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lady in white

I had such a lovely day today, driving out to Toronto to attend the monthly meeting of the Toronto Modern Quilt Guild. After lots of fun quilt-related talk and debate, I headed back home for dinner with my boys. But I made a quick side stop at a little vintage shop on my way. I showed remarkable restraint in the face of many wonderful things (brownie cameras, pyrex, tablecloths, little girls dresses from the 50's), managing to make my only expenditure a couple of dollars on an old magazine. Its an old copy of Life magazine from 1948; not particularly rare and in falling-apart condition, but I had to have it for this gorgeous picture. 

Isn't that lovely? The background, the pose, her immaculate white dress with the sheer overlay. The perfect sweep of her brow and the sleek cap of her hair. Its an advertisement of course, but what can this serenely composed lady with the startlingly red lips and nails be selling? Just take a moment and try to guess. 

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Why, maxi pads of course! I'm telling you, I want to go back to grad school and take a women's studies degree and base my thesis around this image. Seriously, its the most... I don't know... euphemistic add for a feminine hygiene product I've ever seen. They don't even actually say what the product is, those two words in the above photo are the only copy at all. Though on another level, its so blatantly obvious; the white dress, the red nails, and her expression, while calm seems to conceal a level of simmering rage. And the joker in me is tempted to doctor it by finishing that sentence irreverently. "Modess.... because you're bleeding from you lady parts!"

I know, not my usual cute kids and quilts sort of post. I'm in a different mood today. So humour me and leave me a comment. How would you finish the sentence "Modess...because..."

treasure

To some this may just look like a cardboard box full of magazines. Destined for a garage sale or maybe to the recycling.  But oh, you'd be wrong if you thought so. How wrong you'd be! For this is a box full of treasure! Theresa, one of my blog readers and facebook friends of a friend (how I love the internet) knows from reading this blog that I collect old knitting patterns. And she contacted me and asked if I'd like this box of old handwork magazines and books that used to belong to her Oma. She had no plans to use them, but at the same time felt it wasn't quite right to drop them off at the Goodwill. She wanted to be sure they found a good home. And she need not worry any more, because I will keep them safe and sound, and maybe even knit something out of them (if I can find the time!). Here are some highlights. 

From 1970. So much fun. And look at that font!

You see people, this is how you convey childlike whimsey in a font. This kicks Comic Sans ass!

Needlepoint Animals. Stripey Cat! Owl! Racoon! I need say no more. 

A hooded shell stitch shawl. Now I know what my life has been missing!

Toddlers in Ponchos! Ahhh, so cute! Note that there is a girl poncho and a boy poncho. Sometimes I yearn for the 70's.

Um, is it wrong that I want this is my size? Wouldn't that look lovely on me in a nice soft grey?

I totally want to make that knitted one-piece romper for the Baby. Colour-combo possibilities are endless. 

And since Theresa's Oma was a Dutch Oma, there are also some nice Dutch handwork magazines. I don't do as much kruissteek as I used to, but you never know, these might come in handy someday. 

This makes me so happy. I thought I'd seen all the Patons books out there, but this one is new to me (and therefore, pretty old).

Love this illustration so much. The gorgeous colours, the fact that all those little Kewpies seem to be so surprised to find themselves knitting. Also, they have bunnies helping them to wind their yarn. Squeeee!

Also, one of my favourite things about old knitting patterns and magazines finding handwritten notations. And inside the "Steps to Knitting" I found this lovely little hand written sock pattern. I may have to try and knit a pair of these, just to see what they look like. 

Though I think this one is my favourite. The copyright says its from 1941 and printed in Toronto. Here's what it says inside the front cover:

I have to agree, I do love a 'generous assortment of colourful cardigans and pullovers'. Totally true. 

Gorgeous. Love the embroidered diamond detail.

I like the Tyrolean style jacket. Though what is up with the little over the shoulder pockets on the one in the upper left hand corner. They did weird things with pockets in the 40's.

The striped pullover, second from the right is absolutely perfect. I even love the styling, with a string of beads. I would totally wear it that way. 

Thanks again Theresa, for the lovely box of treasures!

 

 

big vintage book post

I've been sort of collecting up all my good recent book finds to do one big post about. I've been to garage sales, V.V's, a notable large high school rummage sale, and all of them usually provide me with a lovely book or six. So if you are not interested in awesome old kids books, crazy vintage knitting patterns and beautifully illustrated end papers, today's post is not for you. But I know a lot of you by now, and I'm thinking there are at least a couple of you who are going to find this right up your alley.  First, a lovely bunch of Little Golden Books. I was especially pleased to find the copy of "Mr. Bell's Fixit Shop" as one of you dear readers recommended it to me, and I've been on the look out for it ever since. I love it when I actually find something second-hand that I was looking for. That's the best. 

