Vintage Sewing Patterns From My Past

In junior high, I had a required class in home sewing. We made an apron the Bishop Method and then an A-line skirt with darts and a back zipper. I chose to make a deep purple skirt. By the next year, I had outgrown it.

I really liked sewing and imagined making all my own clothing, just as I had dreamed of making Barbie doll clothes a few years before. Mom bought a used machine but she had trouble with it and nothing was made.

My mother-in-law was an addicted sewer. She was making all her own clothes, even pjamas and underwear! I taught myself to sew after my husband bought me a sewing machine for our first Christmas in 1972. While he studied in the evening, I kept busy with my Singer. 

One of my early projects was a snap front robe made with prequilted material.
Christmas 1973, me with our litter box trained pet rabbit.

Before he graduated I was making dresses, t-shirts, blouses, jeans, and skirts. I made leisure-suit coats and even a cassock for Gary! I learned by doing. My first sewing class was a gift when I graduated from university in 1978; I received a Stretch-and-Sew class voucher. I made a swimsuit.

I recently found a great resource for vintage patterns. It was fun identifying patterns I remember making.

This jumper pattern was one of my earlest projects. I made the short version in a yellow and purple acrylic big plaid. I loved the big pockets. I'm shocked there are no photos of me wearing it. I wore it every week to work with a full sleeve white blouse with a deep pointed collar.

Simplicity 5862; ©1973; Misses' Jumper in Two Lengths (Approximate Length of Short Jumper is 36"): The short jumper V. 1 and ankle length jumper V. 2 with bodice and skirt stitched to midriff has back zipper, shoulder straps and bias patch pockets.

I made several long sleeved smock tops with the pattern below. Actually, I wish I still had it. Those pockets are great!

McCall's 3522; ©1973; Misses Dress or Smock. Pullover dress or smock has puffed sleeves. Long sleeves gather into snapped cuffs. A, B, with drawstring in waistline casing has rick rack and eyelet or lace ruffling. B with Button trimmed front band or C with trimming has patch pockets.

These were the days of the 'leisure suit' and I made some coats for Gary, as well as ties, a bathrobe, and a cassock.

My husband in a leisure suit coat I made. 1973.

In 1978 I made a jacket similar to the green one in the middle on the above pattern. I bought a black and white tweed fabric at a designer fabric warehouse in Northeast Philadelphia. Gary wore the jacket when we picked up a vacuum cleaner we won at a local appliance store. I am wearing a woven plaid jacket I made. It had a belt, but it looks unbelted in this photo.

I remember owning this pattern.

I made this dress for my husband's graduation.

McCall's 3871; ©1973; Misses' and Junior Dress. High waisted, back zippered dress has puffed sleeves with elastic in casings, tie belt included in side seams. A, C has lower sleeves. A with lace trim, or B with lace ruffling has standing collar.

Not a good photo, but I made lots of T-shirts like I have on in the photo below,  taken on a trip to the Finger Lakes.

This top could be worn over a turtleneck. Once again...big pockets! I don't recall if I made this pattern or not, but I know I owned it.

Simplicity 6529; ©1974; Misses' Unlined Jiffy Jacket and Pants: The pants, without side seams, have elastic waistline casing and a back zipper. The top-stitched, unlined jacket, with front yoke and sleeves, has a front button closing, flapped patch pockets and elbow length kimono type sleeves wtih turn back cuffs.

Featured in Simplicity Fashion News, September, 1974

I made a short sleeved jacket with a matching skirt, here worn over a sleeveless shell. The print fabric had a bright green background!

The top on the far right on the pattern below is like one I made and embellished with the built-in stitches on my Bernina 830. I often wore it with bell bottom jeams when I was first attending Temple University.

I made this jumper and blouse around 1979. The blouse had a short stand-up collar and narrow cuffs. The dress was a wrap-around with a front and back panel that tied at the waist.

I wore this dress to class during my last semester at university. It had narrow pleats in the yoke.

