Manic Pop

I've been doing lots of home re-vamping so it was only a matter of time before I got to doing a home tutorial! This one is a quilted pillowcase! For some reason or another, we had this pillow on the couch with this really ugly fabric. I actually don't even know where this pillow really came from either - things just appear in this house and beg me to improve them. The original pillow has the exact size triangles as my version on the right but the fabric is so close you can hardly tell! This pillowcase is also made from all scrap fabric in my sewing room. I guess I tend to really over-buy fabric. The brown was from a pair of menswear pants I made back in 2005 in college, the yellow (I really think I picked it up at a thrift store long ago) will be familiar if you've seen the top of my Mix N Match dress , and the green polyester is from when I constructed my mom's apron . This is my little sketch of the pillowcase before making a triangle pattern and an edging ...

  So I recently finally sat down to look through this little book I have. It's about a magazine size and I think my mom sent it to me a while ago. I originally thought it was just a sewing how-to manual (which it kind of is) but it has some awesome full-color photos! The publishing date is 1969 and is right around the time period of much of my design inspiration. My favorite decade range encompasses about 1965 to 1975 and 1969 is almost smack-dab in the middle!  This magazine is perfect for a beginning sewer as it shows you how to measure yourself, body types/shapes, fit & fabric, helpful hints/tricks and illustrated step-by-steps. I'm not sure of it's availability anymore, but I am always on the hunt at thrift stores for how-to sewing books, craft books, interiors from 1965-75. There are many to find!   In this post, I thought I would share some pages from this for design and sewing inspiration!  This book actua...

I'm a pretty big fan of tent dresses (or trapeze dresses - call it what you want). They're simple, easy-to-make and you can have many variations of them. These are a fun style to wear for spring and summer!  See this DIY from a Good Housekeeping Crafts book from 1971 - photos at the end of my own trapeze top from a while ago! (Bear with me on the photos here - this book is quite cumbersome and hard to scan.)  Applique patterns, in case you wanted the dress to look EXACTLY like the photo. (But why?)  How to cut the fabric efficiently. (This is actually pretty important cost-wise for you - especially with something this big.)  Using pattern instructions from my patternmaking book from college, I created this swingy trapeze top a bit ago. I used sweater fabric from a thrift store find for the collar of this top.   I also opened up the back on the pattern to have a diamond shape.   It c...