And then, a lovely trio of Richard Scarry books. You know what Richard Scarry fan I am. I was especially stoked to get the "Best Story Book Ever". It has such a great variety of stuff in it. We had a doctor's appointment, the Little Dude and I, and this was the only book we had to bring. It got us through the whole hour long wait quite easily. 

I actually had the "About Animals" book when I was little, I remember the cover quite well. Though now that I look at it as an adult, I feel like the illustrations are a little weird. Don't get me wrong, I still love the quality of them. I just think its... odd that the animals dressed as people are going to the zoo to look at animals who are not like people. You know what I mean. There is an odd sort of post modern quality about it that just always make me go "hunh".

"The Bunny Book" though, is just plain adorable.

Seriously, would you look at that! 

And its nice that Scarry acknowledges the paradox of clothed rabbits versus plain rabbit-rabbits here. That's helpful. 

I think that this might be one of my favourite Richard Scarry illustrations of all time. So lovely.

Picked this one up at a garage sale for the kitsch factor, assuming it would be of the slightly racist cowboys and indians genre, but it may actually be a reasonably good book. I haven't read it yet, so the jury is still out. 

Beautiful end papers though, I will say that. 

These 'Annuals', anthologies of stories and such, used to be extremely popular. I don't think anyone makes them anymore, but I find then from time to time. This one is in good condition, but more importantly...

...has awesome artwork.

Giant snakes and guns! Whew. 

I always like to pick up this kind of very specific cookbook. There is something so mid-century about a cook book devoted to the subject of meat. 

Also, the illustration captions are fantastic. 

I was pretty excited to pick this up for a dollar at a garage sale. 

Its got lots of great pictures, including these crazy squirrels...

and this terrifying wolverine. Its funny, I ran into one of my neighbors just after I picked this up. She's originally from Britain (though she's lived here for ages), and she said in her inimitable British way. "Oh that looks lovely. One does get rawther tired of all his birds." For some reason, it just killed me and I'm always going to think of that when I look at this book now. How tired I am of Audubon's birds.

Then of course, I've been picking up knitting patterns and such here there and everywhere. This lovely bunch are all from the high school rummage sale.

And this pile, as you can tell by the stickers, is from the Value Village. There is a lot I like about the V.V. but one thing I hate is these wretched stickers. They don't come off AT ALL. They tear, and then they rip the paper underneath and if by some miracle you can get them off (in many little pieces) they leave a sticky residue that makes the patterns stick to each other and rip some more. They are THE WORST!

I don't often bother with knitting patterns from the 80's (not quite vintage enough for me, plus, I was alive then, so they don't have the exotic waft of yesteryear that I'm so drawn to). But I had to pick this one up, just for the awesomeness of that cover model. She's workin' the hell out of that double breasted cable knit jacket! So much attitude.

And this is one of the patterns in that little Beehive for Kid's booklet. I'm totally making that little squirrel sweater for The Baby next fall. I'm thinking a nice beige/fawn colour with dark brown squirrels. It'd look so sweet on him. Plus also, squirrels!

And I want to make that boys pullover in a size big enough for me, and in different colours. Grey and yellow maybe. So cute. 

How awesome are these? Halters are indeed Tops (just like lamb chops apparently). I love how they show alternate styling/wardrobe options. Knitted halters; going from the Boardwalk to the Boardroom. Ah, seventies optimism, how I love you.

And I had to include these three shots from the Bernat knitting book (late sixties I'm thinking) just to illustrate the inequity in modeling from the time period. Beauty standards change a lot, and modeling for a home knitwear instructional guide is probably not the creme de la creme of modeling gigs. But still, in what world is this guy a model?  I'm sure his mother loves him, but seriously, that is a face for radio, as they say. 

And in what world is he married to this woman?

Honestly. Also, there are like, five or six different very attractive ladies featured throughout this book and just this one dude, and frankly he looks like he's suffered from one too many rugby related facial injuries. I'm guessing he was related to one of the photographers or something, and they just pulled him into the shoot in a pinch. Just sayin'.

why the 70's were awesome

Because they made stuff like this: Wow. Just amazing. I totally want this dress. Look at the pleats! The sleeves! The cuffs! But mostly, look at that fabric. Theoretically I could almost have this dress because its in this magazine.
It comes with a big ole' pattern sheet, and while I've not examined it too closely, chances are that dress is in there. Also, lucky for me, it comes with the English supplement. Phew. Cause my German is nicht zo gut. See what I mean. But the problem is where, or where would I ever find that fabric. Because you know that fabric is the clincher for me.

