Mothers Day 2018

This is my mom, somewhere in the 70s. She taught me how to sew.

https://www.pinterest.com/erniekdesigns/mom-made-one/

She watched monster movies with me. She preferred the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms to Godzilla, but was very happy with Frankenstein.

She died way too soon, in 1980, and I miss her.

I'm going to see a movie this afternoon in her honor.

All you moms, keep on rockin'.

All you kids, you know the drill.

Love you.

Mom, Black Velvet Ribbon Hunt, Burda 6932

Alterations and my mom

My mom was flat, teeny, without noticable body fat.

This was never a good thing.

Sitting was a challenge.

V-necks? Forget it.

No hips? Pants fall down.

She did get the mom tum, though. Weird!

Because she did stay the same size for decades, whatever she bought or sewed, she kept.

And when she got cancer, those clothes needed to be comfortable and finished properly. No tags, no clunky seams, no raw edges, no pointy bits.

It's kind of quality sewing meets careful finishing.

It's my mother's birthday; she would be 91 if she'd made it past 54.

I don't have many photos of her

There she is in the back. Nice housecoat.

Miss you mom. I promise I'll go find the photos now.

On the other side of sewing, I got my ten yards of black "velvet" (more like plushy) 2" ribbon from some Amazon sub-supplier in Nevada. Deadstock from Hendler's Ribbons. I'm making belts for the choir dresses, so just has to have some heft and flex (unlike florists ribbon, which won't last. We've tried.)

I spend the better part of an hour checking and yes, Hendler's is closed, but their website and all other things just imply they are hibernating. Any attempt on Yelp to mark them shut has been deferred,  so go figure. Anyone who knows more about their situation, let me know.

Mood was out, but not marked as out of stock.

So what I want to know is: was there some cosplay or character that involves 2" black velvet ribbon? I could be selling it out of the back of my car if I had some. 1 1/2", or any other color, there's lots (in the narrower range, you can get the good stuff (the soft velvety stuff)).

The plastic reel was broken so I had to make my own

Ah, IKEA furniture parts to the rescue...

More dresses to hem, one to resize, and one to ....graft from.

Nothing wasted around here.

Also mostly making a jacket for my son

I'm cutting a new seam in the front for a pocket, so I'm slicing and adding seam allowances and making new pockets with the yellow flimsy tracing paper

Yup yup yup. Apparently I haven't taken any pictures of the actual sewing. It's going well. No surprises for once.

Except the original pocket

The central seam is to the left. The pocket is slanted away from the direction the hand is coming from (the right).

Unless these were designed to be reached into opposition-aly. 

Oookay Burda 6932.....

Some people do go both ways

Flashback With Three Armholes: Mom Made One Mondays

Three Armholes makes a comeback

Butterick 4699 Most photos from Vintage Sewing Wikia, with one obvious exception

Yes, it has one pattern piece. Two shoulder seams. And forty miles of foldover braid.

You will only make this mistake once a decade.

Once or twice as a kid, in terry cloth as a vacation wearable towel.

With a fake spare flap front once because like to own the complete edition.

Yes, it really is a wrap dress

Patterns from the Past did a post on this in 2007 

But most importantly

6.5 yards of trim balanced out by a fabric saving border print!

And just in case you thought this mania was over, may I present this spring's latest release?

As with all Laura Mae posts, a great post and conversation in the comments about this design

This is a 'Mom made one' for me. Note the bow on the shoulder, which is a beautiful feature in this dress. 

My mother's coat kept grabbing the bow knot and undoing the dress (pulling coat off left shoulder) at the snaps that closed it. This is partially a design flaw, not aided by the lack of heft of snaps available to the home sewer. A set of hooks had roughly the same results.

My mother dropped a lot of money on nice fabric for this, at a point where we were pretty short on it. Frankly I remember this dress in the context of the beautiful satin-backed crepe I was gifted with for my Barbie doll sewing. I would wager my mother made this for an event she and my dad were going to attend (and they didn't do that much).

It looked really good on Barbie.

I miss you Mom.

Patterns of my Past

While I gird my loins to finish off the hemming project today, I perused today's offerings from Lanetz Living Patterns. Links to site below.

I honestly think this is the first pattern I ever sewed  7974 Simplicity apron. I suspect the vinyl apron my spouse brought with him is another product of this pattern. I'll wager most of you have this lurking in your past; it screams Home Ec project all over it.  My mother  taught me to sew, taught me a lot of rules I have unlearned over the years. She was a Simplicity sewer, I didn't get to Vogue until my 70's prom dress. Another day for that one (I still have the pattern, I've made it a few times since then).

This made me smile.  If you are looking for the  dress made of wood (print), a pattern of the go-to patternless sundress, this would be it. 

Vogue EZ high waist dress, buttons down front, wide neckline, short sleeves/sleeveless. I didn't use a pattern, I built it from slopers and a previous dress that was hacked from a Butterick back when you were a toddler. Patch pockets on the front work pretty well, I'd raise that waist to make it less boxy,  raise the armscye and open the sleeve a little. And then it just makes itself (okay, there are buttonholes, but you don't have to run them all the way down. Cheater idea here: just close up the bottom front with top stitching, and sew buttons down the front where they follow the distances as for the opening portion of the front).

This pattern is here simply because the drawing delights me. She is so happy about her new pants her mom made her, she flies.

I have some posts I am hanging onto, I have a contentious issue on the back burner that I will deal with when I get these chiffon hems done. Right now, I got work to do.