I got a present!

I am always always amazed by the kindness and the generosity of others. Especially when I head to the post office and find this in my box:

It was a huuuuuuuuge box of patterns from Ms. Contessa Timmerman. The box was just packed full of patterns from the 1940s all the way up to some that are less than 10 years old.

By the way Ms. Contessa I just love your handwriting:

I took them out of the box and laid them in my front entry way so I could examine them all. First of all, Contessa, you have excellent taste. And second, would any of you believe me if I said this wasn't even half of what she sent me? I was completely blown away.

This was my personal favorite pattern as bridal gowns are a subject that's currently very near and dear to my heart.

I also loved this really sweet Butterick dress which I had never seen before and this Advance gardening apron which I may or may not have already busted into and cut out the fabric pieces for....

She also sent lots of patterns from the 1960s including this sweet little sundress. Or at least what will be a sundress when I get through with it. Probably in sunny yellow floral print.

Here are a few more of the other great 50s and 60s patterns she included. I also love the 1970s shorts pattern that you can see peeking out on the far right side below.

Lots of full outfit patterns and this great pattern which included interchangeable collars.

and I now have another caftan pattern. Which is awesome.

So thank you so much, Ms. Contessa. I'm overwhelmed by your kindness and I am definitely going to be busy for the next six months making all these lovely garments. All I can say is thank you thank you thank you and I promise to take good care of these lovely patterns.

Best,
Nancy

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.

I Vlogged.

Vintage 4th of July recipes and a crochet pattern.

It's almost the forth of July which means that we can all look forward to a day off from work (if you live in the USA and your office actually gives you the day off). It's a day to spend time with friends and family and to eat delicious food. In celebration of one of the more fun holidays of the year (in my humble opinion) I busted out a bunch of my old cook books, personal recipes, and craft magazines to find some old school summer picnic fare. Some are a little odd, but some are pretty good. If you happen to try any of these recipes drop a comment and let me know what you thought of them.

Pear and Banana Salad
From the Workbasket July 1953 edition. 
For each serving arrange 2 pear halves on salad greens, one with cut side up, the other with cut side down. Peel banana, run tines of fork lightly down sides. Cut into 1/4 inch thick slices and arrange in half circle over-lapping slices in front of the pear halves. Garnish pear with a cherry or other berry and serve with a tart or sweet dressing.

Sweet Dill Pickles
From the Workbasket July 1953 edition.
- One Quart Dill Pickles purchased in store
- 2 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup terragon vinegar
- 1 tsp celery seed
- 1 tsp mustard seed
Wash and drain cucumbers, cut into chunks. Mix all other ingredients together and bring to a boil, remove from fire, let cool, and pour over chunked pickles. (Nancy note: This sounds awesome, though so not on the Bomber Girl diet plan... alas, maybe next year.)

Cherry Coke Salad
Date unknown, recipe from private collection originally obtained from Charming Vintage Recipes. 
- 1 package of cherry or black raspberry jello
- 2 cups water
- 1 12oz coke
- 1/4 cup cold water
- 1 #2 can crushed pineapple
- 1 #2 can bing cherries (Nancy note: #2 cans = 20oz)
- 2 small packages cream cheese (Nancy note: small package = 3oz)
- walnuts
Heat water and add jello to dissolve. Add 2 cups coke/cold water. Drain fruits and discard liquid. Add fruits, softened cream cheese and walnuts to jello. Mix, pour in mold, and chill.

Baked Beans and Lettuce Sandwiches
From Better Meals for Less Money (1917)
Press cold baked beans through a sieve; spread bread with butter, cover with a lettuce leaf, cover lettuce with beans, and sprinkle beans with chopped mustard pickle. Cover with a second piece of buttered bread. Brown bread or any dark bread may be used.

Apple-Lemon Summer Cooler.
Personal collection, ca 1950ish.
- 1 quart apple juice
- 1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
- 1 fresh peach
- 1/2 cup fresh strawberries
- 1/2 cup fresh raspberries.
Dice peach and strawberries, place with raspberries in bottom of pitcher. Add apple juice and lemon juice. Stir and chill. (Nancy note: I like mine with a little more bite so I tend to add more lemon juice, but it's really up to you.)



