As far as I’m concerned, this is pretty much a perfect outfit. DVF-style wraparound dress, big-ass brass cuff bracelet, tri-tone (brass/copper/stainless) earrings, black-patent wedge sandals, red nails. I’ve been really into this sort of 1970s glam thing lately and have a hard time making myself wear anything that isn’t a wrap-around dress and wedge-sole shoes. Big, bold, obnoxious jewelry is always a bonus.
This dress was a pretty recently completed project, based on a 1976 Simplicity sewing pattern (#7705).
It is a very faithful knockoff of the iconic Diane Von Furstenburg wraparound dress. I, myself, made this particular dress for summer wear and therefore folded up the sleeve pattern for a short sleeve. I will probably make the long-cuffed sleeve version for fall/winter use, though, in another fabric. I have a brown, zebra-print ITY jersey earmarked for that project.
Looks a little different on the old dress form, since she was shaped with the assumption of a straight-front corset, and I do not use such an appliance to form my own figure.
I’m really into the wrap dress thing these days. I’m wanting everything to be about knee-length, and I’ve finally, after all these years, learned to walk in heels. Granted, my max height is about 3″ with 2.5″ being my preference, but given that I come from a background of flats and big clompy boots, we’re talking about a significant footwear triumph which opens the “cute shoes” door a lot wider.
Acclaimed humor site The Oatmeal has a running series of comics called “Minor Differences” wherein situations go from great to gruesome with the addition or omission of some small factor.
Without further ado, I wish to add my contribution to Minor Differences and also a sort of halfassed review of an old product.
The Challenger and the Champion.
Behold, the venerable ladies cologne, and one of my all-time favorite “everyday” scents, Jovan Musk. Or rather, I should say, behold, on the right hand side of the photo, my all time favorite everyday scent, Jovan Musk for Women Cologne Spray.
Behold, on the left-hand-side, the pale and shitty challenger Jovan Musk for Women Cologne Concentrate Spray. I’m not sure how concentrating a cologne makes it insipid and retiring, but somehow Coty managed to crapfulate what’s normally a fantastic all-day subtle scent.
I bought the so called Cologne Concentrate Spray by accident – I was in Target and remembered that my bottle of perfume was getting pretty low, and I don’t go to Target that often, so I figured I’d just get ahead of the game and pick up a backup bottle. I popped a familiar orange box into my shopping cart and went on with my errands. Only when I got home, did I realize that instead of the orange-capped, ribbed rectangular bottle, it was a round bottle with a gold cap. I knew this pale impostor – my Mom had been taken in this way once, too.
What’s the big deal, you might ask? I’ll tell you what’s the big deal. For some reason, although both of these bottles of scent start out with “Jovan Musk For Women,” the one on the left purports itself to be “cologne concentrate spray,” while the one on the right is simply called “cologne spray.” However, the two formulations smell completely different. Even odder still, the “concentrate” is actually somehow less potent. The scent is faint once the perfume dries, and is virtually gone after an hour or two, especially if you sweat at all. If I put some on before I leave for work and ride my bicycle in to the office, as is my habit, my perfume is completely gone by the time I get there!
Now the Jovan Musk for Women Cologne Spray, which I’ve worn fairly regularly since my teenage years, is a great, subtle, all day scent. I spritz on a little on the back of my neck, the center of my chest, and the crook of my arms, and I am good to go. By the end of the day, the scent is very faint and has gone from floral to earthy/spicy, because of how it interacts with my body chemistry. I feel that it is a very sexy, feminine, old-school scent and it goes particularly well with this sort of 1970s trashy-glam look I’ve been really into lately.
So anyway, the moral of the story is that minor differences can result in seriously divergent results. Also, check inside the box if you’re not sure, because the good perfume comes in a ribbed, rectangular bottle with an orange lid, while the crappy perfume is in a smooth round bottle with a goldtone lid.
On my way to work this morning, I saw a dog who reminded me of Billy Connolly’s “wee brown dog.â€
It wasn’t wee, as such, mind you. He was upper-mid-sized, probably around 60lb, lanky and leggy, probably a pit-bull and labrador mix. He was a tawny buff color, with a white chest, white feet, and the last few inches of his long, curly, whiplike tail looked like it had been dipped in white paint.
He was booking down the sidewalk with a loaded carrier bag held by both handles in his mouth. Whatever was in it, he seemed to consider quite important. He was trotting along at a swift clip, head held high, casting wary looks about, as though he feared to be relieved of his bounty. He was definitely on a mission, a young dog of mystery and intrigue.
Need I mention that Wednesday is trash day in my neighborhood?
I’m sure his people were ecstatic when he got home with his load of diapers or rancid chicken skins, or some other horrible, purulent treasure.
