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Even though I haven't seen the movie yet I thought it would be fun to change up the blog a little and make some vintage Barbie clothes patterns. That meant I needed to find a Barbie to model the clothes. I checked Goodwill but all of the versions they had were either non-classic body styles or had something else unusual about them that meant they wouldn't be great models. One had a torso that was a USA swimsuit. Another had a button on her back that looked like it attached to something. I this found Spa Barbie on FB Marketplace for $5 and picked her up yesterday.  I was surprised when I realized that her legs didn't bend. Apparently, somewhere around 1990 they changed the plastic and after that Barbie no longer had bendable arms and legs. The new version is easier to clean at least. That old plastic always felt a little sticky.
The first pattern I'll make for her is from April 1984. It's an evening gown and wrap and I have the suggested yarn from that era for it. So far I've found five other patterns in my library that range from 1965-1992. One is actually a Ski Suit for Ken but I think it will fit Barbie too. I'll switch back to neck items after I run out of Barbie patterns.
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It took me a couple of weeks but I finally finished one of the Tri-Color Feeding Bibs from the booklet I shared last week. In the instructions it says that these are Humpty-Dumpty, his wife and their twins. I made the bib with the twins.  All three versions use three colors of J&P Coats Knit-Cro-Sheen; dark blue, white and red. A size 6 or 7 steel hook and some double fold bias tape. I used some vintage red and blue Knit-Cro-Sheen and white Aunt Lydia's Classic Crochet Thread along with a size 7 steel hook. They give a gauge for the bib which I didn't check until I was done with the project but it matched. The pattern includes charts for all three of these but they were very tiny so I had to use my printer to enlarge them. The directions were pretty good for this pattern. They explain how to change colors and that you should carry your unused color along the top of the previous row. There were a few areas where I ended up using bobbins so I wasn't carrying more than one color. They even give directions for sewing on the bias tape that worked pretty well. I don't have anything bad to say about this project or the directions. I had some issues following the directions for the scallops on the bottom but once I decided to just trust that it would work even though I couldn't quite make sense of it, it did. I had some problems sewing the bias tape on but that's a user issue and not from the pattern directions. The finished bib is 12 inches by 10 inches so it's a decent size but I'm not sure how much this would protect a baby's clothes. It's still cute in a very 1940s way.  The project I planned for this week isn't quite done. I had several bouts of feline paralysis after vacation and it made it hard to work on projects.  Instead I'll share some pictures from the booklet that the half-done project came from. The booklet is from 1944 and it's from The Spool Cotton Company. The cover says, "Crochet your Gifts" but they snuck in a few knitted items like a bag and one of the potholders. The booklet uses J & P Coats - Clark's O.N.T. Crochet Cottons throughout the projects in sizes from Best Six Cord Mercerized Cotton size 50, to Knit-Cro-Sheen to Rug Yarn.  Some of the projects that use size 30 thread include a Pineapple Bib, a Pineapple Apron and Tea Cozy, Flowers and Doilies.
Knit-Cro-Sheen (aka size 10 thread) is usually the smallest thread I'll use and the booklet had a few patterns that used that. Potholders from that era seem to be commonly done in Knit-Cro-Sheen and these are pretty classic ones. The project I'm working on now from this booklet is also done in size 10 thread.
The collar below is done in size 50 thread and the sachets in the same photo are done in either "Brilliant" or six strand embroidery floss. The collar might have been an option for a neck project but there's a reason I don't have any size 50 thread. The curtain pulls vary from cord to size 30 thread. The pulls could be fun as a necklace pendant too.
I'm about half way done with the project for next week! Any guesses on what it might be? It isn't anything pictured in this post. Here's another project to add the the growing list of projects that just didn't work for me; the Bolo Scarf from the September 1985 issue of Workbasket Magazine.  The scarf uses 1.4 ounces of Unger Cruise or Baby Wintuk and a size F hook. Both of the recommended yarns are sport weight but I didn't have any sport weight yarn that I was willing to sacrifice for this so I bumped it up to a DK weight and tried Knit Picks Swish DK with a size G hook. I didn't make it very far when I realized that this project was just repetitious enough to be boring but I still had to pay attention to the ends of the rows since the repeat had a slightly different stitch pattern at the ends of the rows. Sometimes the final project will be worth this kind of annoyance but this wasn't one of them. Here's where I stopped and ripped it all out:  I admit that I'm much quicker to stop a project now if I'm not getting any joy out of making it. I think that's a good thing. It means I'm willing to try more things and just let them go if they aren't working for me.
Next week we're going back to 1944! |
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