And just for fun I present this pattern for this crochet American Flag from the July 1974 edition of Workbasket. I typed out all the abbreviations and rewrote a few things to make the pattern more readable.

You all know you want that office. Don't lie, I know you do. 

American Flag
Yardage: You will need 20 ounces of white yarn, 16 ounces of red yarn, 12 ounces of blue yarn, and 4 ounces of gold yarn. All worsted weight.  (Nancy note: That's about 900 yards of white, about 760 yards of red, 570 yards of blue, and about 170 yards of gold. They're definitely using cheap scratchy acrylic for this so if you're going for historical accuracy go find some Red Heart value yarn.)
Gauge: 7 single crochet equal 2 inches
Hook: Size F

Work Begins on lower edge.
Base Row: Starting with red chain 218, single crochet in second chain from hook, single crochet in each chain across, chain 1, turn.
Pattern Row 1: Single crochet in each single crochet across. Chain one, turn.
Repeat Pattern Row until there are 11 rows of red. Fasten off (Nancy note: Fastening off is really up to you,  you can also carry the red yarn up the side as you go.)
Join white and work 11 pattern rows.
Continue Changing colors from red to white until 3 red stripes and 3 white stripes are completed.
Change to blue and single crochet across 109 stitches. Chain 1, turn.
Continue in blue until 77 rows are completed.
Join red in first single crochet after first blue row. (Nancy note: this might be a little confusing so I made a diagram.)

Work 11 rows of single crochet in red for first short stripe, fasten off.
With White, work 11 short stripe rows.
Work 4 red and 3 white short stripes.
Sew blue panal to edge of short stripes with small stiches. (Nancy note: Use whip stitch or blanket stitch.)

Stars: Make 50. With white chain 4, join into a ring with slip stitch.
Row 1: Chain 1, stitch 15 single crochet stitches inside ring, join to first single crochet stitch with slip stitch.
Row 2:* Chain 6, slip stitch in second chain from hook, single crochet in next chain, half double crochet in next chain, double crochet in next chain, treble crochet in next stitch, skip 2 single crochet, slip stitch in next single crochet, repeat from * around until you have 5 points. Join with slip stitch and fasten off leaving about 12 inches of tail to use to sew star on.
Sew stars on blue panel as shown in photograph (Nancy note: or like in any photograph of the flag), 6 in a row for 5 rows and 5 in a row for the 4 rows between them.

Fringe: With gold, cut strands about 6 1/4 inches long. Fold 3 strands in half and put them in every other single crochet around. Trim strands to even them out.

Tomorrow I bust out my Bicentennial magazines so stay tuned.

Stockings on the ration.

Sooooo I started this post about two weeks ago. 13 days ago if you want to get technical, but you know... I'm like that. My brain got sidetracked as it tends to do and I did things like paint and stuff.

Anywho today let us touch on my most favorite subject of subjects: Underpinnings. Specifically stockings. More specifically I want to talk about stockings on the ration; a subject that I've always found incredibly fascinating. No matter what was going on a fashionable lady in the 1940s still just had to have her legs covered.

I tried to think of something to equate this trend to in today's terms, but nothing came to me. The best I've got is today's requirement for toe nail polish with open toed shoes, but even that example doesn't really cut the mustard. Stockings had more to do with propriety. We were wearing shorter skirts and starting to lose the corsets and girdles, but stockings were still something that you just wore. According to my grandmother you found a way to get stockings during this time even if you didn't have much money for anything else. It was just something you did.

Woman wearing stockings in the 1940s

I still think all ladies should be wearing stockings, but that's just because nothing looks better to me than a lady's finely stocking-clad leg. (sidenote: Not being sexist, Dudes, but few men were wearing stockings back in the day. If you want to wear stockings today though I say go for it! It's 2011 baby!)