I recently read an annotated version of Mansfield park, and while the book was fascinating from a historical and informational perspective, I found the story and writing itself rather heavy-handed. I believe that of Austen’s novels, this one has aged the least gracefully.
Fanny is, like Melanie Wilkes of “Gone With The Wind,” a mealy-mouthed chit. A goody-goody without the faintest spark of spirit (or realism) who sits passively by and somehow allows her faint charm to carry the day.
On the other hand, lazy, spoiled wastrel Tom Bertram, louche Henry Crawford, and vulgar, coquettish Mary Crawford are all so broadly characterized that they, too, strike me as caricatures rather than characters.
Then, there are the Socratic dialogues between saintly Edmund and insipid Fanny; effectively, Edmund works a pygmalion job on Fanny, evidently an age-old device in love stories.
Even taking into account the differences in women’s roles between Austen’s day and today, even taking into account the differences in literary styles, I still have a hard time wholeheartedly praising this novel on account of its lack of subtlety and overt didacticism. It struck me as Austen having some sort of axe to grind, as opposed to her usual smiling-in-her-sleeve approach, and in that, lost a great deal of charm.
I’ve made a couple of shirtwaist dresses lately, a nod to that sort of late-1950s/early-1960s style that seems to be floating around courtesy of Mad Men and Pan Am and the like. Also, because I like that sort of style and it suits my figure. Anything with a great deal of structure and a well-defined natural waist is generally a good choice for me.
So, the following is what I’ve done with a bit of my spare time and some cheap cotton calicos:
New Look 6587, dating from 2006 is a pattern I have had around for a few years and just hadn’t gotten around to trying out. I’d read mixed reviews about the fit and ease-of-use, so I went after this one cautiously, with some fabric I only felt lukewarm about.
As you can see, I changed it up a bit. I cut the facing double and reversed it to form a contrasting placket. I added contrast cuffs to the sleeves and used the flared sash that was meant to go with the sleeveless model. I also eliminated the collar, because I liked the simplicity of just the bound neckline. It would make up just as nicely if I actually followed the instructions as given, but I am rather partial to my re-interpretation of this style, and will probably make it up again in some other combination of prints.
It’s an excellent dress for summer, as it is lightly fitted and stands away from the body. There’s nothing like a cheapie cotton dress for summer, as it looks presentable and nice, but is breezy and simple to wear.
I did, however, swear many vile epithets as I stitched all those buttonholes. People, this dress has 12 buttons down the front. That’s a stinking lot of button holes, is what that is.
However, I recently acquired a game changer:
Huh?
Any clearer?
How ’bout now?
So…this is the famous buttonhole attachment, and boy, does it ever work like magic:
Noisy as heck, yes, but quick, neat, and convenient.
When I was looking it over in the junk shop, I noted this:
The word “slant” seemed to indicate that it would work with the angled needle shaft of my Singer 401A “Slantline.”
And lo, it does. It fits right on perfectly!
And it made making this:
a whole lot easier. I think it took maybe 20 minutes from measuring and marking to finishing the buttonholes for this dress, and there are 10 of them! Now, sewing on the buttons was quite another story. These are wooden buttons with a pronounced ring around the outside and they would not fit under my button foot in any direction. So I sewed all of the buttons on by hand, and I hand-stitched the hem, as I wanted it to be absolutely invisible from the outside, and I do a mean blind hem by hand. Theoretically my sewing machine can be called upon to produce a blind hem, but it is not nearly as discreet as a hand-sewn blind hem.
So, anyway, there’s shirtwaister #2:
It was based off a 1970s Butterick pattern. I didn’t have enough fabric to cut the sleeves long, and since I wanted it for a warm-weather dress anyway, I just folded up the sleeve pattern to create a cuffed short sleeve. Otherwise, I followed the pattern instructions as given. I don’t really love the stitched down pleats in the skirt, now that I am done with it. It has a kind of awkward look to it. After all of that effort, it is kind of a bummer to not be that satisfied with my work, but it will do. I still really, really like the fabric and the buttons, and I can live with the skirt. I think this dress will transition well to autumn, and will probably look really cute with my tall, brown boots.
I think I may try this pattern again with the a-line skirt. It will be worlds easier with the simpler skirt pattern, and I think more becoming to my figure. Also more economical. Pleated skirts are awful fabric hogs! I do like the fit and shape of the bodice – even the enormous and very dated Italian collar. If I make it up with the long sleeves, they have a very nice barrel cuff which will look quite smart.
I own a 1953 Schwinn Debutante, a bicycle which is delightfully pretty and gloriously impractical:
This is not a bicycle you ride if you are in a hurry.
I’ve wheeled it out for two special occasions so far this year. It was a belle of the ball on St. Patrick’s Day.
To go with my lovely old green cruiser, I made a green plaid cape and hat, which I’d been planning to make anyway, and the St. Patrick’s Day parade was just the perfect excuse.
