Butterick Paris 1932 Fashion Pattern Catalog

Many years ago I picked up this catalog at a flea market in Allen, MI. It cost me $2.50!

It is dirty but all the pages are intact. In the back was a collection of a girl's paper dolls, made up of cut out fashion illustrations from other catalogs.

Fashions included masculine style sportswear, such as Katherine Hepburn wore. Trousers were wide legged and high waisted--yet were considered "narrower legged than before. The silhouette was slim, with a defined waist. "Today our skirt is as slim as a match stick--well, almost--and our shoulders are broad." Five o'clock frocks were "very dressy afternoon dresses with jackets" in a "regular" dress length. Jacket dresses were fitted and in length hit a few inches belong the hipbone. The new bathing suits were "just a pair of jersey shorts and a matching jersey Brassiere!"

Coat collars were smartly worn up. Buttons were used freely as trims. Navy gloves were the newest rage, along with berets pulled over one eye. Necklines were interesting, making necklaces superfluous, but bracelets and earrings were essential.

 Golf clothes were sporty slender dresses worn with comfortable shoes.

One pages boasts, "Fabrics You Can See Through will See You Smartly Through Summer." The dresses were made of heavy sheer crepe, georgette, triple layers of chiffon, and heavy silk.

Evening gowns were not to be longer than the instep length. They had high or low necks, with  bare arms and exposed shoulders.

"All Paris is wearing suits with high waistline skirts". The left style was called "the new gigolo style."

The patterns sold for a quarter "for the Depressed Purse" or for thirty-five cents as "aids for Broken Down Bank Books."

The fabrics of the season included:

• Novelty Mesh, especially a white with bumpy black thread running through it in a check pattern. 
• Dotted Lawn with red and blue dots on a white ground
• Colonial prints on voile
• Handkerchief Linen printed with polka dots
• Amurise, a waffle weave for sportswear
• Pique for tailored cotton dresses, suggested in tan, orange, or yellow
• Printed Crepe in geometric patterns
• Cotton Shantung for pajamas in red polka-dots on white
• Pajama Cloth, a Bemberg that looks like wool but was cool and washable for sportswear
• Matuca, a lightweight silk for spectator sportswear
• Printed Crepe in a "town print" of navy blue with white print
• Triple Sheer in black for evening wear
• Irish Lace in red for a "gay summer dress"
• Ribbed Cottons 
• Sheer Woven Check for summer suits
• Bedford Cord, "an old timer," for coats and suits
• Seersucker, "ridiculous name!", "one of our smartest cottons!"

Color were blue, midnight blue, bright navy, and pale flax. Also yellow and lots of red and orange. For evening wear, they preferred white, with black, pink, and blue following.

The Summer Bride wanted a wedding gown in satin and lace, or silk crepe or taffeta. They were fitted, and could include a peplum, lace jacket, and a sheer long veil. Orange blossoms, white orchids, gardenias, roses, lilies of the valley, white lilacs and sweet peas were preferred flowers.

I love this hosiery ad on the inside back cover! But it looks dated in comparison to the fashions inside.

Peggy Cloth Book from 1947

I found this cloth book at the Royal Oak, MI flea market. It was badly stained but priced right. I used my Adobe Photoshop program to clean the pictures up. As I was working on it, I realized it was very, very familiar. If it had been mine as a baby, I would not remember it. But if I had read it to my younger brother that is a different story. I sure remember playing a lot of patty cake with my brother as his name starts with a "T" --Tommy!

This is how the cloth book cover looks photographed:

And these are how the illustrations look after I Photo-shopped them:

Love Entwined and a New Embroidery Project!

I have been working on Esther Aliu's Love Entwined applique project. Esther designed a pattern for a remarkable 1790 quilt that appears in Avril Colby's book Patchwork Quilts, and until recently was lost to time. She only had a black and white photograph to work with. Esther has been able to locate the quilt and the Yahoo group making this pattern are encouraging the owner to exhibit it.

There are literally hundreds of people making Love Entwined, and hundreds of different interpretations in color and fabric choices. I found a lovely green for the background and am using fabrics from my stash for the applique. I have a polka dot theme going on in my fabric choices.

You can find out more about Esther at her blog http://estheraliu.blogspot.com/ or join the Yahoo group working on this block of the month pattern at http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/estheraliubom/info

I also started an embroidery project. I created original designs for The Wizard of Oz! Here are the completed blocks. I hope to make this quilt pattern available on my Etsy store, Rosemont Needle Arts. I have finished The Scarcrow and Glenda the Good Witch. I am working on Dorothy and Toto, with The Cowardly Lion, The Tin Man, and The Wicked Witch of the West waiting for me to get to them.