Also, I'd like to make this. Again with the sleeves! Ack, the awesomeness is killing me!

I'll go with the one on the right. But I like the necklace on die Frau on the left. 

And if I had a little girl you can bet I'd be sewing her something like this. Such stripe-y fun with the mitered corner collar. Brilliant. 

I will NOT however, be sewing any of this for my boys. Because I love them too much to subject them to pants like this. I like stripes and pockets as much as the next lady, but you've got to know when to step away. from. the. sewing machine. 

And then of course, my favourite thing about old magazines is always the adds. Look at this lovely lingerie. 
No really, I'm not being sarcastic. I think when you look back over the recent decades the 70's were probably the best decade for boobs. The 50's is of course known for trussing up the poor girls into turbo shaped cones, and the ever since the implant culture hit in the 90's we now safeguard our breasts behind a layer of foam padding so that no one should every again know about the existence of nipples, and the whole world can pretend that boobs are round. (for real, so not round)

But look at that; breasts that, more or less look like breasts, and not like stripper breasts. Seriously, try and find a bra that does not have the slightly padded cup these days. You certainly won't find one at La Senza or Victoria's Secret. If I can find myself a time machine I'm going to go back and buy some of that nice fabric and pick myself up a half dozen bras. Yep, the 70's was a good time to be a woman.

Oh wait. Never mind. 

old advice

I've been thinking of having a regular weekly feature here on the blog. A lot of people do 'self portrait mondays' or 'recipe wednesdays' or something like that. I feel like I'm getting into a bit of a rut here on the ole' blog, with a LOT of content about my boys. Not that there is any problem with that per se, but I just don't want to bore you. After all, despite the fact that my mom and mother-in-law are daily readers, and I know they'd be ok with an all-grandchildren-all-the-time format, I do feel the need to change it up for the rest of you. So to that end, I'm going to have a regular 'ephemera friday' post. I was going to call it vintage friday, but I felt that was a bit too broad. I've looked around myself and realized that I have a lot of vintage paper stuff; magazines, card games, knitting patterns, greeting cards etc, that I'd like to share with the world. I could look through old magazines for hours so I've decided to start scanning some things in for all of you to enjoy. (also, note that I always blog in the evening, and I know most of you read during the day, so I consider a thursday night posting, my friday blog) 

That being said, I'm not straying too far off my usual path, because today, on our first 'ephemera friday' I bring you this...  ...parenting advice from the mid-century. This is the photo that accompanied a feature article in the July 1948 issue of Family Circle, which ominously inquired:

At first I was worried, looking at it through the lens of the current fear-mongering millennial parenting glasses. But of course its not about any sort of pathological medical abnormality, as it would be nowadays. Instead, its an article that sets out to reassure parents whose children are not fitting into the child rearing rubric of the parenting manuals of the day. Phew. Though it is a nice reminder for me as well, as our New Baby is not really following the course that the parenting book we are using has set out for him. I don't know if its just because he is a big baby, but he certainly doesn't go three hours between feeds, as The Book suggest he might. Hubs says its because he hasn't read the book yet. har har. 

To continue with our parenting theme, I bring you this little gem of an advertisement, also from the Family Circle, February 1948:

Well, NOW I know what I'm doing wrong! I haven't started feeding the New Baby MEAT yet. And I could start feeding him meat as early as two months old, or so the ad says. Wow, how times have changed. The conventional wisdom now, is that you don't start solids until 6 months. My mom says she remembers feeding us solid food waaaay earlier that that. It makes me wonder what commonly held bit of parenting wisdom will be scoffed at by the time my kids have kids. Who knows what we're doing wrong right now! 

A rather terrifying picture. But the title seems apropos to my life right now. The Little Dude has never been that mischevious, but as he gets older (and especially these days when my attention has to be divided), he often surprises me with what he's up to. The other day I came upstairs to find him proudly sitting at my "ba-sewin' bachine" where he happily told me he was workin' as he was well on his way to emptying a spool of thread. sigh. 

And I love this. (Woman's Day, November 1962) It pretty much sums up my life right now. Since the New Baby was born we basically spend our days like this; sitting around in pseudo-antique clothing in our old fashioned rocking chair, basking in the glow of our family-ness. Ahhhhhhh. 

Bahahahaha. Just kidding. This photo does not have nearly enough poop in it to accurately represent my current life experience. Also, there is a conspicuous absence of little cars. I'm telling you I can't turn around in here without stepping on a little car. Is it possible that they are reproducing during the night?

And of course, the best bit of parenting advice I found today: 

Don't forget to multi-task. For example, as illustrated in the photo above (Woman's Day, February 1966), you can play with your baby while shining your shoes. Brilliant.