Tea at Trianon: Vintage Sewing Patterns

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, March 1, 2018

Vintage Sewing Patterns

From Inquisitr:

Whether you’re an expert costume designer or have ever aspired to sew your own clothes, there is now a website with 85,300 vintage sewing patterns on it, including patterns by McCall’s, Vogue, Butterick, Simplicity, and many others. Because this database of vintage sewing patterns is a collective group effort, the number of patterns on it is constantly growing.

Many have fond memories of visiting the local fabric store with their mothers to sift through clothing patterns and remember when the sewing machine was just as much of a staple in the household as a computer is now. If you long to recreate those moments and sew your own clothes, the Vintage Patterns Wiki website has a massive selection of vintage sewing patterns available for you, none of which came after the year 1992.

Searching through these 83,500 vintage sewing patterns may sound like a daunting task, but it is actually much easier than you might think. For instance, if you hanker after a particular era of clothing and a style worn by specific people like Elizabeth Taylor or Audrey Hepburn, for example, you can search the database of vintage sewing patterns by decade. (Read more.)