Broken Sewing Promises or "Don't Remind Me"

Friends, particularly at this time of year, when nobody wants to be judged naughty instead of nice, one wants to keep one's promises.  But sometimes, no matter how well-intentioned, one's plans hit a snag.

If I told you it was highly unlikely I was going to complete a men's suit jacket before the end of the year -- or even start one -- would you be terribly disappointed?  It's not that I don't want to make a suit jacket -- I do -- I just don't feel motivated to start right now.  Can that be OK?

Sometimes I get very excited about ideas for projects and share these with you, getting your hopes up, no doubt, and then they don't pan out.  I get sidetracked, or the idea, which seemed so right at the time, loses its appeal.  I hope you'll indulge me if I list a few here.  I do this not for you so much as for me -- a sort of end-of-year inventory of projects sidelined -- perhaps forever, perhaps not.

I know earlier this year I'd talked about making a dress like the one Ginger Rogers wore in the "Pick Yourself Up" number in Swing Time, always a favorite of mine.  I even bought a pattern I thought might be suitable.







It didn't happen.  If truth be told, the pattern didn't seem quite right, and I wasn't sure I knew how to adapt it or cared to try.  Maybe some day.

I so wanted to make a Liza-inspired, Halston-esque jump suit and I still may.  I bought this wonderful sparkly fabric which I think would be perfect.  I just never got around to it.





Remember this Fifties Vogue pattern that was going to be "Cathy's Comeback Dress"?  Well, Cathy did come back (from prison, it's a long story) but not in this pattern.  I even made a muslin of the bodice.  If I learned anything, it's that dirndl skirts use a lot of fabric and aren't flattering on everybody.





Moving right along, remember when I said I was going to remake my ironing board cover, using a vintage wool blanket?  Well, I am using the blanket on the ironing board, but I've never actually made the cover -- I just threw the blanket on the board and stretched the commercial cover over it, with the blanket ends hanging out over the edges.  It looks dreadful, especially behind lovely Patti Playpal.  Maybe that's something I can get accomplished before the end of the year.







Friends, there have been other near-promises made and not kept (mermaid gowns anybody?) but I do think it's important to go where one's energy is and be able to change one's mind.  Making a worsted wool men's suit jacket without the necessary energy and enthusiasm is a recipe for disaster, don't you think?

In closing, do you generally do the things you set out to do?  If you don't, are you able to shift gears without feeling too bad about it?

What are your sewing plans for the last two weeks of 2011?  Are you giving yourself a break -- it is the holidays, after all -- or hunkering down even more?  Is there any big project you wanted to accomplish in 2011 that's been pushed back (or is it forward?) to 2012 -- or beyond?

Finally, if I told you I never did ditch my Mickey Mouse phone....

To forgive is divine!

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Giveaway Winner + Last BIG purchase of 2011, promise!

Good morning, Ann Margret fans and others!   Huh?  Keep reading.

First, I'd like to announce the winner of the Mae West paper doll giveaway.  Please put your hands together for...DAMO!

Damo, please email me your contact information (peterlappinnyc at gmail dot com) and I'll get Mae over to you ASAP.  Congratulations!

Moving right along, friends, there's something about the holidays that makes us want to buy stuff.  Actually, everything about the the holidays makes us want to buy stuff, and that's just the way Madison Avenue likes it.  I pride myself on being highly resistant to most impulse purchases (Who just snorted -- did that come from Australia?), but the other day I happened to pop into the Housing Works Thrift Store on 17th Street -- never a good idea at holiday time -- and I was overtaken with the spirit of giving.  To myself.

Readers, I don't consider myself a true doll collector.  OK, I own a dozen Ken dolls, but I consider them decor, like ashtrays or commemorative Elvis plates.  I don't obsess over them or try to collect all their outfits and I hardly ever play with them.  But when I saw this very unusual doll, I simply couldn't resist.

Meet Patti Playpal!  (Yes, she came with her original tag).



One thing you need to know right off the bat about Patti, is that she is big.  BIG.



Some might say grotesquely large.





Patti is so big, in fact, that you were instructed to sew real 3 year old-size clothes for her.  Friends, if I ever talk about doing that, please organize an intervention.  But honestly, isn't this vintage McCall's outfit cute?

I know some of you will find Patti -- and her outsized presence in my living room -- the stuff of nightmares, but I hope you'll come around eventually.   Michael did, or he will any day now.  He's still a little freaked out.



Now, if I told you Patti was only $15, surely you would understand why I couldn't resist her charms.  To be clear, Patti has a little crack on her upper thigh, but hey, she's nearly 50 years old!   I trust some of you doll aficionados will instruct me how to mend it (something having to do with acrylic nail powder, perhaps?).

And here's the Ann Margret bit.  Don't you think she resembles Ann Margret...just a little?

In closing, I hope I haven't set a bad example for those of you desperate for any excuse to indulge your most outrageous holiday shopping whims.   If you keep it under $20, I think it's OK.  I can't translate that into Euros, but we're basically talking the cost of lunch for two at McDonalds.

Readers, do any of you remember Patti Playpal?  Did any of you actually own one, or envy a childhood friend who did?  Would you display her 1) on the floor, 2) atop a credenza 3) in the back of a closet -- waaaay back.

You can watch the original Patti Playpal TV commercial here. 

Have a great day, everybody!

(More Patti pics here.)

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Mae West Style + GIVEAWAY!

She wasn't thin, she wasn't young (not at the height of her fame anyway), and she wasn't particularly beautiful, yet there's no denying that Mae West was a true sex symbol in her day.

What do you make of Brooklyn-born Mae West -- actress, playwright, singer, comedian, sexual trailblazer?

