Make Something Sunday: Holiday Slug-a-Bed

With my mom gone, I'm having some *ahem* motivational issues. I get up every day and do what needs to be done, but preparing for Christmas moved sluggishly. My manic decorating (our tree and decorations met an unfortunate end in The Flood) and relentless Christmas music playing have gone by the wayside this year. It's also still quite crowded with stuff at my mom's place – no real space for a tree. I now see why my mom only had the tiny crèche…

But my kids needed some level of holiday normalcy – and that means a tree! So we made one, a window-mounted one! Our tree is a mass of snowflakes made from old Boden catalogs with the tree-shaped trunk pages made from Garnet Hill catalogs.

The kids did a great job making snowflakes and it was a great project to work on while watching Harry Potter #8. The "star" is a giant bow from Dollar Tree.

When we first worked on it two Saturdays ago, I taped green lights to the tree.

That did not work as the lights are too heavy for the paper. The lights are now relegated to a cute hurricane lamp to the side of the tree.

Total Tree Cost: $1 (for the bow/star from Dollar Tree)

Overall I'm pleased with the outcome and the kids have a tree. And, being the procrastinator I am, I made the cereal box gift bag for my sister's gifts yesterday (uh huh, on Christmas day). The velvet ribbon was marked down from $5.99 to $0.99 at Michael's last week. And the golden Christmas tree wrapping paper used as a cover ie from my mom's stash.

Vintage Coat Dresses

The Vintage Patterns Wiki has a number of categories. One of the "dresses" subcategories is coat dresses. There are some lovely early New Look examples such as

Advance 7800 with the double row of buttons.


Gotta love the asymmetrical buttons, mandarin collar, and flared skirt on this McCall's 8585 coat dress.


The McCall’s 8609 coat dress is reminiscent of a wiggle dress.


I think it's wonderful that some coat dress lines are easily recognizable in later decades as well. It is especially helpful to know that since many of the earlier decades’ patterns are not within my price range, not within my size range, or not available at all. With a little adaptation, a more modern pattern can provide a very good retro result.

Advance 7800's double row of buttons and lapped collar are echoed in the 1970s Vogue 2606.



And the 1980s love of big shoulders and big collars is (*cough cough*) somewhat similar to the wiggle coat dress above.

Hooray for the wiki!

A New Pastime

Now that I’m at a job where I sit at a computer most of the day, (my smartphone and) I have developed a new pastime: I look at vintage patterns on Vintage Patterns Wiki. I remember when Erin over at Dress a Day set it up. I finally have time to peruse the lovely images on there.

I know that lots of folks who love vintage are infatuated with the twirly, swishy crinoline confections from the 1950s. My body and 50s circle skirts only nod in passing. Not for lack of my trying, but I don’t think circle skirts do it for me. The 60s silhouettes generally make me look pregnant – not good when I’m not.

But the 1940s. Ah, the 1940s. I have spent a number of hours looking through the decade category. I think the 40s lines are for me: The pre-war knee length numbers on to the post-1947 early New Look frocks. I will know soon enough since I bought this lovely for a good price on eBay.

It should be here soon!