"Colour and Your Clothes"

The following passage from Beauty for Every Woman touches on two things I am a bit obsessed with.  First is the idea of having a small, but perfectly coordinated wardrobe that you can conjure all sorts sartorial magic with, second is colour combining (I actually used to keep a small notebook with all my ideas for good colour pairings).  

    "The most economical and successful scheme is to adopt one or two colours as your own.  From a beauty point of view this plan will help to emphasise your personality, your colouring, and your type, whilst from the point of view of economy it is the greatest possible saving.  Everything you have will match or, at any rate, be interchangeable, and with only two outfits you will be able to ring the changes nearly every day.
    Here, for example, is what can be done with just a few well-chosen garments which all go together.  Supposing brown to be the main colour you have chosen, then you could have a brown overcoat, a brown matching skirt, a light wool skirt in a tweed or check pattern combining the same shade or brown with beige; two blouses or knitted jumpers, one in plain material to match the plain skirt and one to go with the patterned skirt. 
    One day you could wear the plain skirt and patterned blouse.  On another the plain blouse with patterned skirt.  Then the plain skirt and blouse and the patterned pair can also be worn together with a 2" wide belt of the material at the join of blouse and skirt, making them look like one-piece frocks.  So that with two blouses and two skirts you can have a complete wardrobe with a long coat which will go with all these changes, completing your outfit.
    Girls with fair hair and fair skin can wear white, all the pastel tints of blue, pink, yellow, and green, and black in the evening.  For day wear they can choose deeper blues and greens, brown and black.
    Brunettes should choose more vivid colours for both day and evening.  Clear reds, blues, and greens, black relieved with white, beige or pink.
    Red or auburn hair looks at its best against black, white, pale green, pale yellow, and brown, but pink, orange, and mauve should be avoided.  
    Having decided on the colours you are going to wear, you will find the following list of colour schemes helpful in the choice of accessories and trimmings: black with white, oyster, beige, all pinks, pale blue, pale green, bright green, clear reds.  Brown with white, beige, pink, bright green, coral pink, and turquoise blue.  Dark green with white, primrose, beige, and lighter greens in the same tone.  Bright green with white, beige, and brown.  Dark blue with any of the colours which go with black.  Mid-blue with white, primrose, and brown."

The Delightful Drawings of Miss Margaret Agutter

I recently came into possession of a 1948 edition of Mary Thomas's Knitting Book.  I must admit that I've been aware of this book for quite awhile and have not been all that interested in it.  Dover reissued the book in 1972 and as far as I can tell it has been in print ever since.  My sole objection to it was that it didn't have any actual garment patterns that I could day dream over.  

The cover of the reissue boasts that it features 248 illustrations and this is true - there are 248 illustrations diagraming how to do things like turn a heel or sew a seam.  What it doesn't mention is all the other absolutely charming illustrations by Margaret Agutter.  When I came across this book at one of my local used bookshops, I think it was those little drawings that convinced me to buy it (that and a price tag of £1.50).

I'm afraid I may have gotten a little carried away photographing them for you . . .

Beauty Tips from the 30's

Last night I pulled out my copy of Beauty for Every Woman for the first time in a while and was newly impressed by how many lovely photos and illustrations there are in it.  I shared a few earlier this year, but there is so much more to be had from this book.  Today, I have some eye, cheek and nail tips for you.      

Two Dress Drafts

Things have been a bit busy around here lately and I haven't had much time for blogging, so I thought I'd share these two dress drafts with you as they don't really need much in the way of introduction other than to say they are both taken from The Pictorial Guide to Modern Home Needlecraft.  If anyone makes one these up, I'd love to see pictures.

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Well, I promised I would share some bits from my new needlework books with you so here we go.  I have chosen to begin with a little refresher on bias binding, because it seems that I am sorely in need of it.  Now I have made my own bias binding on, maybe not hundreds of occasions, but certainly many times before with no problem, but for some reason the sewing gods have not been with me this week.  My first go at it I had to rip out twice before I even got to the ironing board and then when it came to actually fitting it round the neckline . . .  rats! too narrow to cover the stay stitching!  I decided to have another go by increasing my tape by 1/4" and this time I had to unpick it a staggering five times before I managed to get all the seams on the same side!!!  So, for those of you making your own bias tape, I give you the following with my best wishes for an easier time of it than I've had.

(In case you were curious, here's the finished top.  It's the Colette Laurel top and really should not have been as much of a struggle to make as it was.  I even managed to break the sewing machine whilst hemming it  - as I say, the sewing gods were not with me on this one.)

the books just keep coming . . .