Around 1980 I got this awful perm, so that dates this dress that I made. The photos were taken at Longwood Gardens in Chester Co, PA.

It had a buttoned bodice. I needed a class in how to adjust patterns to fit better since I was no longer a straight size.

I adored the Folkwear patterns and collected a few but the only one I made was this prairie dress. I wore it for Thanksgiving dinner.

I made this prairie skirt in a small blue and white check.

I loved, loved, loved this coat! The hood and deep pockets were so useful. I made it a herringbone woven fabric in brown and burgundy. 

When I found a patternless dress in a magazine I made it quite a few times. It made a good pregnancy dress. It used the width of the fabric for the skirt and top, cutting out a hole for the head. 

1987 at my baby shower

I made this maternity dress with a large color and huge bow. 

I wore this knit dress for our son's christening. It had dolman sleeves and a gathered waist.

Below, on the right, I am in a patternless outfit holding Chris in a shirt and overall I made that had bunnies on the bib. I enjoyed making lots of clothes for my baby and toddler.

I made this jacket for our son several times. It closed with velcro.

I made this paisley dress in the early 1990s, one of the last items I sewed for myself.

 A short set I made our son. He would chose fabrics.

By this time I was making quilts instead of clothing.

Feared by Lisa Scottolline

It was Lisa Scottoline's Rosato and DiNunzio series that brought me to reading her and Mary DiNunzio remains a favorite character. Who can resist a South Philly girl with a close Italian community that includes so many Tonys--Pigeon Tony, Tony 'Two-Feet', Tony-From-Down-the-Block, not to forget Mary's husband Anthony! Just reading about her mother's gravy makes me hungry for pasta.

In Feared, Scottoline once again puts Mary in harm's way. But this time it's not just Mary's life that is on the line, for she is seven months pregnant.

Nick Machiavelli has targeted Bennie Rosato and her partners Mary and Judy in a lawsuit accusing them of sex discrimination in hiring. And their associate John's own words are being used against them. They are being sued as individuals and they could lose everything.

Then John turns up dead and Judy is the last one to have seen him alive.

Mary struggles with the demands of her career and impending motherhood. Judy mourns the loss of her happy ending. The clients are small fry business owners who are about to be swallowed by the big fish in the market. And John's brother with Cerebral Palsy may be force feed for convenience.

With her signature blend of humor, memorable characters, mystery, and thrills, the novel kept me turning pages. Through twists and turns and red herrings, you will be on a wild ride to an unexpected resolution.

I received an ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Feared: A Rosato & DiNunzio Novel
by Lisa Scottoline
St. Martin's Press
Pub Date 14 Aug 2018
ISBN 9781250099594
PRICE $27.99 (USD)

Our Homesick Songs by Emma Hooper

I adored Emma Hooper's first novel Etta and Otto and Russell and James, which I read in 24 hours, and which had me in tears. I finished my review with the words "Read it."

So I was super excited to read Hooper's new novel Our Homesick Songs. I had high expectations and was not disappointed. I was enchanted by the writing.

The story is set in a small Newfoundland fishing village suffering from the impact of over-fishing by commercial ships that are "big as bergs; monster-big" and able to hold "a whole sea" of fish. Their livelihood over, the villagers leave, going West for jobs on mainland Canada.

The Connor family is hanging on. The parents Aiden and Martha share alternating monthly shifts working inland where they are surrounded by concrete, steel, and trucks, the light and noise never-ending. Martha asks a co-worker what it was like "here, before" and he tells her, "There were only trees."

Daughter Cora longs to leave the island for a 'normal' life packed with other children. She turns the empty houses into travel destinations.

Son Finn loves his home and feels at one with the land. He carries his accordion with him, even on the boat, playing traditional Newfoundland jigs and reels and airs to the open seas and clouded skies around him. He endeavors to bring back the fish, wondering if any are left in the oceans anywhere, and hoping the community will return.

