If they don't make 'em like they used to - make 'em yourself!

It's no secret to those who know me that as well as superheroes and skulls, I'm also a big fan of all things vintage.

The vintage scene is huge at the moment and there are a lot of fabulous bloggers out there who are much better and more knowledgeable about it than me*, so don't worry, I'm not going to start writing fashion columns or telling you how to achieve perfect Victory rolls while plucking your eyebrows into a sublime arch and rocking your latest peplum (although I'd love to be able to tell you how to do all those things. In fact, if you guys find out, can you tell me, please? I'm rubbish at all of that). In fact I am very much a beginner, until recently more of an admirer from afar, but I have found myself with more and more 'vintage inspired' pieces in my wardrobe.

Being a sensibly-sized person, and with some experience of trying costumes on for stage productions, I find it tricky to find genuine vintage pieces that fit. They'll often fit my waist and hips, but get up to the shoulders and I've no chance. Seriously, did women prior to 1970 have no shoulders at all? It's a pet theory of mine that women of yesteryear never had any need to raise their arms above waist height and therefore it didn't matter that it was impossible to move out of the penguin position at any time.

But, oh, it's those 1930's and 40's outfits, with their slim sleeves, exquisite tailoring and glorious silhouettes that I am drawn to again and again. A 50's circle dress, such as the wonderful repro versions available from Vivien of Holloway, is great for a party (or, indeed, a team of piratical bridesmaids), but it's so much harder to find - and wear - that Golden Age look from a few decades earlier, especially if you don't have the money to a) buy genuine pieces and b) hire minions to hail taxis for you and do all the other things that might require you to lift your arms to an unladylike angle.

So it was with great joy and jubilation that I came across a wonderful US pattern site the other day.

Evadress.com offer a drool-worthy collection of clothing patterns from yesteryear, all re-drafted in order to cater for multiple modern sizes. Everything from achingly beautiful evening gowns to dapper gents trousers (don't forget your pipe), and this frankly batshit-awesome 1887 halloween costume.

My wings are a shield of steel. And crinoline.

It's a costume-lover's candy store and I want to buy and make everything. In the end, I have settled on this beautiful trouser ensemble from 1936. I'm planning on making the view on the left from some sort of smashing tweedy sort of material.

I shall also endeavour to perfect the  Sideways Look of Disdain

The pattern arrived in the post yesterday and I have only had time to glance at it briefly. Like all patterns, upon first glance it feels a little like stumbling across an ancient manuscript covered in complex diagrams and symbols from a language that time forgot, but I'm sure it will come into focus once I look more closely. Otherwise I'll just nip to the British Museum and see if they'll lend me the Rosetta Stone.

It's likely to be a slow project, as I'm simultaneously launching the made-to-order-clothing side of the Emporium (follow me on Facebook for more news on that!), but I shall pop back with updates and let you know how I get on.

I'd love to hear from anyone else who's used an Evadress pattern. How did it work out for you?

*Check out the gorgeous ladies who make up the Vintage Mafia, for starters. The marvellous Fleur de Guerre's Diary of a Vintage Girl is one of my particular favourites. 

Off piste.

I promise both myself and my house look less moody than this in real life...

One of the - admittedly extremely few - drawbacks to my newfound and still quite baffling mild success at making stuff and selling it is the fact that I can't keep any of it myself. I'd love a skull handbag, or a Viewmaster Cushion, but if I just hoard everything I will a) never get any money for it and be back at square one and b) have a house even more full of mismatched cushions and handbags I don't really need. Not that there's anything wrong with having loads of handbags. Really. In fact, everyone should have at least a dozen handbags. And they should buy them all from me. Ahem.

Sometimes though, I come across something that's just so god-damned amazeballs that to see it go to someone else would just make me weep. Such as the truly epic Robert Kaufman horror movie material I bought last week. Normally I tend to buy fat quarters and half metres of fabric, but this time I new it would be so cool I had to buy a full metre (I know, easy tiger). And then when it arrived, I couldn't bear the idea of chopping it up and selling it on.

So. A metre of fabric, covered in awesome Hammer horror monsters. Frankly, I was happy just to wrap it around myself like a blanket and sleep under it, but I knew that it needed to be seen by the wide world. So I decided to make a dress.

