I love some vintage sewing

I’ve been working on a pretty ambitious Halloween costume for the past few weeks (pics to follow this weekend!) and as a result have been doing some browsing online of costume sewing and vintage sewing.  I’m especially interested in Regency and Elizabethan costuming, but I’m also drawn to 50’s vintage patterns.  Maybe it’s the idea that if I were to sew these patterns I could actually wear them in public places and feel well-dressed.  Either way, I’ve found some really great websites in the process and I felt like it was my duty to share, here are the latest and greatest in no particular order:

Gertie’s New Blog for Better Sewing - The title is a play on words, Gertie is working her way Julie and Julia style through the 14 sewing patterns in a 1952 learn-as-you-go book “Vogue’s New Book for Better Sewing” and her daily posts are not only witty, but her sewing is downright impressive.

The Historical Sewing Blog - These two ladies are master costumers and tend to focus on Victorian and Civil War era dress-making.  There are tons of pictures of their personal costumes as well as from Costume College, which I would love to attend someday.  Just think, you get to dress in period clothing every day and learn about sewing!

The Period Movie Review - I cannot say enough good things about this website, tons and tons of popular movies and tv series (lots of BBC!) are reviewed on historical accuracy and costuming from old black and white favorites to the most recent Austen films and even several sci-fi/fantasy films.  If there is a period movie you really like it’s probably here and many have in depth costume photos as well as production photos taken during filming but never seen on screen.  It’s very interesting to read about which movies were more accurate than others in terms of what people would have actually worn and general costuming details that help develop characters.  Definitely worth checking out, it’s probably my favorite new blog of the moment.

Ok, well enjoy checking these out and let me know if you see anything you like!

Houses and Puppies and Crafts… Oh My!

I’ve been on hiatus from the blogging world for most of this year and the guilt has finally gotten the best of me.  I do have some good excuses though: getting used to married life, going on an awesome Costa Rica honeymoon, holidays, BUYING OUR FIRST HOUSE (yay!), moving in February, decorating – which is a perpetual work in progress, and on top of all that in April we adopted a boxer-lab mix puppy who we named Maggie. 

Zip Lines in Costa Rica!

Shiny New House!

Maggie Moo!

 
It’s actually Magpie, but we call her Maggie or Maggie Moo most of the time.  She has the sweetest disposition in the world and is learning her manners very quickly; we’re already done with our first puppy class.  So we are officially a happy little family now.
 
Since things are starting to calm down, or I’m starting to get better at time management, I want to try to return to the blogmosphere and start sewing and crafting again.  I never completely stopped but I did get sidetracked and I definitely fell into blog silence.  I hosted a scrapbook party with my Creative Memories rep Mindy in June and had several friends who were interested in starting an album.  The party inspired me to host a scrapbook day for some friends a couple weekends ago.  We listened to music and had snacks and got to be crafty for a whole Sunday afternoon, it was a lot of fun and will definitely be happening again in the near future. 
 
I’ve also been working on a crate cover for Maggie.  Right now we are using one of Adam’s old blankets on top of her crate and I do NOT love it.  So I found some cute black fabric with little paw prints all over it and decided to attempt to appliqué her name on the top in a lime swiss dot print.  I’ve never appliquéd before so I’m using a tutorial that I found on the Sew Mama Sew blog and things are going well so far, everything has been cut out and fused, now it’s time to start stitching down the letters so I can sew the whole cover together and figure out how I want to finish the edges – wish me luck!
 
That’s all I know today, ciao for now!