Sewing Lottery

My Spring Break posts are all out of order. I think each day has provided me with enough photos for two or three posts. So bare with me while I sort through them! 

My grandmother and I spent Monday going to the various little shops in the town near them. They live outside an itty bitty hamlet called Pacific City. It's charming and tiny and everything closes around 4pm except the token dive bar complete with beer-bellied men with long white beards and a smattering of aging fishermen in heavy coats and wool caps. I love it. The area surrounding this hamlet is all farm land or forest. It's pretty much perfection; farms, forests, and beach, you couldn't ask for more! I spent many a summer here as a kid, so it's very fun to relive those memories, and experience those same things as an adult. Getting "lost" in the woods, making my way down to the beach to hunt for sand dollars, dipping my toes in icy waters, I truly, truly love this place. 

My grandma bought me these earrings. I believe owning bike jewelry officially makes me an Oregonian.

We decided to see the "town" and look in the shops that sell nick-knacks to tourists staying at the small resort. There's a little thrift shop in town that always seems to be closed whenever I go by, but was open on Monday! My grandmother does not quite appreciate my enthusiasm for thrifting, but she humoured me. I was hoping for a wealth of vintage clothes and shoes and whatnot, but no dice. Then I found the sewing section. OH! MY! GOSH! there was a box of 27 vintage patterns from the 30's-early 50's for a dollar each. Usually I am not one to fork over a whole dollar for a vintage pattern in a thrift shop, but these ones were in top notch condition. I wanted the whole box but only took 11 of them. I was excited to see some larger bust sizes too! I have a gut feeling these all came from the same woman (who I believe was named Hazel), as the later the pattern the larger the size. Some of them do not follow this pattern, but I'm pretty sure she owned most of these at least. 

In love with the variations on this!

This one is definitely going to get made up in several different prints!

Love this 40's shirt-dress

Gah!! The perfect 40's suit pattern!! And it's a Hollywood!! Love the stripped version.

How beautiful is this 30's house dress?

This is another one I want to get started on right away!!

Pleats, pockets, and belts? Perfect. I have an odd desire to make this up in a khaki twill and go on Safari...

This is just utterly the most wonderful thing I own.

I am not usually a fan of these late 40's early 50's looks, but I really love the neckline on this dress.

So I kind of am in love with this dress.

And this is the perfect blouse pattern. Ever.

While going through them to check for completeness (THEY ALL ARE!!), I found a few surprises too. 

The first pattern had a piece that had been re-cut from some newspaper. I love the charming lingerie ads

A vintage shopping list! 2 bread, butter, yeast, pyrex? ... 

A receipt for 12.5 yards of wool for $5 in 1942. Wow.  

This ended up being too hard to read, but the top of this says "Hazel Burke Cloverdale Mail." Cloverdale is the next "town" over. They have more cows than people. And an old-fashioned malt shop. It's love. 

inside was an ad for another pattern which claimed to be very flattering.

Another piece cut from a copy of The Oregonian. The date is February 19th 1939!

This side has a blurb about the threat of war in Britain. Only a few months after this was published England declared war on Germany. Cool in a weird way. The upper right hand corner has half of a political cartoon. From what you can read, not much has changed.

Pretty sure I hit the jackpot.

When I was photographing these, this was the conversation I had with my grandmother:

Grandma: What are you going to do with these patterns?

Me: Make them into clothes...

Grandma: Why can't you just go to Walmart to buy them?

Me: Because I don't like the clothes at Walmart. And I like sewing.

Grandma: but those are so old-fashioned though. 

Me: I like old things.

Grandma: I wore dresses like that when I was a girl. 

Me: yep, these are all from the 30's and 40's.

Grandma: *shakes head and walks away* why would anyone want to wear those old things...

Le sigh. 

It's tough being a vintage girl.