The Connor parents work inland with other displaced workers. They are lonely and isolated, forever separated, seeing each other only in passing as they change places at the ferry every month. During their month home, the parents sing less. They return tired and depressed. The stress and distance wear on their marriage.

Like Hooper's first novel, there is a touch of magical realism and the characters go on journeys both physical and internal. The parent's charming backstory is sweet and magical, their courting taking place on boats at sea in the night, and includes a treacherous sea journey.

The history behind the novel caught my interest: the loss of the cod which was the basis of an entire way of life. A quick Internet search and I learned how overfishing decimated the cod, forcing the Canadian government to enact the 1992 moratorium on cod fishing that left 35,000 Newfoundlanders out of work.  The impact on community and family life is portrayed in Our Homesick Songs.

Newfoundland is central to the novel, its rocky shores and waters and snow and ice and bergs vividly described. And so is the Celtic music of Newfoundland, brought by the Irish. Social gatherings conclude with music.

Finn travels across the water to his music lessons. His elderly teacher Mrs. Callaghan captures his imagination with strange stories about snakes becoming fish and shipwrecks harboring the fish. She tells him that the songs were how the sailors and explorers remembered their homes. They are all homesick songs, even the happy ones, she says. When Finn cannot sleep at night, he calls his teacher and she tells him stories.

One song that reoccurs is The Water is Wide, an ancient song from Great Britain, which Aidan sings early in the novel. Others include the love song She's Like the Swallow and fiddle tunes Finn plays such as The Newfoundland Black Bear and The Cotton Grass Air, The Fish of the Sea.

"No, the dead can't sing, Aidan, that's why the living have to."

Aiden has a coffee cup that reads "Squidjiggingground" which is also the name of a song by Arthur Scammell about squid fishermen. The lyrics give a sense of the life that has been lost, the camaraderie and community.

Oh this is the place where the fishermen gather
Oil-skins and boots and the Cape hands batten down;
All sizes of figures with squid lines and jiggers,
They congregate here on the Squid-Jiggin' Ground.

Some are workin' their jiggers, while others are yarnin',
There's some standin' up and there's more lyin' down;
While all kinds of fun, jokes, and drinks are begun,
As they wait for the squid on the Squid-Jiggin' Ground.

The story feels like a tale told by Finn's accordion teacher, a fairy tale with magic feathers and mermaids singing. And like most folk tales, the underlying reality is terrifyingly real.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Our Homesick Songs
by Emma Hooper
Simon & Schuster
Pub Date 14 Aug 2018
ISBN 9781501124488
PRICE $26.00

from the publisher: 

From Emma Hooper, critically acclaimed author of Etta and Otto and Russell and James, a People magazine “Pick of the Week,” comes a lyrical, charming, and mystical story of a family on the edge of extinction, and the different way each of them fights to keep hope, memory, and love alive. 

The Connor family is one of the few that is still left in their idyllic fishing village, Big Running; after the fish mysteriously disappeared, most families had no choice but to relocate and find work elsewhere. Aidan and Martha Connor now spend alternate months of the year working at an energy site up north to support their children, Cora and Finn. But soon the family fears they’ll have to leave Big Running for good. And as the months go on, plagued by romantic temptations new and old, the emotional distance between the once blissful Aidan and Martha only widens. 

Between his accordion lessons and reading up on Big Running’s local flora and fauna, eleven-year-old Finn Connor develops an obsession with solving the mystery of the missing fish. Aided by his reclusive music instructor Mrs. Callaghan, Finn thinks he may have discovered a way to find the fish, and in turn, save the only home he’s ever known. While Finn schemes, his sister Cora spends her days decorating the abandoned houses in Big Running with global flair—the baker’s home becomes Italy; the mailman’s, Britain. But it’s clear she’s desperate for a bigger life beyond the shores of her small town. As the streets of Big Running continue to empty Cora takes matters—and her family’s shared destinies—into her own hands. 