1933 Advertisement for Silk Chiffon Stockings. 

So rationing. Silk stockings were first rationed in the united states in 1941 due to deteriorating trade relations with Japan who had been our leading source of silk. Silk stocking production came to a halt. This meant that the stockings still available in the US quickly became very much unavailable. When the US did finally enter the war the military immediately began collecting used silk stockings to re-purpose into essential military supplies.  Parachute material comes to mind first, but it was also made into other war time items such as barrage balloons and powder balloons for navel guns. Apparently escape maps were sometimes printed on silk as well though I don't think that was taking up much of the supply.

Woman donated their damaged silk stockings in droves. A great show of patriotism says I! Those stockings that were undamaged were often reserved for very special occasions like Christmas or formal events and they were treated with great care.

The solution to the stocking shortage for most women was a switch to nylon, cotton or rayon stockings. (Though nylon became unavailable in 1942 when the War Production Board took DuPoint's complete nylon supply for the war effort.)

Ann Sheridan Shows off her cotton stockings during wartime.

Cotton and rayon stockings were not the complete solution however. The main problem with these types of stockings were that they didn't fit well and tended to sag around the knees and ankles. I've worn a pair of rayon stockings and I can attest to this. They also tended to be much thicker and therefore considerably less attractive.

Another popular solution was for ladies to literally paint the stockings onto their legs using oil based liquid makeup (typically MAC). They would then have a friend apply the back seam with eyeliner. Apparently the stockings could last for up to three days if the woman didn't bath or get caught in the rain. One also had to be careful when crossing one's legs as they could rub off.

Women painting stockings and back seams on legs. 

Interesting self seam application tool. Not totally sure why she needs to be standing on a stool for this, but you know. 

Another really interesting option particularly for women in the UK where makeup was far less available or for women who just couldn't afford the amount of makeup necessary was Gravy Stockings. Yes, you read that right. Gravy stockings. The technique was pretty simple. Boil down bones and left over bits of meat from dinner into a thick dark colored gravy and then paint away!

Here's a cute little video from a British show called horrible histories demonstrating this process (with a little less care than a lady would have used at the time.)



See you later, Alligators!

Thief in the night!

Happy Monday, everyone! I can't begin to tell you how busy we've been. October can't seem to come fast enough. I really don't know what I was doing with my time before I started having to plan a wedding. I'm busy all week long and then there's no rest for the weary on the weekends. Overall this weekend wasn't too bad in terms of business. We had some ups and downs, but overall we were very productive.

Down: I received my writing scores for my GRE in the mail. Not what I thought it would be especially considering the fact that I paid a good amount of money to take a prep coarse and followed their strategies which were "guaranteed" to get you higher scores. But from what I hear with what I want to do for my Masters the school shouldn't care too much about my writing scores. My math and verbal scores were high enough so I guess there's nothing more to worry about other than my own disappointment in myself. Booooo...

Up: We found a fantastic bistro in our town while looking for a place to have our rehearsal dinner. This is extra awesome because until now we thought there were only chain restaurants and sports bars in town. Mr. Fiance had a fillet and I had delicious braised asparagus with creme fraiche. Yum yum yum. 

Down: We have a THIEF in our backyard. Here is the crime scene. 

Those were powder blue asters. Now they are stems. The weird thing is that our thief didn't go after any of the other plants including the zinnias (shown in the lower left) or the shasta daisies. Luckily I know the theif's Achilles heel.

So far we've had no more flower thievery since I sprinkled this stuff around the bed on Friday. Guess the thieves don't like it hot. Can't say I blame them. I'm not a huge fan of spicy foods myself. 

Here is the flower garden as of this morning. It's looking a little shaggy because of a couple of nasty storms we had over the weekend. It's also looking a little thin because the marigolds are reaching the end of their lifespan and I've started pulling them out to give the cockscomb room to grow. 

Up: We were invited to Mr. Fiance's cousin's daughter's birthday party this weekend and it was just about the cutest thing I've ever seen. She was turning two and they decided to throw here a Sesame Street themed birthday party. My favorite part was this full sized sign post so lovingly created by her daddy. 

