Oohmoon - what a fabulous Idea

I love this site. Ive only recently found it and its just such a great idea. How cute is the name? Ooh Moon.

Its a seriously cool blog where she has an illustration that is downloadable for free every day for a single day (after that day you pay for it). Based on childrens illustrations but I love them too. I think they are just funky! And this week shes doing Owls! Whoohoo! Or should I say Whoot! 

Im going to print these ones out and put them on my walls with my other owls. No Im not obsessed.....exactly. What makes you say that....

Tea Dresses & Naughty Shorts

http://naughtyshorts.blogspot.com
Recently I have fallen in love with the vintage style of 50s style "Tea" dresses. Yes me and the rest of the world I know. Problem is, Im not small and svelte.  Im a larger variety lady. A true hourglass. Translate, big boobs, smallish waist, big bum & thighs.  Which is fine for me to wear Tea dresses. If I could only find them in my size. Under $400.

I was desperately hoping that Rebecca Williams from Naughty Shorts would have my size - she goes up to a size 16. Thats one of her dresses in the picture above. And her dresses are just so lovely that I really have to have one. Alas, her larger sizes are not available yet. She has assured me she is working on larger patterns and will soon be able to custom sew a dress for me. YAY.

If you love tea dresses go check out her dresses and other items made of vintage fabric. She has made her pattern herself and she sews them all by hand. You choose the fabric, she makes your dress. And she is so reasonably priced - under $100!  She was recently profiled in Frankie so Im guessing shes going to be majorly busy for a while so get in quick if you want a dress this season.

lutterloh mini pattern
For me - Ive resorted to deciding to sew my own.  An ambitious aim because my sewing skills are still fairly basic. And the patterns I have decided to use? Vintage Lutterloh patterns.  Ever heard of Lutterloh? Its basically this system where you use a special miniature pattern and a special tape measure and draw up your own patterns to your own size. You take your measurements in specific places, and then translate that to a number which you use with the special tape measure and then using the mini pattern, you draw up a big pattern specifically fit to you.  Sounds cool huh? I found it at a craft show last year but you can buy online. Comment if you want to know where and I will point you in the right direction.

The only down side to the Lutterloh is that while the pattern is pretty cool, Im not so wonderful at not having instructions. It does come with a basic instruction booklet for how to sew most things. I just need to marry that up with the pieces that I have right? Well, I will see how I go.  I have chosen a dress or two from a vintage lutterloh pattern book I found from ebay. This book was written for the system in the early 50s (yes this pattern system has been around that long) and it has some seriously cool patterns in it. True vintage.  I jsut hope it translates to my size cause aparently ladies waists were a lot smaller back then. What, did they not have fat people back then? Im thinking thats a little bit of propoganda myself. But I will try. I have some old cotton sheets Im going to use for the muslin so I will keep you updated!

Vintage Lutterloh pattern