The Brothers Karamozov Will Improve Your Social Intelligence

"In literary fiction, like Dostoyevsky, “there is no single, overarching authorial voice,” he said. “Each character presents a different version of reality, and they aren’t necessarily reliable. You have to participate as a reader in this dialectic, which is really something you have to do in real life.”

A article in the New York Times reports on a study conducted by social psychologists at the New School for Social Research in New York City where volunteers were given literay fiction, popular fiction, and non-fiction to read. The readers were then fiven tests that measure people’s ability to decode emotions or predict a person’s expectations or beliefs in a particular scenario.The results were startling. As reported in the article, written by Pam Belluck,

"The researchers — Emanuele Castano, a psychology professor, and David Comer Kidd, a doctoral candidate — found that people who read literary fiction scored better than those who read popular fiction. This was true even though, when asked, subjects said they did not enjoy literary fiction as much. Literary fiction readers also scored better than nonfiction readers — and popular fiction readers made as many mistakes as people who read nothing."

"This is why I love science,” Louise Erdrich, whose novel “The Round House” was used in one of the experiments, wrote in an e-mail. The researchers, she said, “found a way to prove true the intangible benefits of literary fiction."

Erdrich later says, “Writers are often lonely obsessives, especially the literary ones. It’s nice to be told what we write is of social value,” she said. “However, I would still write even if novels were useless.”

"Experts said the results implied that people could be primed for social skills like empathy, just as watching a clip from a sad movie can make one feel more emotional," Belluck wrote. This is exciting news for all who enjoy literature. And a good reason to continue to include literature in education curriculums. It build better people. 

I read The Round House a few months ago, a wonderful book. And have been reading the Brothers Karamazov over the last few weeks, a book I first read in 1970 and have read at least four times since then. I have been reading literary fiction since Sixth Grade. I can't say if it has made me a better person. But the now have a test for that!

Sea Shanties

In 1978 I took a class in folklore and a fellow student told me about the Philadelphia Folk Song festival held in Schwenksville, PA every year. He worked at the show every summer. Gary and I went that summer and the also the following summer. It was like Woodstock but for folk music. You camped in a farm field. There were porta-potties, food stands, and pumps for water. Yes, there were people smoking funny cigarettes during the concerts. I found out about contact highs. You sat on the ground. None of which I would do today!

But the music!!! We saw Pete Seeger and Dave Brubeck. Taj Mahal and U. Utah Phillips. We saw Roberts and Barrand with traditional British folk, and Gordon Bok with American sea shanties and original songs about Maine and fishing. We saw Stan Rogers, a Canadian singer, and Priscilla Herdman whose voice was remarkable. And that is just some I recall right away.

Hearing Gordon Bok, Stand Rogers, and  Roberts and Barrand left us with a love for sea shanties.

Roll and Go, Songs of American Sailormen by Joanna C. Colcord, published by Bobbs-Merrill in 1924, was another book I found in the basement boxes.

Sea Shanties were basically work songs, often call and response with a leader or shantyman singing a solo and the chorus sung by the sailors.The oldest is probably "Haul on the Bowline"(pronounced bo-lin) perhaps in use in the reign of Henry VIII. The slow melody ends with a jerk as the men 'fall back' on the rope. 

Halliard Shanties were used for longer and heavier tasks, like hoisting sail. Blow the Man Down is a familiar example, with a chorus followed by "Give me some time to blow the man down!"

A favorite of ours was Reuben Ranzo, a mythical sailor who was quite a failure.We loved to sing along. In the end Ranzo learned navigation and married the captain's daughter. A fine end for a guy who was unable to do his duty and was flogged for it!

The Windlass or Capstan Shanty was for continual process work, like pulling and hauling. The author writes that it is a glorious thing to hear the chain clanking below in rhythm  to the shanty. The well beloved Shenandoah falls into this category.

One of my favorites is Lowlands, a song that has been through many changes. Gordon Bok sings a version that I love.

His version goes:

Lowlands, lowlands, away me boys,

I thought I heard the captain say

Don't go to sea no more.

A dollar a day is a sailors pay.

I also love "Leave Her, Johnny", a melodic and melancholy tune where the sailors complain about their treatment.