I'm sorry to say it, but the vintage shopping in Belfast is pretty woeful (though do keep in mind that I come from a city where vintage clothing is, maybe not cheap anymore, but certainly plentiful and I've been pretty spoiled for most of my life).  That said, the used bookstores here in Northern Ireland have more than made up for this over the years.  This week has been particularly fruitful for me:

 "How to Make Up Garments" dates from 1906, and is a pretty rigorous textbook for students preparing for any of several needlework qualifications (the appendix has examination outlines for the "Scotch Code", the "King's Scholarship", and the "Needlework (English) Scheme" exams).  This also has some good pattern draft outlines for things like chemises and whatnot.  In all honesty, I don't ever wear pre-WWI styles, so I'll probably never use any of those, but that cover was too charming and I might end up using some of the techniques or even making a fancy Edwardian pillow case someday.

No date on this one, but looks to be from the 30s which is much more my style.  I have been pretty good of late about not buying any and all vintage sewing books I see unless they have pattern draft schematics in them.  I mean really, how many different instructions does a girl need for tackling fitting issues or setting in a sleeve properly.  This book was too good to pass up though.  There are no pattern drafts, but the range of techniques shown was pretty staggering so home it came.

I'll share some pages from these two books in coming weeks (months even? I mean with 600 pictures in one book alone there's a lot of choice), but please let me know if there's anything you'd like to see specifically.  Is anyone interested in drafts for Edwardian night-dresses? Or 1930s wrist finishes? Do tell.

War Diaries

Quite by accident I found myself deeply immersed in Simon Garfield's We Are At War book last week at the time of the VE day anniversary.  For those of you unfamiliar, it is the collected diaries of five "ordinary" people from around Britain during the first year of WWII.  Whilst reading it I realised that this book is actually the fifth war time diary I've read in the past few years and what with all remembrances happening in the past week, it seemed like now would be a good time to share them with you.

What I like most about We Are At War is the fact that you get five different perspectives on the same events.  You also get some quite surprising views from some of the writers - strong dislike of Churchill, sympathy for Hitler (at least until the bombs start dropping), lots of "defeatist" thinking, things that don't really spring to mind when I imagine the home front.  I really can't recommend this book enough for getting a good feel of the general mood in England and Scotland 1939 - 40.

   

Marie Vassilitchikov was a Russian princess who found herself trapped in Germany at the outbreak of war and started working in the German foreign ministry.  From there she becomes involved (peripherally) with the Valkyrie plot to assassinate Hitler.  It's been more than a few years since I read this and the finer details have been forgotten in the interim, but I found this book to be a gripping and enjoyable read.  If you'd like a much more detailed review, I found this one from the NY Times.

This is another diary from inside the Nazi state, but from a Jewish perspective.  Volume 1 (I haven't read Volume 2 which takes us through the bulk of the war years) starts the year Hitler becomes chancellor and shows the noose slowly getting tighter around the necks of those with Jewish connections (Klemperer was a Baptist, though ethnically Jewish).  If you don't mind reading off the computer, I found this link to the first two years of the book.

I got Ruby Side Thompson's London Blitz Diary for free on my Kindle.  It was an interesting enough read, but the enduring memory I have of it is her incessant complaining about her husband.  Still, it gives an insight into London life in the early days of the war.  I'm actually thinking it might be worth reading this one simultaneously with We Are At War since they cover roughly the same time frame.

My last war diary is Jean Whitear's 1945 World War 2 WAAF Diary.  This is another free Kindle book and perhaps not one for the casual reader as the entries are mostly one or two sentences long (for example: "Tuesday 2nd - On night duty with Elsie.  Talk of patrol in, bed at 1 o'clock, washed my hair").  In my opinion this doesn't make for a very good read, but that's just me.  

So, anybody else out there read any good WWII diaries?  I'd love to have some suggestions.

Yesterday, much to my husband's dismay, I hit the used bookstores and found a couple of fun things (I'm not sure if Mr B's dismay came more from our small house slowly, but steadily filling up with old books, or the fact that I made him carry several heavy ones in his backpack for the rest of the evening).  I didn't really expect that my haul was going to have anything worth sharing here, but today whilst thumbing through The Out-Of-Doors Book by Arthur Stanley (1933) I came across all these charming illustrations and since Spring is in the air I figured why not?

Bookshelves

This installation of Vintageing was most recently inspired by this post over at The Butterfly Balcony, but actually I can think of three other blog posts I have seen in the last month or so of people's bookshelves.  I absolutely love photos of other people's bookshelves!  I find them so inspiring and usually end up with a few titles I want to check out further.  Here's hoping that some of you may find something worth checking out among my collection.