In Our Homesick Songs, Emma Hooper paints a gorgeous portrait of the Connor family, brilliantly weaving together four different stories and two generations of Connors, full of wonder and hope. Told in Hooper’s signature ethereal style, each page of this incandescent novel glows with mythical, musical wonder.

See the author discuss her first book at
 https://youtu.be/5Z3hH4n0tmQ

The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief and Transformation by Rainer Maria Rilke

Gleaned from Rainer Maria Rilke's voluminous, never-before-translated correspondence, this book collects the poet's best writings on grief and loss in one place for the first time. The result is a profound vision of the mourning process and a meditation on death's place in our lives, as well as a compilation of sensitive and moving expressions of consolation and condolence. from the publisher

Rainer Maria Rilke wrote over 14,000 letters before his tragic death from leukemia at age fifty-one, we are informed in the Preface to The Dark Interval. This volume consists of two dozen of Rilke's condolence letters, newly translated and gathered into one volume. Also included is a letter Rilke wrote to his Polish translator in which he discusses the themes communicated in his poetry.

The letters convey Rilke's philosophy of accepting death as part of existence, embracing the pain, and ensuring that we never truly lose loved ones, they are always with us and their work becomes our work.

I was in my late 20s when I picked up Rilke's slim volume Letters to a Young Poet. I kept the book close, often rereading it, and I gave copies to friends. I added Rilke's poetry to my shelves. I will never forget sitting on the cliffs of Mt. Desert Island, under blue skies with gulls circling overhead, the rushing sea and lobster boats below, and opening for the first time Duino Elegies to read,

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the Angelic
Orders? And even if one were to suddenly
take me to its heart, I would vanish into its
stronger existence. For beauty is nothing but
the beginning of terror, that we are still able to bear,
and we revere it so, because it calmly disdains
to destroy us.

Forty years later I still return to Rilke again and again, struggling to understand the letters and poems that have moved me so. I had no idea that The Dark Interval would offer so many answers.

I read a letter at a time, for Rilke's original ideas take concentration and thought. These are letters I will read and reread.

On the death of Countess Alexandrine Schwerin's father Rilke wrote, "...have faith in what is most horrible, instead of fighting it off--it reveals itself for those who can trust it," for "death is only a relentless way of making us familiar and even intimate with the side of our existence that is turned away from us."

To Nanny Wunderly-Volkart he wrote, "We have to get used to the fact that we rest in the pause between two of God's breaths: for that means: to be in time...The brief time of our existence is probably precisely the period when we lose all connection to him and, drifting apart from him, become enmeshed in the creation which he leaves alone."

To Countess Margot Sizzo-Noris-Crouy on the death of her mother, Rilke wrote, "...we should make it our deep and searing curiosity to explore such loss completely and to experience the particular and singular nature of this loss and its impact within our life." He again mentions death as the side of life "permanently turned away from us, and which is not its opposite but its complement to attain perfection, consummation, and the truly complete and round sphere and orb of being." Death is a friend, he consoles, the true yes-sayer. In another letter to the Countess he writes about life's horrors and the unity of bliss and horror as "two faces of the same divinity" as the meaning of his Sonnets to Orpheus.

Rilke's letter to Witold Hulewiz, who translated Rilke's writing into Polish, he addresses the central theme of "the affirmation of life-and-death," death being the "side of life turned away from us."

"Transience everywhere plunges unto a deep being," he wrote Hulewiz. The angel of the Elegies "is that being which vouches for the recognition of the invisible at a higher order of reality." 

Rilke states that his angels are not biblical but is "that creature in whom the transformation of the visible into the invisible...appears already consummated." And that is what terrifies we mortals so for we cling to the visible world.

As Letters to a Young Poet can help us learn how to live, The Dark Interval can show us how to accept the mystery of the future which we cannot see or know.

