Fourth of July Post

Hey, Readers! Hope you're all feeling well this morning. I am feeling pretty good myself (at least compared to yesterday.) I had some dry cereal this morning for breakfast and when that felt alright I ate 6 raspberries and a small handful of buckwheat groats. If all that stays down I may try some coconut yogurt for lunch.

Since I am feeling way better than yesterday I figured I'd go ahead and finish up my 4th of July post that was so rudely interrupted by dizzy spells and vomit. So there.

So for this belated 4th of July I have scanned some of my favorite things from the Bicentennial edition of Workbasket magazine.

I always love looking through these old magazines. This particular one has some great little patterns, tips and advertisements. Of course it is the 70s so there is a great amount of kitsch and scratchy acrylic yarn to stuff your kids/spouse into.

Workbasket actually had a rather large selection of mail order patterns. I'm sure most of you would recognize the pattern line if you saw a photo of one of their patterns. Here's what they recommended for the summer of '76. I'm digging on the Chinese top in the top left corner and the summer shirt dress in the lower right.

Need some help removing those tough stains from clothes?

Most of the knitting and crochet patterns were a little too much for me, but I thought this one could be turned into something rather charming and office worthy if you used the right color yarn. I've got some Malabrigo Chunky yarn in celeryish green hanging around my stash that might work well for this:

My favorite section of this whole magazine was definitely the part titled "Women Who Make Cents." It's a section entirely devoted to recommendations from women on how to make horribly kitschy crafts that you could potentially sell for money. Here are a few of my favorites.

Look what I won!

Show and tell time again. Just snagged this fabulous 1930s knitting and crochet pattern book off ebay. A wonderful find at under $10.00 including shipping. I do not have it in my possession yet (still on route), but I snagged some photos off the ebay page to share. I was so excited I just couldn't hold it in anymore!

The book includes all sorts of fun patterns included a fabulous coat, matching sports outfit, knitted suit, Men's Sweaters and best of all a pattern for a knit bathing suit! All and all it has over 20 1930s knitting patterns. Awesome!

Really loving that coat and hat combo. Could you imagine it in a soft ivory or better yet a bold red? So stylish. Also, I want her shoes! If only I had a magical time machine that took me back to 1933 so I could swipe some killer 1930s shoes. I think my favorite vintage shoes come from the 20s and 30s.

Knitted suit. Looks a bit heavy, but might not be so bad if it's made in a lighter weight yarn. KnitPicks has some fabulous cotton/linen blend fingerweights that would be fantastic for this. Of course I'd need to rework the pattern, but I do that with everything I knit anyways. Maybe it wouldn't be period correct knitting materials, but it would make it more reasonable to wear in Atlanta.

I don't think I need to tell you that this was the entire reason I bought this book. A 1930s swimsuit pattern in ENGLISH. Finally. Think this would count towards my Summer essentials if I made this? Definitely going to have to go historically correct on this one. For some strange reason I really want to try swimming in wool. I need to know why this was the preferred material for 50+ years. I'm thinking a soft yellow would be nice for this suit. Circa Murray perhaps?

This will be for Fiance. It's a really handsome sweater. I have to admit I haven't seen many Men's sweater patters from the era, so I was super excited to find this in the book. And so we're all clear,  I can knit him a sweater now that I've got the ring!!

So I know many of you Sew Vintage, but does anyone Knit Vintage? Leave me a comment and let me know!

PS. Look at what finally arrived in the mail today! Our 1930s cake topper! I took a closer look at the bride and she has a really sweet Bob hairstyle in fingerwaves. I just love it! 

I really do have 1930s on the brain right now, but can you really blame me? I'm trying to devise an Art Deco inspired wedding. Just have to figure out how to make it okay for the men to wear tails in the afternoon...

Vinspiration Tuesday: The Photography of Alfred T. Palmer Women at Work

Must apologise for being a bad blogger. My Beau and I went to Six Flags Over Georgia this weekend to ride some of the rollercoasters. Secret confession time: Nancy is a roller coaster fiend. The lines were short for most of the day so we rode a lot of coasters (including some very old very bumpy coasters). It was a whole lot of fun, but my back has been hurting ever since. So I've been slathering it with an herbal remedy and recovering. No sewing has been going on since Sunday because my sewing spot is on the floor, but I did work a little on some knitting while I leaned up against the heating pad on the sofa yesterday.

I've been working on the Absolutely Fabulous throw from Colinette Yarns. If you haven't checked them out, their colors are phenomenal. The above image shows my throw in the color scheme "water lilies" and it really doesn't do the colors justice. They're much prettier in person, but this was the best my junky little camera could do today.


With that out of the way- Onto more vinspirational photos! Today the photography of Alfred T. Palmer from the Library of Congress. Women at work. I'm going to try to pick color images if I can for these Vinspiration segments. First of all it's extremely fascinating to see the colors worn at the time, what colors were actually popular and what not. Second it's so interesting to see an era that is almost always shown in black & white in full color. There are lots color prints from this time (believe it or not) and we should definitely embrace them!


