A Road Trip of Great Joy

I was approached with an unexpected and massively wonderful offer through Craigslist a few weeks back: If I would go visit this lady, she would give me all of her patterns from the 1950's. When yesterday proved to be a lovely, sunshiny, great for driving day, my darling beloved husband agreed to drive me just over an hour north to Peoria so that I could recieve these:

Arlene was in high school in the mid 1950s and made nearly all of her own wardrobe. She's been hauling these patterns around for the past 50 years. She and her husband just recently moved into a new, smaller home and she wanted to get rid of them. I happily obliged. She's a tiny, vibrant, active woman -- I was shocked when she told me these were hers, not her mother's! I didn't believe she was in her 70's.

I'm torn as to which of these to make first:

2958, from 1959

4743, I can't find the year. If you know, please tell me!

They're both a good bit small. Looking at the back of the patterns, sizes were about 2" smaller all around than they are now. And I'm a larger size than this anyway. All of them will need scaled up -- I *think* I know how to do that. It'll take some experimentation. Look at the bust on the second picture: a size 11 was a 29 inch bust! Thankfully I'll have tons of time after graduation -- only a short 5 weeks away now!

There's 15 more patterns beyond these 10, but these are the ones I'll be playing with first. The others are mens and childrens, and some from the 1960's - 70's that I'm less interested in. I'm so blessed by her generosity. These patterns can't be found anymore. It's an honor to carry on their tradition. Yay! Dresses!