I won't even get into the matching Sesame character family tee-shirts, big bird feathers leading up to the door, Oscar can including Wormy, a real Dorothy the goldfish, handmade character cupcakes, and delicious food. These people know how to throw a party and I was taking notes the entire time. 

Downs: We were supposed to go to Athens, GA for a debate society meeting after the party but unfortunately one of us came down with a stomach bug so we scrapped the trip. We went home and watched Beau Pere instead. 

Up: I'm almost done painting my sewing room now that the nasty test is over. The hardest part was choosing the color, but I finally went with a pretty sunny yellow. It's got a good sixties-ish vibe without being too dated looking. I'm trying to decided on the wisdom of adding some green damask curtains. Perhaps something along these lines. 

What do you guys think? Too much?

And that's it for me so how about all of you? Anyone have some good ups or sucky downs this weekend? 

Story time: Test test test test t-t-test.

It's done it's done it's done!!

My graduate records examination that is. If you follow my facebook or twitter feeds you'll know that I have been cramming like no woman has ever crammed before for that @!&# test.

Cute Vintage Math Flash Cards from Brooklyn Retro

Mostly my issue with this test came from the math/quantitative section. I don't have anything against math. In fact I've always liked math, but I have a BFA and my BFA comes from a school where no maths or sciences were required to graduate. So other than one chemistry class that I took when I was briefly considering becoming an animation historian I had not touched math since 2003. If you're counting that's eight years.

So began two months of relearning your basic algebra, geometry and statistics for me. I started by forcing myself into a strict study schedule. Every day after work I would pop over to a coffee shop or the library and do math problems for anywhere from 2-4 hours a day depending on how much time I had available, but those of you who have taken the GRE know that that is only the beginning of preparing for the test.

I find the above comic strip hilarious as it isn't far from the truth. You think you understand the math, you think you've studied enough, and then they throw in questions that don't even use any math and are really just there to make you squirm. What the GRE tests is your ability to take a examination. It's kind of like the SAT, except much more sadistic.

I took practice test after practice test after practice test and eventually I started to plateau score-wise. I kicked up the study time again, but finally decided that it was time to just suck it up and take this thing. I was fairly sure of what score I would get and even though it was still below my ideal score I just didn't have any more time to devote to this thing.

Of course over the weekend (two days before the test I had been cramming for for two months) I caught a cold. A nasty knock you down sore throat couldn't talk kind of a cold. I swear I have never gotten sick as much as I do at the radio station. I don't know if it's the enclosed space and the recirculated air, but when someone at the radio station catches something we all catch it.

So Monday I go in for this test dripping from every part of my face. Somewhat nervous, not super excited about it, with a sore throat and my ears so clogged I could barely hear. I would have rescheduled the exam, but you have to do that three days prior or you have to eat your entire test fee. That fee happens to be $160 so I decided to just suck it up and go.

The first 45 minutes of the test are an essay which is followed up by another 30 minute essay. Then they give you a 10 minute break which I took full advantage of. I went out to the front office and crammed a granola bar into my mouth as fast as possible, took a few sips of water, went pee, and went back into the testing room with one minute and thirty seconds to spare.

Then I broke the test.

For the record, if you are taking the GRE and a little window pops up that says something like "do you accept this break" and gives you a yes and a cancel button, click cancel. It is not okay to accept a break. Basically it freaks the testing software out and it won't progress to the next section of the exam no matter how many buttons you slam. CTRL-ALT-DEL also will not help you.

Did I note that this is a timed test? So here I am slamming every single button on the keyboard, clicking my mouse on every section of the screen, and having a general panic attack. I waved my hand to try and summon the test proctor, but she was off having a sandwich or something and definitely not paying attention. So finally I ran out to the main office in a tizzy and finally found someone who could fix the testing computer for me. Phew.

After that there was another 30 minutes of verbal and 45 minutes of math multiple choices, followed by a "experimental section" that lasts 28 minutes. Yes, the questions were full of things like the comic above, but for some reason I kept finding them easy. Maybe it was my heightened state of awareness from my almost melt down, but of course the first thing that popped into my mind was that I was getting them all wrong. The test is supposed to be adaptive so if you get questions right it should give you harder questions and vice versa.