This is a very, very small selection of my crafting library as most of my books are in storage back in the States.  The majority of those pictured here I have bought since moving to Belfast (if you're interested in seeing some of my other craft books there's a picture of some of them here).

I thought I might also show you an overview of my "crafting nook".  Our place is rather small and at the moment I don't really have a good space of my own to house the chaos (this is actually a section of Mr B's wardrobe).  There has, however been some definite plans discussed as to converting the roof space into a work room for me while we get some other work done on the house in the next few months.  Fingers crossed, things tend to move very slowly in the B household with regard to home improvement.

Here are few other shots of random bookshelves.  Some of the titles are relevant to this blog, some are definitely not.

Okay, so now I've shown you mine, your turn to show me yours.  Please take some photos of your books and send me links.  And, of course, if you have any questions on any of the titles you see here (authors, publishers, opinions, etc), let me know and I will be only too happy to answer them for you.

make up and cocktails

This is from the 1934 book Home Management which is a massive tome of mostly cookery and very few pictures.  Since there is really only one picture worth sharing, I thought I'd throw in one of the cocktail recipes from the book as a bonus.  Cheers!

Maiden's Prayer Cocktail

1/8 orange-juice

1/8 lemon-juice

3/8 Cointreau

3/8 dry gin

Shake well and strain into cocktail glass.

Hello there!

I really must apologise for how I have neglected this blog of late.  I was in quite a funk over the loss of my old computer and I am only slowly coming out of that now.  Meanwhile I have still been collecting old things and will try to make more of an effort to share some of them with you.

So let's start today, shall we?  Here are a few pictures from Beauty for Every Woman.  As I've said before, I don't own a scanner, so in that good ol' make do spirit I'm just photographing them.  Apologies for the wonky edges.

Another recent acquisition

I just picked up a copy of Jane Gordon's Technique for Beauty (no printed date, but clearly from the early 40s as chapter 23 is all about looking good on war rations).  

Some bits of this book feels surprisingly modern in tone.  There's a lot of emphasis on good nutrition, proper digestion and the like.  I haven't had a chance to read through it in it's entirety, but a thorough reading of the first chapter, and a quick peruse of the rest has not revealed anything glaringly dangerous (like you often get in older beauty manuals).  

This modern tone also makes it ever so slightly disappointing, because all the emphasis is on maintaining the quality of the hair and skin and there isn't really anything in the way of makeup colour palettes or pin-curl sets.  It that respect it's not very useful for those of us looking to recreate authentic period looks.  

There's not too much in the way of illustrations in this book, but the ones that are here are quite charming and I thought I'd share a few below.  (Please excuse my rather low budget photos here - I'm making do with an old "point and shoot" and the editing capabilities of iPhoto)

some new favorites

Don't expect any vintage hair or makeup tutorials anytime soon on this blog - I am all thumbs when it comes to these things.  (If you are looking for that sort of thing may I suggest the very excellent Lisa Freemont Street.  She does some pretty amazing hair tutorials which I can only dream of one day having the patience to do.  At the moment, this sort of thing is more my line.)

Anyway, this post is not about hairstyle tutorials, it's about books.  What you can expect from this blog are books and lots of them! I have a huge collection of tomes, old and new, (sadly most of them are in storage in L.A.) and I am constantly adding to it.

Today I want to feature two of the latest additions to my hoard.

If you are not familiar with this excellent series, it started two years ago with the 1920s, then, logically enough, proceeded to the 1930s and 1940s.  A quick search on Amazon has informed me that they're going to be skipping ahead thirty years and publishing the 1970s next.

 I'd been stalking these books for quite a while now and the 1930s being my decade of fashion preference, I finally decided to buy that edition as a birthday present to myself last month. I liked it so much that last weekend when I saw the 40s version online for £5 (!!!!) even Mr B (who, in general, is amusingly grumbly about my book habit) said "you'd better get that". . . and so I did.

 I cannot rave about them enough.  These books are AMAZING!!!! (many exclamation points most definitely deserved and required).  With 400+ pages of fashion goodness in each, they can also double as free weights were I to take that sort of thing up.

If you are a patternmaker, (which I am, in training, if not always in practice) there are tons of fashion illustrations that you should be able to copy without too much trouble should you choose.  In fact my favorite thing so far has been examining the croquis and imagining what the flat pattern would have to look like.

I'll just end by saying I totally recommend this series.  They are worth buying at full price and most definitely worth picking up if you can find them cheaper, so keep your eyes peeled.  The 20's book is on my list for someday future purchasing, but for now there is more than enough here to keep me occupied for some time.