"Vintage Design Workshop: Knitting Techniques for Modern Style" Book Review

As those of you that have been following Flashback Summer for a while know, I've had an ongoing desire to learn to knit clothing, especially vintage clothing.  You would also know that it has definitely been an up and down process, most recently ending in a Knit For Victory 2013 failure in which I planned to knit this cardigan and ended up with a mess of a cardigan that was way too wide, too short, and had unintentionally leg-o'-mutton-ish sleeves.  After spending a ridiculously long time knitting with such high hopes, it was a devastating time.

Junior-Senior University Banquet 2014

On Friday night my university held the annual Junior-Senior Banquet, this year at the Showboat Branson Belle.  It's an old-school paddle boat that goes across a lake in the area while we eat dinner and watch a variety show inside.  We all dressed up in our loveliest dresses, grabbed a date and had a good time!  It's our last banquet, so that was bittersweet.  (Mostly because I just enjoy having a consistent reason to dress up every year!)

I wore a dress that I found in a flea market.  It's from the 40s, and I had to do a bit of work on it to get it ready.  Amazingly, the tulle at the bottom of the skirt was flawless, but it had been hanging on a wire hanger for too long without the hanger straps, and the mesh top was torn along the shoulders.  I thought I would get to work on fixing it, though, because I actually needed to "petite-ize" it and bring the shoulders down anyway.  I also needed to bring in the sides a bit at the top under the arms for a snug, non-gapey fit.

After getting the shoulders and sides sewn, I tried it on.  While getting everything smoothed out, however, the mesh top tore right along one shoulder seam, much to my dismay.  I couldn't fix it.  There just wasn't any fabric left to work with.  So, while hoping to retain the general look of the dress, I had to cut off all the mesh that had covered the shoulders above the lace bodice, and I used the border on the mesh top around the armholes as the new straps.  While not as amazing as the mesh top, I do think it looks pretty good!  I put on my tall gold shoes, a navy belt, found a coordinating tie for Jacob, and altogether we looked pretty snazzy, I dare say.  It was a good night with our dear friends Chelsea, Evan, Adam, and Lauren!

Photos from Chelsea and Lauren; thanks, guys!

'Merica.

Contrapunt Giveaway Winner!

Hello everyone!  Just a quick note to tell you the results of the Contrapunt Etsy Shop giveaway!  Nuria, the Contrapunt shop owner, has been a delight to work with and I have been glad to highlight her amazing patterns!

Now, for what you've all been waiting for..... the winner of the giveaway is........

EMILY OF EMILY'S VINTAGE VISIONS!

Congratulations Emily!  I've emailed you with the details!

Thank you to everyone who participated!

Good Times in College From Back in the Day

Yesterday I had the pleasure of going over to my friend Darlene's house to continue our planning of my wedding decor and flowers.  (She is kindly organizing it all for me!  Her artistic talents are boundless, I swear.)  After talking about the necessary things, we went on to other life topics, and we got onto the subject of what her college days were like.  She attended a state university here in town, then called SMS, in the 60s.  (In the picture above, she is the furthest on the left.  She said she loved that sweater but the angora itched a lot.)  A small town girl coming to the big city, she was caught off guard by some of her roommates' antics and the frat boys that lived in the house next door to hers.  Probably my favorite story she told was how she had a roommate that would iron her bullet bras to a sharp point every day.  No one else around them was wearing such bras at that point, so it was a bit appalling to all the other ladies.

Not to mention the guys next door that ran a bar.  After closing the bar, all the student clientele would just walk on over the these guys' house and continue the party.  Darlene said they were constantly being raided by the police in the middle of the night, so that was a new experience for her.

Although times have definitely changed since then and college experiences are very different now, I think we younger generations think of college students of this time as way stuffier than they actually were.  Today I have a fun collection of vintage college antics to share with you, to put it all back in perspective.  (And I'm having major senioritis and DANG-I'm-done-with-school emotions that are strong right now, so enough with school seriousness.) 

First off, my favorite vintage fad I've discovered: Telephone booth cramming.

Obviously this late 1950s game involved cramming as many people into a telephone booth as possible and snapping a picture before the people on the bottom suffocated.  Apparently it got pretty intense and resulted in international rivalries.  And we thought planking was clever.

Or, if phone booths aren't your thing, you could pack a 1965 Volswagen:

And then this guy pulled a great photo prank.  To get all the ins and outs of how it worked, check out this article, but basically while the photographer did a slow pan of this college group to get a long line of students, a guy ran from one side to the other, and because of the slow exposure... shows up twice in the picture.  There he is in both the bottom two picture excerpts.  What a joker.

Then sometimes they just had to cabaret on the lawn:

Good times, good times.

P.S.  It's the last day to enter the Contrapunt Etsy Shop giveaway to win a custom-sized vintage pattern!  Don't miss it!

"Vintage Notions" Book Review

There are few things I enjoy more than learning about the yesteryears and giving context to the vintage fashion that I love so much.  While vintage fashion in its own sake is wonderful, I am exhilarated to learn the history behind it.  You know, things like why dresses had snaps instead of zippers, what archaeological discoveries influenced 1920s fashion, how certain silhouettes were created during specific eras, how clothing was a reflection of society at the time.