Forecastle Songs were shared at the end of the day, when the men gathered round with a fiddle or concertina. One old ballad we always loved was The Derby [or Darby] Ram, which was sung by John Roberts and Tony Barrand. It is a humorous song and quite fun. 

Perhaps the most memorable Forecastle song I learned was the ancient The Golden Vanity, which we first heard sung by Richard Dyer Bennett around 1973, along with the Turkish Revelry version. Many versions exist, but they all tell the story of a cabin boy who offers to sink the enemy ship for a price. The captain offers his daughter and a fortune. The boy takes an auger and sinks the enemy galley, then swims back and calls to be hauled back aboard. The heartless captain refuses to save a mass murderer! The cabin boy replies, "If it were not for my love for your daughter and your men/I would do unto you as I did unto them."And the cabin boy perishes in the sea. Here is Burl Ives' version:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aQdX9k4BmI

Hear clips of these and other sea shanties at Smithsonian Folkways: Hear a clip at Smithsonian Folkways: http://www.folkways.si.edu/TrackDetails.aspx?itemid=4701 and also at http://www.folkways.si.edu/TrackDetails.aspx?itemid=42557

Perhaps my first favorite shanty was Sloop John B, sung by the Beach Boys, and was one of the first 45 record i ever purchased. Now that dates me! I still find myself singing that song, especially "I feel so broke up, I wanna go home."

1841 Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine, Fashions and Autography

Many years ago we used to vacation at Maine's Acadia National Park, camping out of a VW Super Beetle. My husband somehow managed to get out our camping needs into that car-- tent, Coleman stove and lantern, cooking gear, hiking boots, and some times we even took along a dachshund!

We liked to look at old book stores we found along the way. After a course in Victorian Studies, which included researching the magazines that flourished in that time, I also enjoyed finding bound magazines.


One Maine shop had a sale, and I picked up two volumes, one being a Graham's Magazine from 1841. It included a two part article by Edgar Allen Poe on autographs, or handwriting analysis. Poe offered  comments on the autographs of 100 famous men of his time. I was not a 'believer' but was a Poe fan. Poe explained that the article was meant to offer autographs of the literati, first as indicative of their character, second as of general interest, and lastly for a means for providing some gossip!

Washington Irving was deemed to be slovenly and unremarkable, which Poe thought was a result of easy fame. I admit I also believe that explosive fame and success too often leads to a writer's being less careful, the publisher less interested in editing, because sales are guaranteed regardless.



Poe thought that both William Cullen's Bryant and John Greenleaf Whittier 'had a clerk's hand. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow showed 'the force and vigor' evident in  his writing .But...Poe also thought his work derivative and unoriginal, while still being proportioned and elegant.



The best part of the volume is the hand colored, Mezzotinto and steel engraving fashion plates.The men all look like Prince Albert. And the women a lot like Queen Victoria.

January 1841

November 1841

September 1841

October 1841

July 1841

August 1841

Also needlework color plates appear.

Answered Prayers Are Not Always Welcome

Or, The Little Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings, written by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey and illustrated by Dorothy Grider.

Another childhood book I found in a box! When I was a girl a family friend worked in the schools and when the library discarded old books he brought them to the house and I had first pick. They were truly battered and worn, but I did not care a bit.

I loved this book. Perhaps for the illustrations as much as anything. I don't know that I truly made it's message a part of my life, for I have spent a lot of time over the years wishing I had what someone else had.

White Rabbit is well beloved by his mother and the neighborhood denizens, but every neighbor he meets has some attribute he wishes he had--the squirrel's bushy tail, the porcupine's back full of bristles, the duck's red rubbers. Mr Ground Hog tells White Rabbit about a wishing well, and off he hops to find it. That is when he sees a red bird, and wishes again, this time for red wings.

Well, he gets red wings. Quite excited, White Rabbit takes off to show his friends.

But no one recognizes him. (This reminds me of Little Galoshes, a Golden Book about a farm boy who always wears his galoshes, and when one day he forgets them the farm animals don't recognize him). Even White Rabbit's mother rejects him, and he is forced to sleep in a hole in a tree that is full of burrs.

Luckily, Mr Ground Hog advises White Rabbit to return to the wishing well and wish the wings off again. It works, and White Rabbit is accepted by his mother and friends.

These old stories for children were vehicles for teaching life lessons and seem didactic by today's sensibilities. Modern books for children are also teaching moments, but use real life experiences instead of cute fluffy animals.

I kinda like the fluffy animals myself.