Many excellent biographies of Mae West have been written in the last decade and she wrote her own autobiography in the late Fifties, Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It.   Outspoken about female sexuality (and sexuality in general), she was a feminist before feminism had a name.  And yet, especially toward the end of her life, she seemed trapped in the campy caricature she herself had created -- the raunchy, ever-sexually-available woman.

Apart from her movies, the best of which were made in the Thirties for Paramount, she's best known for her endless witticisms, among them,  “Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere,"  “I used to be Snow White, but I drifted,""It's not the men in your life, it's the life in your men," and  “When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better. ”

Mae started performing around 1900 and was still performing in the Nineteen-Seventies!  To see Mae West in her last film, Sextette, however, wig piled atop wig, is to watch someone who seems to have lost perspective on how they come across.   In her mind, she never changed -- which in one way (her taste) was true, but in another (her allure) was terribly false.  I guess you can argue that it's heroic that she never dropped the mask in public; I'm not so sure.

I love Mae West, and in her early films she seems more like a real person than the lip-smacking, hip-rolling stereotype she became.  Before the so-called Hays Code in 1934 forced her to censor her more explicit material (which she wrote herself) she was one-of-a-kind bawdy.  She was still one-of-a-kind after 1934, but tamed, she was much less fun.  She eventually stopped working in films to perform on stage in successes like Catherine Was Great (she played Catherine).  She also had a touring stage show with loincloth-clad musclemen and was an occasional guest star on TV (Mr. Ed), usually playing herself.  Her return to films in Myra Breckinridge in 1970 was a big comeback for her, and she was back in the limelight till the end, recording albums of rock music (The Doors!), giving interviews, and promoting new projects.

Mae nearly always appeared in spangly Gay Nineties-inspired gowns or variations thereof -- many designed by Paramount costume designer Edith Head -- that showed off her hourglass figure.  Ostrich plumes, sequins, and huge hats were all part of the look that she stuck with throughout her career.   She wasn't a tall woman, and she wore shoes like these for extra height, hidden under her gown.  Can you imagine?

I have a wonderful Mae West giveaway today for all you Mae West fans out there, the Mae West Paper Doll book by Tom Tierney.  It's full of beautiful color illustrations (and detailed information) of many of her most famous costumes from stage and screen, as well as biographical information about Mae herself.









If you'd like to be considered for the Mae West giveaway, just leave a comment below before Wednesday at midnight, EST.  I'll announce the winner on Thursday, December 15, and will try to ship it out to you in time for Christmas.  (If you want to comment but don't want to be entered in the giveaway, just let me know.)

What are your thoughts about Mae West?  Do you find her inspirational and empowering, or embarrassing?  Role model or relic?

Do tell!

Here's Mae still going (semi) strong, somewhere in her mid Eighties, speak-singing Captain and Tennille as only she could.

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Who You Callin' Ugly?

Friends, it is but a tired cliché that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, yet isn't it the truth?  I open with this photo of Barbra Streisand because when she burst onto the scene in the early Sixties many people considered her to be ugly, and yet today her style is considered iconic.

And speaking of Barbra, if you'd like to dress up like the pregnant bride in Funny Girl,  I have just the pattern for you, Butterick 5564!

This is all my very roundabout way of getting to today's topic, which is ugly patterns.  I want to be clear from the outset, however, that patterns I consider ugly may be your idea of hello, gorgeous, and that's OK.  I'm not here to change minds.

I think there's so much focus at MPB on beautiful things -- beautiful clothes, beautiful wigs, beautiful bloggers -- that we sometimes need a palate cleanser, something to help us recalibrate our evaluation skills.

In the past, I've focused solely on patterns from the ugly decades (the Seventies & Eighties), but this feels much too easy.  Need proof?  Try this:

Or this:

Or THIS!  (I wonder if Bill Hackey ever sewed it up.)

Many people think there were no ugly pattens before the Seventies.   I am determined to change your minds.

Even I believed that the Forties were utterly ugly-pattern free.  Yet how would you like to be the six year old wearing Joan Crawford's old shoulder pads?

And honestly, who but June Allyson could have pulled off this yoked blouse, complete with Peter Pan collar and ruffles.  It's so sweet it makes my teeth ache.

And this patterned jumper -- busy, busy, busy!

But it was in the Fifties that we got our first glimpse of fashions gone haywire, as the Postwar frills got even frillier: bell sleeves, bows, crinolines -- it's all simply too much.

The alternative Fifties silhouette was the sheath.  But this late-Fifties version looks too much like a bottle of Palmolive dishwashing liquid.

Loud prints were the rage in the mid-Sixties, but surely this unfortunately placed strawberry is an error in judgment on a pattern marked Quickie.

Moving right along, the teddy nightgown was a terrible idea, but it's worse paired with long pajama pants, don't you think?

When considering ugly patterns, let's not overlook accessories patterns.   Those Renaissance Italy-inspired chin-strapped hats make me think only of wisdom teeth extractions.

Costume patterns seem like easy targets, but honestly, this is beyond the pale.

And now for the big finish:  The best of the worst:

Ugly.

Uglier...  (Kwik Sew 1926 if you're wondering)

Ugliest! 

Yes, friends, make the echt-Eighties over-sized, boxy jacket even bigger -- add fringe!

In closing, readers, I do hope your palettes are now sufficiently cleansed.  Truly, are there uglier than these? (If you can find any, let me know.)  Tell the truth: some of you like a lot of these patterns, don't you?  I'll bet some of you own a few of them, too.

If anyone has fringe fantasy Kwik Sew 2031 in their stash, speak up!  We don't want to embarrass you; we want to help you.

Happy Monday,  beautiful people!

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