![\"A](\"http:\/\/www.alltomorrowspatterns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/fabric-collage-5.png\")
I spent the holidays visiting family in Portland and came back to a gnarly cold, so I\u2019ve been offline mostly. I have bits and pieces of a half-dozen different projects brewing, but not much complete or bloggable due to frequent breaks for interacting with actual living people\u00a0(you know how it goes).\u00a0We had a house full of cats this year, including the two year\u2019rounders (Purl and Felecia, aka Puddin\u2019<\/a> and the Tiny Murderbeast<\/a>) plus a visitor (Frederick Bear, who lost no time at all making himself at home<\/a>.) So between Cat Politics, the\u00a0photo-shy dog, and a full schedule\u00a0of family and friends, it\u2019s been a busy\u00a0two weeks.<\/p>\n![Puddin\u2019<\/a> and the](\"http:\/\/www.alltomorrowspatterns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/lurkycat.png\"){kind=link}
![Tiny Murderbeast<\/a>) plus a visitor (Frederick Bear, who lost no time at all](\"http:\/\/www.alltomorrowspatterns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/felecia.jpg\"){kind=link}
A visit to my parents\u2019 basement is always both inspiring and sobering, crammed as it is with the creative paraphernalia of three generations. There are flat files full of art papers, bins of paints, bookbinding and framing supplies, beads and embroidery flosses, origami paper, bits of wire, chunks of wood, bins of yarn that we inherited from my mom\u2019s mother, the legendary knitter, and of course boxes and boxes of fabric and patterns.<\/p>\n
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Grandma had\u00a0excellent taste, and apparently spent a few of her youthful years in New York being MEGA GLAM. So a few of those boxes contained very fine cottons, silks, and wools. She favored soft, watercolor-y florals, often in pastel colors, vivid batiks, and\u00a0occasional polka dots, none of which are exactly my cup of tea, but the quality of the fabrics is apparent.\u00a0There are several yards of pink and turquoise plaid mohair that she once remembered to me in particular, plus a treasured bit of burnout\u00a0velvet that her mother bought in the \u201930s (which I\u2019m a little afraid to even touch.) She definitely frequented the remnant racks, and there are a lot of interesting small cuts of wool and wool blends, some of them with labels still attached.<\/p>\n Only the dress?! I WEEP.<\/p><\/div>\n We\u2019ve even\u00a0found\u00a0several\u00a0garments\u00a0that she actually finished, stored in her actual wardrobe. V1551<\/a> and V6771<\/a>, for example, both from the mid-1960s by the pattern date:<\/p>\n This one is still totally wearable, no? I did some minor repairs and added a hook and eye to the top of the zipper.<\/p><\/div>\n The fabric on this one is a lovely silk or pseudo-silk, but I dare say the print didn\u2019t age so well. I also raided my high school shoe collection for this shoot, because all I’d brought with me was boots. Haw. Yes I know they don\u2019t go.<\/p><\/div>\n Possibly the coolest thing was tucked away in various paper bags and envelopes amid the rest of the stash. Grandma had saved\u00a0unfinished objects\u00a0dating back decades, all neatly stored\u00a0away to finish later. Although there are plenty of missing pieces and vanished instruction sheets elsewhere in the\u00a0collection, these appear to be complete\u2014meticulously folded and packed up with envelope and instructions, so that everything would be all ready to go whenever\u00a0she found time to return to them. Some are uncut, some are cut and tailor tacked but not assembled,\u00a0and others are in various stages of construction.<\/p>\n![\"fabric](\"http:\/\/www.alltomorrowspatterns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/fredders.jpg\")
<\/a><\/span>A few of the pieces here are my doing, though most of my stash is in NYC with me. Some of it came from my great grandmother, mostly corduroys and polyester prints. Most of it belonged to my dad\u2019s mom, who contributed a good\u00a0six or eight boxes\u2014the big stapled-together kind with matching cardboard lids that they use to ship oranges (complete with assorted retro branding.)<\/p>\n<\/a><\/span>She also had an impressive collection\u00a0of sixties and seventies prints, many\u00a0of them LOUD LOUD LOUD. I can\u2019t begin to imagine wearing some of these, but since I’ll be the first to admit that my own affinity for basic, wearable fabrics is boring as hell, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a bad thing. Here\u2019s a sampling of prints that made me smile, but there\u2019s a lot more where that came from:<\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/span>Of course grandma\u00a0had a pattern stash to match the fabric. She clearly favored Vogue patterns, and she had specimens from the late 1950s all the way through the early 2000s, about half of them with designer names. This included a truly staggering number of caftans and jumpsuits, three\u00a0envelopes\u00a0of hats from when people actually wore hats, evening and outerwear options from every era, beachwear, and every imaginable flavor of skirt suit and shift dress, plus a handful of styles for kids and men.<\/p>\n<\/a>Not all the patterns are in great condition; not all are complete. This was very much a working collection.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>