I'm Ba-ack with Adventures in Sewing...

After three weeks of trotting across the globe, visiting family and raiding antique shops as I go, I'm back in green, rainy, and magical Norway. I'm exhausted and fighting off some major jet lag and a shocking lack of sleep (toddlers should be banned from airplanes, no offense parents) so I'm going to keep this short and sweet.

In my growing collection of vintage pattern company flyers are some lovely glimpses of the sewing world's advice column equivalent (rotten sentence, I know, but I'm sleepy, so just go with it.)
These little articles were one page features called "Adventures in Sewing" by Marian Corey, author of the 1951 "McCall's Complete Book of Dressmaking".

Here is one from McCall's Style News, September 1947 edition. (you can find a pdf for the whole edition in my etsy shop).

My head is on backwards, but let's talk about marking our patterns, shall we?

Here is the text in a larger, more readable size:

Stay tuned for more yet to come, including another Mail Call post, and a sneak peak at the whole suitcase full of sewing loot I brought back with me.
And now, to sleep.

The Winner, and whole bunch of flowers.

We have a winner for this week's vintage pattern pdf giveaway.

The winner of the above vintage 1940's bra pattern pdf file by random number generator is The Creative Miss W.

Congratulations!

On another note, I just learned how to make really gorgeous flowers out of napkins of all things!
 I found some great napkins in different colors with a great raised damask texture from my local Norwegian version of the dollar store. So in other words, the five dollar store.

I made them in  two sizes, large wall size, and small enough for a vase. The large ones I put in a row in my stairwell.

Free Pattern

I have stumbled across a lovely blog called Neu4baur.
I find it be quite full of brilliant sewing and fashion whatnot, and highly recommend you check it out.
Neu4baur is also offering a pdf for free of the awesome pattern below.

The pattern is part of a new and brilliant project that involves digitizing patterns for the modern age. I can't wait to see more. This particular pattern is from the rare and reclusive German vintage pattern magazines. They are hard to find, and even harder to approach as a seamstress, and I'm excited to see how her approach works with such a challenge.
If you decide to sew this pattern, drop me a line, I'd love to know how it works for you!

New Pattern PDF and Another Giveaway.

I've just finished spending the entire day taking my favorite bra pattern from the 1940's ( a jewel from my collection provided by my fantastic mother) into a pdf. The pattern was unprinted and to get a visible outline I copied it by hand, scanned it, and added notations to the perforations on the pattern. And oh, the Photo-shopping... when we move back to the sates the first thing I'm going to do (after getting a burger at Denny's, of course) is to enroll myself in a Photoshop course, because learning by winging it makes for slow going.
So here it is:

12 hours of drafting and now it's available as a pdf in my shop.
And to alleviate my computer related headache, I'm going to give away one free copy of the pattern above to one lucky follower because giveaways make me happy.

How to win (you can do one or all):
1. Comment and tell me what your favorite piece of lingerie is, either one you have, or one you want.
2. Become a follower of this blog, (and leave a comment telling me you have).
3. Like A Few Threads Loose on Facebook (and leave a comment telling me you have).

Good Luck! I'll announce the winner next Monday!

Pattern finds.

So every morning, cup of tea in hand, I troll etsy for any newly listed patterns I might want. Sometimes I find things that I already have, that I know other pattern collectors might be happy to snap up too.
Hence, today's feature, patterns you want:

 

Vintage 1946 Simplicity 1822 Sewing Pattern Women's Slip and Panties Size 40 Bust 40, available at the always reasonably priced Midvale Cottage. A steal at $14. I payed much more for my copy.

And if you'd like to own one of every McCall's Fashion First's pattern as I do (though hopefully acquired at less $$$$) then you must see McCall's 9567:

This one is available at what I would call still reasonable for the pattern, but more than I like to spend when I've just bought plane tickets.  $42 at momandpopcultureshop.

Or you could spend $9 for pure adorableness:

This one is available at Junee Moon Vintage.

That's all for today.
Please forgive the shortage of posts lately. Between having a ton of classes to substitute lately, and my shoulder still being messed up from the broken arm of 2010, typing up a post is harder to do than it used to be. Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of things soon.

 

Knit for Defense

For today's normal, non- giveaway related post, I thought I'd share my most recent acquisition, a fantastic 1941 Knit for Defense booklet.

The inside front cover sums up what it's about best:

"The National Defense Program isn't all tanks, airplanes, and battleships. It's people, too- you and I and 130,000,000 others. North, South, East, and West women are taking up behind- the- scene tasks of an Unlimited National Emergency. You too, can play a leading role in the greatest defense program of all history by anticipating the needs of our boys in training.
Whether he is in the Army, the Navy, or the Air Force, he will appreciate the warmth and comfort of sweater and woolen accessories knitted especially for him. With that in mind we have included in this book garments specifically designed for men of action and patterned after regulation specifications."

This book is full of really great knitting patterns, which I've added to my etsy shop as a PDF.
But mostly, this book has 1940's military eye candy:

Crew Neck Pullover

Round or Turtle Neck pullover

Sleeveless V-Neck Pullover

Plain gloves, Scarf, and Neck Protector

Aren't these gents just dreamy?
If you'd like to know more about the knitting for defense, or knitting for Victory movements, there's a great article here.

And we have a winner!

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway! The lucky winner is Alice of Alice's Closet whose comment # was chosen by a random number generator:

She has a super cute sewing blog that you might like to check out.
Congrats, Alice, and thanks for reading A Few Threads Loose! Just leave a comment here on this post with the pattern you want, and how I can email it to you, or email me at afewthreadsloose@gmail.com.
The prize? Alice get's to choose any one pdf pattern from my etsy shop that she likes.
I have some super cute pdf patterns on there, but by far, my favorite is the beach bra pattern.

Either that or the flight cap pattern which is my other best seller. I think it's because my husband was gracious enough to model it for me.

Lord, but he's good looking!