Vintage Clothes Shopping

I spend a lot of time on my phone, like when the baby is nursing. I have been wasting a lot of time on Instagram lately (@mollysews but it is mostly baby pictures at this point).

There are a few vintage clothes sellers that I follow on Instagram. I (and lots of you) love vintage clothes and I use them for sewing inspiration since they are often horrifically expensive and usually not anywhere close to fitting me.

Two points for discussion:

1. I really really enjoy looking at the clothes, which are often very simple 50s dresses, and then looking at how much they cost. They are often well over $100 and so simple that you could buy a similar modern pattern on sale for 99 cents and then make a replica for less than $30. That is really why I got into sewing; I am so cheap at heart and love to gloat about how much money I saved (which only makes sense when you either talk about vintage or designer, not regular everyday stuff). Do any of you like copying expensive stuff and the feeling super proud? Mmmm, my favorite!

2. I see them tagging and labeling so MANY dresses as 40s and 50s and they are often very clearly not. Frankly, the 40s were 75 years ago and there really cannot be that many pristine and intact pieces to sell. I think lots of times they are similar styles from the 70s and it's just wishful thinking. I see the same thing with 80s dresses that were inspired by the 50s. Sometimes they tag it as "inspired" but not always. Granted, I can't see the labels and that would help determine if they are or aren't. I know a lot of the styles and features that date an outfit to a time period from sewing from vintage patterns for so long, but I am sure lots of their buyers have no clue. But then again, they may not care. Do you think there can really be THAT many pieces (shoes and dresses) from the 40s or 50s?

Either way, I love looking at the pictures and thinking about how I could and would sew that myself!

Versatile Bloggers!

I received this award from Crissy, whose blog I have loved for quite awhile. She is always hilarious and exciting!

Seven things about me:
1. I am back in the springtime teaching job hunt... wish me luck.

2. We are currently watching Breaking Bad obsessively and it is awesome. No spoilers, we are still in season 3! Any suggestions for another series to watch when this one is done?

3. I am trying to get T-Rex to perfect his "pretty sit" where he sits on his hind legs. It is so cute. His fat body is lacking some abs/balancing.

Business dog.

4. Andrew introduced me to Reddit and I think I have wasted (enjoyed?) an entire month of my life of that website. I love the askreddits the most, like today there was a "What's the worst gift you ever received?"

5.I love having raditor heat. I can put my towel on the radiator and then after I shower it's roasty toasty warm!

6. Tragically, I did not win last week's Megamillions lottery. Sniff. But I needed 500 million dollars! :)

7. I bought this game, Cards against Humanity,  from amazon (after seeing it on Reddit). It's just like Apples to Apples but all the words are better or dirty or hilarious. Soooooo fun! 

The person who plays the black card is the judge for the round. Everyone plays their best card in their hand and the judge gets to choose the winning white card. I just drew these at random to show you the hilarity. We played it once so far and it was so fun. So much hysterical laughing. 

I know you are supposed to nominate people, and I have no idea who has/has not received this award, so here are a few of my favorite blogs:

Meg is hilarious and excellent
Susan taught me how to use the Ruffler through her tutorials
Lladybird is always looking adorable and making 50 things a week
Camelia Crinoline makes cute vintage items and claims short like me, but I can't believe it...
Vivian Von Dimples creates burlesque costumes
Lisette sews and speaks French and is awesome!

Have a great day!

Dress Love- I want to copy this!

Has anyone else been watching Project Runway this year? I quit watching it three or four years ago because I got so sick of crappy people winning, but now I am liking it again. Point being, for some reason it is an hour and a half long. When it was over I turned on the end of a Bones episode, knowing I had probably already seen it. I had, but it had this dress in it!

 I had searched high and low online and could never find anything about it because I didn't remember the name of the episode or anything. The pictures suck because I took them of the tv. Now I know that its episode 6.4, but there are still no pictures of it!

 Now, I know you're thinking "really, Molly? After last weeks epic failure at color blocking, you think you should make this dress? LOL!"

I love this dress! I want to make it! I want to know what the BACK looks like! It's so flattering and hot! I wants it!

Dress Idea/ Coat Inspiration

I saw this coat in my last issue of Lucky and I really liked it. There is a much better zoom in and out feature on the website here.

I am picturing it as a dress, though. I really like the front, of course. I also like the long sleeves. I like the cuffs. The bodice has double princess seams, which I like. I also really like the fitted waist with the two big pleats on either side. Or would tucks be the right word? I even found the perfect fabric in my Winter 2010 mailer from Vogue Fabrics. It feels like a microfiber of some kind, and it's the exact shade of green. It has that nice microfiber fuzziness and a bit of stretch. I like the look velvet would give it, but velvet is too hot, too expensive and too impractical with the dry-cleaning.

I would have to draft a pattern, I guess. Maybe Tasia will draft one for me and add it to her line of patterns! I'll cross my fingers!

What do you think, could this become a cute winter dress?