Book: "Vintage Details" by Jeffrey Mayer and Basia Szkutnicka

My photo isn't terribly great, but this is what it looks like

I have bought and am giving myself a fantastic book as a present. Yay me!

"Vintage Details - A Fashion Sourcebook"  is just wonderful. It is also pretty heavy, a real coffee table book and I would buy it as a paperback again for easier storage. But this book deserves to be so heavy: there is just such a lot in it. And what gorgeousness!

It is chockful of photographs, initially as smaller index card style photos ('Visual Index') so you can quickly leaf through this section to visually identify what you are looking for.  This index tells you what page the larger photographs are on. So useful!

Often one of the pictures later on in the book will show a close-up of a detail, a cuff turned inside out, sleeves laid so you can see the most interesting part, a pocket flap turned back, the inside of a garment, etc.

Just look at this beautiful gusset, courtesy of the sleeve being folded out of the way:

The folded back tab shows an otherwise hidden seam and where the button is relative to the pocket flap:

The book is divided into several chapters: necklines; collars; sleeves; cuffs; pockets; fastenings & buttonholes; hems, darts, stitching & fitting devices; pleats, frills & flounces; embellishment; surface; and construction.

Going through the book feels like you've been to a fabulous vintage clothing exhibition but you didn't have to take your own photos hoping they'll come out well and show the details that caught your eye - instead it is all in here, in a very well presented way.

I love the shaped seam under the inverted pleat

This is in the Construction chapter, showing the inside of the dress

I know I will go through this book again and again: to look for inspiration, to remind myself of something I half remember and just for the sheer pleasure of indulging in this visual delight of what makes vintage clothing so fascinating and absorbing.

I give this book five out of five stars. I can only recommend it warmly: go find it, buy it.

"Vintage Details - A Fashion Sourcebook" by Jeffrey Mayer and Basia Szkutnicka. Laurence King Publishing Ltd, 2016

Hannelore plans

I saw a lovely lace pattern called Hannelore that Lacefreak blogged about. I fell in love!
I wanted, no: 'needed', to get this pattern and knit it just as soon as possible.
NB: there are also lovely pictures at Ars Una, Species Mille's blog.

I looked online, then at ebay, set up a search reminder for 'Burda Spezial E418', googled it again - but no joy. Then I found this project on Ravelry and realised that the pattern had also been published in 'Band 408' (that's volume 408 to you and me) by a company called Beyer Verlag. So back to googling and ebay and any other place I could think of.

Then Amazon posted the item: 'Kunststricken. Decken, Garnituren, Spitzen: Bände 408 und 760', saying: 'Not yet available but can be pre-ordered'. Hah!
Guess what? I did. (Big surprise)

It was supposed to arrive some time in late April if memory serves. It took a little longer - I got it some time in May. I don't mind: this is a treasure!

The two volumes are not bound books, they are more like brochures or folded booklets and come in a wallet that also contains the two sets of charts. And a loose leaf sheet of either errata or supplementing information.

Band 408 has more complicated, highly lacey looking doilies, the items in Band 760 are a little more robust looking, if that makes any sense. These patterns do not seem quite as complex with more stockinette stitch in them. The items in both are really lovely!

My Hannelore pattern that I was so desperate for turns out to be quite small. I must check Lacefreak's blog entry again to see how big you can get this if you use larger needles - I was rather hoping to be able to wear this as a shawl! The size in the book is that of a cushion cover, not quite what I had in mind!

I am playing around with yarn choices and have not yet decided what to use (my Silkbloom Extra Fino from BC Garn would be quite nice?) - I have this in undyed as well as my usual choice of strong pinks.
There are so many projects in these volumes I want to make that I started a medium sized one first: Image 20 on page 12 (I didn't find a name for this). I will post about this soon.

In the meantime, here's what the Silkbloom yarn looks like:

PS: I just realised that I didn't mention that these patterns are by a gentleman called Herbert Niebling. I think he was a genius! I've even found a picture* of him again (plus mini bio. He's not on Wikipedia!), though it took some doing - searching Google Images for his name brings up millions of doilies!

*: I just love that pot of Alpenveilchen on his table (on a balcony?) that he is apparently using to weigh the chart down! How endearing is that...

And very dapper he is too: the glasses and clothes are very 1950s/60s Germany.

Notizen - quilted notebook cover

That's 'notebook' as in the one with the white pages, to write on, with a real pen!

I really enjoyed quilting the letters to spell out what it's for. The 'i' in the centre middle is not very clear, I should have given it its own background fabric but couldn't fit that in widthwise.

The photo is not brilliant, but better than nothing. This is also the item of the title graphic. I ought to have used a photo of something else but I like these colours a lot.

Unfortunately I did not check the cover against the size of the notebook often enough, the cover came out a little on the swamping side, but better a little too big than not big enough and therefore rubbish for the purpose. I had to insert a bit of a cardboard because this slightly too big cover flopped all over the place.

But it is quite pretty. I just hope the recipient finds it as useful as I'd hoped he would.