The title The Dark Interval comes from a poem in Rilke's Book of Hours which ends,

I am the rest between two notes
That harmonize only reluctantly:
For death wants to become the loudest tone--

But in the dark interval they reconcile
Tremblingly, and get along.
And the beauty of the song goes on.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation
by Rainer Maria Rilke
translated by Ulrich Baer
Random House Modern Library
Pub Date 14 Aug 2018 
ISBN 9780525509844
PRICE $22.00 (USD)

I have previously written about Rilke at

The Rilke of Ruth Speirs: New Poems, Duino Elegies, Sonnets to Orpheus & Others
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-rilke-of-ruth-speirs-new-poems.html

Roots of Understanding: Letters to a Young Poet
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2014/04/roots-of-understanding-letters-to-young.html

Review of You Must Change Your Life: the Friendship of Auguste Rodin and Ranier Maria Rilke
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-friendship-of-auguste-rodin-and.html

Meet Me At the Museum by Anne Youngson

Anne Youngson's debut is a charming epistolary novel about strangers who discover themselves through letter writing. Tina's one fatal mistake lead to a life as a farmer's wife, and now that her best friend has died she is struggling to find purpose and meaning.

Tina writes to Prof. Glob about the Tollund Man, which she longs to see for herself. She learns that the Professor has died when Anders, a museum curator, responds. They continue to write to each other and a friendship grows. As they share their ideas, losses, and disappointments, the reader observes a meeting of minds and hearts blossoming.

Meet Me at the Museum was inspired by the Tollund Man, the prehistoric preserved body which in 1952 was discovered in a Danish bog. Professor P. V. Glob excavated the remains and wrote the book The Bog People, which I remember reading in the early 1970s. In 1970 the poet Seamus Heaney wrote the poem The Tollund Man. Youngson was haunted by the poem and the image of the Tollund Man, intrigued by the mystery of the man's life and death.

The Tollund Man

This quiet novel, in which nothing much happens, about people who are not in themselves anyone in particular, will not engage readers who prefer a plot line that catapults you into a page-turning frenzy. It was a perfect read as I sat under the apple trees on my patio, the robins splashing in the bird bath and the bees flocking to the flowering oregano in the herb garden. Complications do arise in the character's lives and decisions must be made. But the book is about Tina's and Ander's self-analysis and evolving thoughts on matters and ideas and choices and life. It is the story of a slowly blossoming relationship built on an open exchange of ideas, communicating about their internal and external growth. They share lessons they have learned.

Such as Tina's observation that when raspberry picking, you go down the row and select all the ripe berries, then turn around and note all the ones you missed because you only saw one side of the bush.

Can people go back and find the berries they missed on the first walk through life?

That is what the novel is about.

I received a free ARC from the publisher. My review is fair and unbiased.

Meet Me At the Museum
by Anne Youngson
Flatiron Books
Publication August 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-29516-3

So Much Life Left Over by Louis De Bernieres

Daniel was a legendary WWI Flying Ace, a survivor of the war now facing an immensity of endless days filled with trivialities. As a tea manufacturer in Ceylon, he has the company of Hugh who was also a pilot in the war, and a bright future in an exotic land. Daniel's wife Rosie is pregnant with their second child.

After the war, Daniel's brother Archie went to India, He is a risk taker and a drunk, in love with Rosie who married Daniel after her fiance died in the war. Rosie's sister Otillie in England is in love with Archie, but he distrusts anyone who could love him. He prefers his hopeless and unrequited love for Rosie. He writes to Otillie,"You could not have been my salvation, because no one ever will be. I am one of the damned..reconciled to my fate here in this most godforsaken and lunatic corner of the Empire."

Daniel and Archie also lost two brothers in South Africa.

'I used to have three brothers," he said fiercely, 'and now I only have one. Two brothers lost to the Empire. Both killed in South Africa. My father is dead. Archie is the only brother I have left.'

Rosie's sister Sophie married a clergyman who writes novels; they have been unable to have children. And then there is sister Christabel, a Bloomsbury Bohemian living with Gaskell, two women artists who long for a child. Gaskell tells Daniel, "We are looking for a new way to live...There must be a better way of doing things." They later involve Daniel in their 'new way.'