I've only ever made one dress before, and that was a fiendishly complicated 1950's job, which turned out OK (against all odds), but was entirely pattern based. This time I decided to fly solo.

How hard can it be?

Well, not very, it appears. Even I managed it. I folded it in half, sewed it together up the side, and put a length of elastic at the top to hold it up. So far, so good. Then for a waist, another length of elastic, this time sewn straight onto the back of the fabric with a zigzag stitch. I have no idea if this is how you are meant to do it, but it seemed to work. A hem at the bottom (courtesy of my eternally patient Significant Otter who pinned it up while I stood on a chair and made picky comments), and ta da! A tube dress is born!

I love these so much they have their own shelf. One day I may get them a spotlight.

It needed a belt to hide the fact that it is, basically, a sack, but I'm still pretty chuffed. I added a couple of straps to make a tie-up halterneck just in case the elastic were to give way under the enormous weight of my heaving bosoms (yeah, whatever). 

And the best thing? For the first time ever, I have an entirely co-ordinated skirt and shoe ensemble. I know! I'm a proper grown up!

my name is lemurlady and i am addicted to pretty patterns

Since my first tentative forays into sewing only a few short months ago, I have developed a problem. It's not recognised by the NHS and as far as I know there aren't any treatments available, but it is becoming a serious concern.

I am addicted to shopping for pretty fabric.

It all started with the awesome dino-fabric, then I moved on to the harder stuff - woodland animals, skulls, retro 50's prints....I don't know where it will end.

Websites such as http://www.fabricrehab.co.uk/ (which sounds like it should be a source of help, but only feeds my addiction), are like catnip to me. I trawl through the pages and just need to own the stoned owl print, or the psychedelic butterflies, or that autumn leaf pattern that looks oh-so-temptingly like the sort of thing they printed on dinnerware in the 1970s. Must own!

Problem is, there's only so many cushion covers and bags I actually need, and only so many polite friends offering to take them off my hands. But I can't stop, not while there's still robot fabric I don't own http://www.fabricrehab.co.uk/fabric.php?product=1473&cat=7 (oh bugger, I was only joking then, but now I really want it. Argh).

Still. I have made use of some of it. I made this bag from some fabby voodoo-skull cotton, and luckily a friend has very kindly accepted it as a present and appears to be very happy with it, so at least I'm sharing the love (and the awesome skull print).

I've got another one of these on the go, with the same pattern but with a white background to the skulls and black canvas.

For something nice and mindless to do this evening, I decided to whip up a cushion cover from a woodland animal print I'm particularly fond of. The plain brown back has a pillowcase-style opening so it can be taken on and off (much easier than zips and none of that zip-imprint on your face when you get drunk and pass out on it. Don't pretend you don't know what I mean). It matches nothing in my house but frankly when you've got cartoon mooses colour co-ordination becomes redundant. I'm especially enamoured of the bear that looks like he's just remembered he left the gas on in his bear-house.

I made the pattern up as I went along and I'm pretty pleased with it (yes, I know it is essentially just a square but humour me, I'm only a beginner. There was a lot of measuring, honest).

So. If you need any cushion covers or small satchel-like handbags let me know. Might I suggest something with robots?

Bag Lady

A while back I got some very cool fabric with dinosaurs on it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with it, other than make everything out of it because all things are made at least 350% better with the addition of dinosaurs. Science fact.

I finally decided to start off with a bag. I cycle to work, lugging everything there and back in very uncool panniers. This means that at lunchtime, if I want to pop out to take advantage of the vast array of high-end shops on Clapham High Street (ok, Neros and Boots), I have no handbag and have to wedge all my stuff in my pockets. With this in mind, today I embarked on my first bagmaking project, using the dinosaur print and some canvas to make a basic satchel, with pockets for my phone, Oyster card, and MP3 player, and a big main section the right size to take a book. Everything I might need for my lunchtime adentures, and all in a bag that can fold up tiny and light and stick in the pocket of my panniers. Yes, I am this sad.

I also made a little purse out of some dinosaur scraps. Scraps of dinosaur fabric, that is, not discarded scales.

Surprisingly, they actually turned out not too bad. Hurray for dinosaurs!