Hidden patterns

I don't know about you but so often I read a blog and see a great new outfit made up and I just can't believe I hadn't noticed that pattern before. I mean where were my eyes? 


In fact this is one reason I love reading blogs so much - seeing how other sewers catch things I didn't.


Last week I ordered Butterick 5533 "Pattern of the Week" via BMV because the line drawing of the pattern showed me an interesting back that you just wouldn't see if all you saw was the cover shot. BTW if you search for this pattern under "Coats and Jackets" you won't find it - it is under "New patterns", which seems to me something the web site administrators should fix.


I am anxious for this new pattern to arrive. I am coming to the end of a cycle of making some around-the- house-tops to  wear over leggings and slimmer pants, but now I realize that my going-to-the-store jacket isn't long enough. 


Isn't that just the way. Tops get shorter and waistlines go lower then waistlines go up and tops go down and nothing goes together the same way. I believe they call that fashion.


Well, I don't mind it keeps me interested.


I had coffee once in with a woman who was doing research and writing a book on fashion in the old USSR. She was so interesting. Stalin, it seems, made the decision that changing styles before clothes actually wore out was a waste of resources (few husbands might agree with him there - I know my dad, father of four girls would have) so he ordered that all women's magazines could publish patterns for only the same styles, year after year. In fact, what he was doing was decreeing the end of the fashion cycle.


Just think about that. The exact same patterns being your only choice every year. Maybe that's why every Russian woman I know is so very fashionable these days.


Now fashion can be frivolous, I know, but wearing something new, or a look I haven't worn quite that way before, refreshes me and how I feel about myself. And with women's lives being so much about giving out to people, a little bit of a recharge is a good, well, I would also say even a socially useful, thing. Take that Joseph Stalin. People, particularly the busy and hard-working ones, should smile.


Beside it's fun.


And, see early post, that matters a lot too.