Now a quick little history lesson about these prints since I choose a bunch from one set. All these photos were taken by Palmer while he was employed by the Office of War Information (OWI). During this time Alfred Palmer captured literally thousands of photographs. These photos were published in the major magazines and newspapers of the time in the United States and abroad. According to alfredtpalmer.com "His works were praised for their exceptional symbolic power and striking use of intense contrasts conveying the courage and determination that Roosevelt sought to arouse in the nation." So there you go. Time for some cute vintage 'doos and outfits! 

Women at work on bomber, Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, Calif. 1942 Oct. For this image I think I am most interested in the way the lady in front wraps her hair with her scarf. Actually there are lots of interesting ladies with scarf wraps in this series. I tried to get a wide variety of photos so I think this is the only one I chose with a scarf over her hair. I like her masculine shoes and wide legged blue jeans. Makes me a little nervous seeing her working in a place like this in shoes like that. Where are her steel toes? This is one of the more masculine looking ladies in this photo series. She's not wearing lipstick or nailpolish like most of them so I have to believe this is pretty close to what women were actually wearing while working in factories. I don't believe those are men's jeans, but it's hard to tell. I can't find solid evidence of a side closure or a fly. The lady in the back is definitely wearing lady's bluejeans as evidenced by the cut around the waist so I'm going to say our lady in front is more than likely wearing woman's cut jeans.

Annette del Sur publicizing salvage campaign in yard of Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, Calif. 1942 Oct.  This is the only lady in the series who is named. I'm most interested by her shoes. I think I owned those shoes or something very similiar in Jr. High. I love love love her suit set. The cut is very nice and the color is a wonderful soft gray. The collar is a little difficult to see, but it is a nice cut. She is not wearing stockings which I wonder about. At the time stockings were being made out of rayon so I don't think her lack thereof is because of rationing. Not all ladies wore stockings, but it is unusual to see that in print ads like this. Especially with a suit set. Her crown and necklace are made of recycled air craft parts.

This girl in a glass house is putting finishing touches on the bombardier nose section of a B-17F navy bomber, Long Beach, Calif. She's one of many capable women workers in the Douglas Aircraft Company plant. Better known as the "Flying Fortress," the B-17F is a later model of the B-17 which distinguished itself in action in the South Pacific, over Germany and elsewhere. It is a long range, high altitude heavy bomber, with a crew of seven to nine men, and with armament sufficient to defend itself on daylight missions. 1942 Oct. I like her matching red snood. Look how her nails are painted and she's wearing a wedding band.  She is also looking very dapper in her blouse and jacket set. Seems a little out of place for this type of work don't you think? More like something one would wear to walk down to the butcher or grocery store. I have doubts that she wore this type of outfit every day to this job.

Women at work on C-47 Douglas cargo transport, Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, Calif. 1942 Oct. Whether or not these women actually wore their hair so perfectly done to work and not just to this photoshoot I find it fasinating that they've chosen to show most of the women workers as feminine. "I'm doing a man's work, but I'm doing it with class and style" as opposed to the Rosie the Riveter look from the first image I showed you.  And for all those people who don't believe that woman wore slacks pre-1960s here's the proof. No fly. These girls do not have their hair covered, but I would guess that's more to do with the photoshoot. You wouldn't catch me working on one of those things with my hair flying every which way. Again no steel toed boots. This is pre-OSHA after all.

Carefully trained women inspectors check and inspect cargo transport innerwings before they are assembled on the fuselage, Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, Calif. 1942 Oct. And here we come to the more white collar type jobs. These ladies are inspectors so they are wearing skirts as opposed to slacks. They probably have to do a lot of walking as both are wearing flat soled shoes. One lady has the cutest pair of saddle shoes. Love those.

Woman aircraft worker, Vega Aircraft Corporation, Burbank, Calif. Shown checking electrical assemblies. 1942 June. Here we have another of the more white collar work ladies. She's an electrical inspector of some sort. Love the print on her blouse here. Wish I could find something like this for a frock of my own. I love how they put her oil stained gloves on her for this photo. As if that gorgous blouse would stay clean in this type of place. If she did wear this type of outfit to work regularly I can guarantee she had a smock of some sort that she wore over it. There are a lot of great smock patterns for work and home from the 1940s. I know there are some great ones like Advanced 4137 on the Vintage Pattern Wiki.

A noontime rest for a full-fledged assembly worker at the Long Beach, Calif., plant of Douglas Aircraft Company. Nacelle parts for a heavy bomber form the background. 1942 Oct. I saved this image for last since it's my favorite. I'm absolutely in love with her cute little loafers, her red vest, broach, snood and slacks. Not quite sure what her job is since it's not mentioned other than "assembly worker", but she is just darling. I don't really wear slacks, but if I did I would be making this outfit right now.