When my mother sent me the book Vintage Notions by Amy Barickman, I was immediately enchanted by its happy array of feedsack print flora on the cover and the subtitle-- "An Inspirational Guide to Needlework, Cooking, Sewing, Fashion, and Fun"-- all of which I happen to totally adore, so..... I opened it up real quick and started reading!

THE BOOK IS FILLED WITH PAGES OF MAGIC.

I don't believe that I have ever run across such a wealth of information so perfectly tailored to my vintage lifestyle.  Truly, the subtitle did not lie!  The book is divided into the four seasons of the year and filled with old articles, essays, tutorials, and pictures that not only completely delighted my soul but are also easily applicable to my life.

Some other things included in the book are:

How to make a 1920s lingerie set (a draft at home pattern)

Setting the table for a Valentine's day party

How to make two aprons out of a man's shirt

Hankie monogramming

Character-building articles and poetry

Pockets to store my own inspirational clippings

The book is a collection of articles and lessons from a women's college that operated from the 1900s to the 1930s.  (There's a whole section on the history behind it that is ridiculously interesting.)  I personally really enjoy the mindset of Amy Barickman in valuing these articles and pieces of knowledge.  Some would dismiss the idea of a woman's college that focused on cooking, sewing, and the domestic arts as quaint and old fashioned, a relic of days when women were oppressed and relegated to strict gender roles.  But this was not the case at all!  The creation of this woman's college elevated the "womanly arts" to the level of a higher education institution, giving them validity as the fine arts they truly are.  Hundreds of thousands of women enrolled, and this education in sewing, dressmaking, cooking, etc. allowed so many of these women to generate income for their families.  This income gave women the independence to create businesses, to venture out into the world of commerce in a way that they couldn't before.  These "quaint" homemaking skills were the route to economic freedom and provision for these women and their families.

The only thing I wish was different about the book was the somewhat limited array of draft at home patterns.  Out of the 12 patterns included, four are aprons.  While I enjoy aprons immensely and they make great gifts, I would have liked more of a variety.  However, I must say that the aprons also didn't look similar to each other, so they truly were different patterns.  I can still see myself using those patterns as gifts in the future.

Overall, I highly recommend this book.  It was a joy to read, a feast for the eyes, and I will admit that it kind of consumed my life until I was done with it.  I just couldn't put it down!

You can find out more about the author and her book (as well as purchase it) here if it's something you'd like to explore further!

There are also full page excerpts to look at, if you'd like a better idea of the book's awesomeness!

I didn't collaborate with the author or publisher of this book for this post, and all thoughts are my honest opinions.

Sponsor Highlight: A Giveaway From Contrapunt Etsy Shop!

This giveaway is now closed.  You can find the results here.

For the next week, Flashback Summer sponsor Contrapunt Etsy Shop has a giveaway for you guys!  In this post you'll get to know the shop owner, Núria Passada, and her creative process, then you'll have opportunities to enter into the giveaway to win a custom-sized vintage pattern drafted just for you!

Núria approached me earlier this month to talk about sponsorship, and she has been a delight to work with!  After I explored her Etsy Shop, Contrapunt, I just knew that you guys would love it as much as I do!  Contrapunt specializes in hand-drafted vintage patterns, artistic collars and unique clothing.  

Probably my favorite part of the Contrapunt shop is the patterns.  They are original vintage patterns from the 20s through the 40s, and Núria was kind enough to explain how she creates custom-sized, fit-you-perfectly patterns for her customers from vintage images.  It's just incredible to me!

1.  First, she starts with what she calls the "base of the pattern".  This is like a mold of the body she's creating a pattern for with its exact measurements.

2.  Next, she cuts into the base of the pattern and adds yellow paper into certain places. This adds 3D shaping and volume where necessary to create the design that she's looking for.

3.  Then comes the fun part!  She puts the pattern on a mannequin and adds the design details that make each garment unique and fabulous.

4.  Then voilá!  After some work and tweaking, she has a complete pattern all ready to be sewn up into fabulous garments like this one!

And now she's offering one lucky reader the chance to choose a vintage pattern to be custom-made to her exact size!

Personally, I'm totally in love with this idea.  It takes out all the traumatic, frustrating hours of fitting and adjusting and fixing a pattern or trying to come up with one on my own.  Check out just a few of the patterns available for sizing in her shop:

Fabulous, right?!

Not to mention, several of these patterns would work for Sew for Victory, too!

So this giveaway will begin today and run until April 11 at 12 am (aka Thursday night).

There are several ways to enter.  The only mandatory entry is to leave a comment on this post about your favorite Contrapunt product (make sure you tell the little Rafflecopter entry-collector below that you commented!), and the other ways to enter will give you more chances to win!  You can also pin your favorite Contrapunt item to Pinterest once a day for extra entries.  Woooo!  Good luck everyone!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

You can also use this code to embed this giveaway elsewhere:

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share-code/ZjkxOTlkMjUzOWYwZjkwMzYyMTc4MjA0MTA4OTFiOjEx/