess thread and turn right side out. Tada! You now have your very own pair of seamed stockings!

This is how my pair turned out:

That's All.