This was the fabric and pattern selection. The fabric was some vintage Pendleton wool that my mom’s friend Vi gave me, and the patterns are vintage. The cape came in a shoebox of patterns I bought at a yard sale when I was a college student, and the hat pattern was a present from one of my aunts.
Realistically, the wool was a little too heavy and stiff for the hat pattern, and so it didn’t slouch like it was supposed to. I felt a bit like a plaidy Paddington Bear. But the cape exceeded my expectations.
I changed the neckline a bit. I tried it on with pins holding it closed at the originally-marked buttonholes, and it felt too scratchy and claustrophobic, so I re-measured and re-marked for the button holes to start about 6″ lower, and it ended up making a very nice notched collar instead.
The buttons are some old, silver-y concho-style buttons salvaged off a coat I had when I was a little kid.
The buttons on the epaulettes are some random little pewter buttons that Joel unearthed out of the bottom of his thread box and turned over to my creative efforts.
The lilac dress I wore underneath the cape was one I got at a yard sale in the Northeast several years ago, along with some other great outfits from the same era.
Probably mid-to-late 1960s.
Now that they’re finally broken in, I really, really like them, and I can wear them all day (and even take a short bike ride while wearing them!). But man alive. They were wicked uncomfortable when they were new. I nearly gave them away a couple of times.
In my junior year of highschool, a neighbor lady recruited my sister and I to play Easter Bunny to her three kids.
The set-up was simple. She left the key under the mat, bags of candies in the cupboard, and took the kids in to town for Easter service at church and brunch with Grandma. We let ourselves into her house, and scattered foil-wrapped chocolates and two-tone plastic eggs full of stickers, wash-off tattoos, and jelly beans all throughout the house.
Some years earlier, I’d babysat these kids, when they were littler and less biddable, so I knew the house and all of its nooks and crannies well. I knew where the middle boy used to like to sneak off and surreptitiously eat full packets of luncheon meat. I knew where the oldest boy liked to hide and spring out, wearing a werewolf mask and making “fearsome” snorts and growls. The parents had an eclectic selection of antiques and quirky furnishings rife with shelves, brackets, curlicues, and divots in which foil-wrapped chocolate eggs could be secreted.
We worked fast, not knowing exactly how long church or brunch would take. We wanted to be gone before noon. We tore ass around the house balancing eggs on curtain rods, on top of books on the shelves, behind figurines on the fireplace mantle, between the bannisters on the stairs, on the ladder rails of the boys’ bunk bed, in the slats of the Venetian blinds…basically everywhere that you could possibly wedge a Krisp egg, a marshmallow bunny, or a plastic egg full of treats, we hit.
Like reverse burglars, we worked with a thrilling sense that we could be caught in the act. In two hours, we exhausted the supply of sweets and left the house sprinkled with pastel-colored goodies twinkling in every crick and cranny.
By the time we’d been recruited for Bunny Duty, all three kids were in school. Kindergarten, first, and second graders, I think. For the boys, they were just about at that age that the magic dissipates, when you learn that Santa, the Easter Bunny, and all that are not real, and after that, the pretense is never quite so satisfying as the pre-enlightenment excitement.
So knowing that we were helping give these kids a real good magical hoorah was an excellent feeling. Give ’em one to remember, you know. They were big enough to appreciate it, yet still little enough to appreciate it, too.
We left a note on the door, at child’s-eye-level, written on purple note paper adorned with sparkly “egg” stickers telling the kids to have a look around.
Their mom reported later that our mission had been a wild success, and that our egg-hiding skills were so good that they were still turning up the occasional chocolate a good two weeks afterward.
I dreamed I helped put together a robot for picking up trash (like WallE kind of), but basically it mostly just masturbated a lot. When it climaxed, it shot springs out.
We have dung beetles around here, actually. Out in the Flint Hills. When you go out on the gravel roads along cow pastures, it is not uncommon to see a beetle rolling a poo-pellet along the ground. Or several beetles quarreling over a particularly prosperous poopball.
I apparently also have a shitty-pop-cultural situation, because I don’t watch the Jersey shore, except for the clips that find their way on to Beavis & Butthead (which, by the way, the new Beavis & Butthead rules, it rules!!)
But anyway, I thought the boy whose hair sticks all up was The Situation, but a little Googleation tells me that the sticky-uppy-hair boy is Pauly D.
Which is actually different from Pauly Shore.
Who looks pleasantly normal nowadays, though I bet he still acts like a weird, noisy dweeb. That’s his schtik, as best I recall. Once upon a time, this was cool.
Anyway, my hair is all weird. Again. As usual, perhaps. It went “fa-whoosh.” I tried to put some pomade in it and brush it into a shape, but it just rose back up into the Struwwelpeter barnet you see above. A shower will be in order to fix this.
