mala_14 | Victoria Long Weekend (Reply)

Since I had a sore throat last week I decided that I was too sick to go up to my friend's cabin for the weekend since all the partying would just make me sicker. Instead, I hung out with my family. My dad and I went to see the Norman Rockwell exhibit at the local art gallery. It was a lot of fun seeing all the retro and nostalgic artwork. I was pleasantly surprised by some more serious artwork done by Rockwell. There were some pieces that captured different moments of the Civil Rights movement. It was very different from the light-hearted, more comical stuff that is usually associated with Rockwell.

The next day, we took a family trip down to the US for the day. We ate lots of food that we don't have up in Canada and visited an antiques mall. There were a few items of antique clothing, all whites. There was a pretty stiff petticoat, a nightgown, and child's dress, and a really cool net dress that I thought might be from the 1830s based on the sleeves. The sleeves had a fitted upper part with a much wider lower part sewn on. The skirt was more 1820s looking with several small flounces at the bottom. But maybe I'm way off and it's actually much later. I've never seen anything like it. It was completely unlined. I also saw some gorgeous turn-of-the-century china head dolls that reminded me of

jennil. They were pretty big and one looked to have its original clothing. My dad offered to buy me one, but I couldn't justify letting him spend that much money on me. I did get a couple much smaller items:

A vintage shirtwaist dress pattern from 1961 (McCall's 5997). The version with the longer sleeves seems to be also intended for dressier wear since the fabrics recommended for it include satin and brocade.

It's really neat because the bodice has little rulers on it to change the proportions depending on your height (5'8", 5'6", or 5'3").

I also found a tailor's tack still stuck in the bodice front dart.

And the person who used it must have been making the dress for some sort of project, because there was a schedule hand-written out in the instructions that ends with it being handed in.

And a faux pearl necklace.Since it was labelled vintage in the store and because of the length (14 inches) I think it's from the 1950s-1960s. It looks a lot like the necklace that the lady in the red dress is wearing on the dress pattern cover. I'm considering re-stringing it because it's not knotted between the pearls, but I haven't decided yet.