But after several other Murphy's Law moments including snapping the lead off both my pencils and running out of scrap paper I completed the test!

It was time for the moment of truth.

The next question on the screen: Do you want to cancel your scores or view your scores?

I clicked view.

AND HOLY BOLOGNA, BATMAN.

Not only had I beaten my ideal test score by 60 points, I had beaten my highest practice test score by over 100 points. I was so shocked by the outcome that I let out a rather loud "OH!" If you were one of the other students in the center, I apologize for interrupting you momentarily. I would have liked to get out of my chair and done a victory dance.

But I didn't.

I did call my fiancé, Mother and best friend immediately after leaving the test center and retrieving my cellular telephone.

The End.


So what have you been up to, Dear Readers? I feel like we've lost touch. Leave some comments to update me on your goings ons. If you've got a blog I promise to head over there and catch up this week. If I haven't been a regular commenter at your blog leave me a link and I'll make sure to add you to my blog roll.

Peace out, home slices and please enjoy this photo of Mr. Fiancé testing out towels for the wedding registry.

Wedding Business: Save the Dates

Somewhere along the way I decided that I wanted to be "crafty" with my wedding. This was all well and good until I remembered the size of my guest list, but luckily I've got some lovely ladies in my life who have been more than helpful with all my crazy schemes.

First scheme.  Save the Dates.

I started making these about a week ago with my friend and bridesmaid Stacey, but we spent most of the session coming up with the design and color arrangement. So this saturday my little sister flew down from New York to finish them up with me (as well as handle other maid-of-honor duties).

It took us about half a season of TrueBlood, but we managed to get all the save-the-dates done in one evening. She stamped, I addressed, and we still liked each other at the end of the day.

Here I am at about 12pm after destroying my living room and going on our second mysterious coffee company run. There you can see one of my traditional working faces. The other one is with my tongue hanging out and is decidedly less attractive. Yes, Readers, I confess. I am a tongue sticker-outer when I sew, but since I was only addressing I used my head tapping lip puckering concentration face.

The save the dates weren't overly complicated. I hit the craft store and picked out a few different stamps that I liked. One batch of letters, one pack of swirls and a nifty humming bird stamp that caught my eye. I used three different colors of ink in three different textures. One metallic gold stamp pad, one goldish chalk texture pad, and a little kid's washable yellow ink. All the other yellows I found just were not bright enough so I'm just praying that no one gets these wet because that ink is going to run.

Interesting fact. Briana loved stamps when she was kid. As a result she has excellent stamping skills. No missing pieces just good solid stamp lines 97% of the time. Best of all she works for free.

In any case the next step was to get some paper. I picked up some index card weight paper at the office supply store, designed the postcard face and printed them out. We went with post cards mainly for economy's sake. The stamps were cheaper ($0.44 - $0.28 x a ton of cards =savings!) and I didn't need to purchase envelopes. I managed to make each save the date cost me $0.63 including the postage. The cheapskate frugal gal in me did the happy money saved dance. Now I can afford to spend a little more on formal invitations which is great because I really want to have foiling or raised gold lettering.

This is about the time Briana's stamping arm was ready to give out. 

So we took a coffee break. In case you are wondering it was delicious and energizing and that definitely had nothing to do with the two shots of espresso I had them add. 

And ended up with these. Over 100 Save the dates, all hand stamped and hand addressed. I feel very accomplished. I'm also really happy with them. Simple, in my colors, cheap, and special because we made them ourselves.

Best of all is the color of the bird matches the flowers our florist picked out for us.

These roses were huge! 3 inches across at least. I would have brought more flowers home, but everything else in the bouquets are not in season. It was really important to me that we used fall flowers since that's my favorite season for flowers. And speaking of flowers I'll have to post some pictures of my Georgia flower garden. Just for the record you can totally plant things in red clay and somehow they grow.