Manic Pop

So this top took me FAR too long to make - and there is good reason for that. This perhaps was the easiest pattern of all to make for me (albeit a slight bit more technical due to the button placement, button extension, etc.) But life got in the way for me. I was sick with some ridiculous throat thing with a cough for about 2 week which is completely unheard of for me. I usually am only sick for about 3-4 days but this thing just lingered. I was miserable and slept a lot. I also interviewed for and got a new job in the process as well as have been shopping for Christmas gifts, Thanksgiving happened, so... there's all that.  Onward! Max actually helped me pick fabric/helped design this one with me. The tunic top is based off of a photo of a near-exact tunic top from 1967 in an old  McCall's catalog. I didn't want to spend time searching for that specific pattern online so I went up to the sewing room and BAM banged out the pattern. Alas, the pattern is also self-d...

The other day me and Max went over to a relatively new thrift store in our neighborhood (which is a mess - not sure if they are planning on fixing that or not) but I unearthed a Seventeen magazine from March 1968. At first I was like, "Oh, Seventeen magazine... whatever." But as I flipped through the pages, I began to be delighted over the ads and how sophisticated the fashion actually was for a teen magazine. (Nothing like today's teen magazines.) Seventeen really looked like a fashion magazine - on par with today's Teen Vogue - or perhaps even Nylon. As I leafed through the pages, I got so excited that I nearly was hyperventilating. I plan on using ideas from this magazine for more things I am making in the future - so much amazing inspiration! I hope I'll find more magazines from the 60s as I wish fashion and photography looked much more like this today. So here I bring you a very photo-heavy post from Seventeen's March 1968 issue! Note: The magazi...

Out on a thrift store trip today, I found some more gems chillin' in the books section. Whenever I go to a thrift store, I scour the book sections for any DIY books from the 60s and 70s. I love 60s/70s interiors as there was lots of bright color usage and the top book is perfect for ideas of shelving, storage, and painting. Both books are from 1977. I don't really know a lot about how to build things (though I did want to be a construction worker in middle school for some reason) but these seem easy enough to do with minimal experience. Most of the time if you go to Home Depot or any other store like that, if you have measurements that you want things to be, they will cut it for you to those specifications. I think this is an amazing storage idea for renters (if a landlord doesn't mind you putting holes in the walls) and owners alike. I'd definitely go nuts with contrast colors here - or even powder blue! The diagram tells you how it's built. ...