The war haunts Daniel and Rosie. For the moment they are living on the tea plantation like kings in paradise, expecting a second child. But happiness is elusive, and their marriage is imperiled by tragedy. Rosie retreats into religion leaving Daniel to find love elsewhere. Daniel dearly loves his children, especially his eldest, Esther. But as the marriage falls apart the children become pawns.

Their generation fought to save civilization. Louis De Bernieres writes that returning to civilian life, some men became drunks while others turned inward, some embraced the new world while others returned to their old life repressing the war into distant memory. Each character has been scared and altered by the war.

"Mr. Wragge was content in his modest paradise. After the death marches, and the months of tunneling in the mountains with a pick, this English garden was indeed a dream of Eden...Oily Wragge was determined to salvage his sanity out of the purgatorial experience of captivity."

So Much Life Left Over was a wonderful read, with gorgeous writing and interesting, conflicted characters. Daniel and Rosie and their families were wonderfully drawn. There are moments of humor and scenes of great sorrow. Even the minor characters, like Rosie's mother Mrs. McCosh and Oily Wragge are memorable.

Daniel and Mr. Wragge go to Germany to start a motorcycle business with former POWs Daniel had captured and befriended. Daniel witnesses firsthand the rising anti-Semitism that fuels the rise of Hitler. The dynamics are eerily familiar and disturbing. Nearly 100 years later, and we seem to be repeating history.

The novel continues the story in The Dust that Falls From Dreams, which I had not read and which one does not need to have read to enjoy this book. So Much Life Left Over has an open ending, with Daniel making a momentous decision. I felt I knew what he decides, but I am sure there is going to be another volume to continue his story. In the meantime, I do want to read more by de Bernieres, who also wrote Corelli's Violin.

Read an excerpt at
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/594960/so-much-life-left-over-by-louis-de-bernieres/9781524747886/

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

So Much Life Left Over
by Louis de Bernieres
Pantheon
Hardcover | $26.95
Publication date: Aug 07, 2018
ISBN 9781524747886

There There by Tommy Orange

When I read the powerful Prologue in Tommy Orange's novel There There through the First Look Book Club I knew I had to read this book. A distinct, strong voice offered an abbreviated history of Indian-European relations and our stereotyped images of Indians. It was brutal and blunt.

"We are the memories we don't remember, which live in us, which we feel, which make us sing and dance and pray the way we do, feelings from memories that flare and bloom unexpectedly in our lives like blood through a blanket from a wound made by a bullet fired by a man shooting us in the back for our hair, our heads, for a bounty, or just to get rid of us." Prologue, There There   

I was a lucky giveaway winner and began reading the book as soon as it arrived.

Orange imagined a novel for the untold stories of urban Native Americans, people who have lost their traditions yet are labeled as 'other' by society. Readers meet a community of characters seeking to understand who they are, struggling with alcoholism, broken families, poverty, and addiction. 

They are all headed to the Big Oakland Powwow, to reconnect with family or their heritage or to find an easy way out.

"We all came to the Big Oakland Powwow for different reasons. The messy, dangling threads of our lives got pulled into a braid--tied to the back of everything we'd been doing all along to get us here. We've been coming from miles. And we've been coming for years, generations, lifetimes, layered in prayer and handwoven regalia, beaded and sewn together, feathered, braided, blessed, and cursed." from Interlude, There There

There are a lot of characters--twelve--and each chapter skips from one character to another, building our understanding of a bigger picture. We know from the first character's story that everyone is heading into danger which creates tension as our investment in the characters deepens. The climax likewise is told from multiple viewpoints, and with Orange's beautiful writing, even violence becomes a dance and an awakening.

The book is already a national bestseller that has garnered acclaim. It is a sensational debut.

There There
by Tommy Orange
A. A. Knopf
$25.95 hardbound
ISBN: 978-0-525-52037-5