Saturday, March 7, 2009

I scored on some patterns!

I went to Joann's looking for fabric, because the store I wanted to hit was closing in ten minutes when I called.
Joann's is a disaster. They have all the signs of closing the store but the employees are clueless. It wasn't that bad a year ago when I was in there, so this is a sure sign that they're eventually closing. Either that or they have no intention of caring about the customers.
The pattern table had only one updated book for Simplicity and the other books were all from last year. The patterns in the drawers were in no way consoidated, many of them had the separator card turned so it was red on top which is a sign that it's being discontinued and yet they hadn't pulled them.
It was a disaster trying to find anything.
I was lucky though... I got a Butterick pattern and it's close to the pattern I had in mind, it's missing the bustle but that's easy.
I think this will do for the dress I have in mind:



The darker view on the left is the one I want to use. The skirt is full enough I could put a small bustle in it or just put a bustled skirt over it. I almost bought a hat pattern and a cape pattern but put those back. I did get the corset, crinoline, pantaloons and camisole pattern though, and a token medieval gown pattern. The pantaloons are intriguing as they are split at the crotch so you don't have to pull them down to use the privy..interesting. Actually they're connected in the front, but not the back and they tie so you just untie them and drop trow as it were.
I haven't bought any costume patterns in years and I'm going to take advantage of my current mode.
Anyway... I have a hitch in the Peacock sock pattern, I went through this once already and didn't notice anything so it must be right, but the lining up of the pattern isn't working on the row I'm on (round that is, and it's 23). I had to run through the lace part once, backed up, double checked the stitch count, checked again and it isn't lining up...hoping I didn't screw up on something.

Going to go look at the costume pattern I got and see just how difficult the jacket is.

Oh, I figured out the name for my knitting invention...it's as obvious as the page I'm writing on...don't know why I didn't think of it in the first place. Oh well. Off I go.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You might want to do a little checking before you commit to that one. I'm doing a steampunk ensemble for the Shadow family, and have been looking for Victorian patterns too. Simplicity 5457 (http://sewing.patternreview.com/cgi-bin/patterns/sewingpatterns.pl?patternid=6921) has been discontinued, but if you can find it on eBay or at a vintage pattern reseller it's a gorgeous dress. Burda has a nice pattern, too, but the number escapes me at the moment.

Pat Sallume said...

Um, I have that pattern in my hot little hands. I scanned it to put the cover picture in the blog.
As I said, Joann's is a disaster, and they haven't updated any of their patterns or books for at least four months. Maybe longer. The dress I wanted wasn't in the drawer, and I left two more behind due to budget restrictions.
I looked at the Burda patterns and the Simplicity, McCalls and Butterick.
The ones for reenactment groups are expensive, which is why I chose to fall back on the more common companies.
Thanks for the comment! See you in chat!