Sew Nostalgic

Here as promised are some pages from the 1970's Golden Hands crafts magazines. I've learned all kinds of useful sewing and general crafty tips just from browsing through while choosing pictures to show you.

Some of my favourites are the beautiful fashion drawings that I think are still lively and vibrant now - they speak of their era without looking dated.

This spread shows How To Tie Dye - such fun, everyone had a try...so messy and so unpredictable...so likely to cause a disaster and make your mum cross.....

Patchwork was really popular, especially using hexagons - and it was often used as an applique on clothes as well as the traditional grandmother's flower garden flower quilts.

I love some of the patterns for embroidery - like the delicate applique and embroidered flowers here.....

....and the cute little red and white spotted toadstools here. I just might have to stitch some of these...!

But now I'm going out to tidy my autumn garden while the sun is shining. I hope you all have a lovely weekend and the autumn (or spring!) sun is shining on you too. x

Sew Retro

It was lovely to take a little time this weekend, to have a pot of tea and a browse through a pile of retro sewing books. A while ago a family friend who knew about my sewing love kindly gave me her mother's collection of Golden Hands crafts books from the 1970's, that she no longer needed.

I was transported back to my schooldays, remembering these hugely popular 'part magazines' filled with trendy knitting, crochet, embroidery, dressmaking and all kinds of other craftyness. Some of the photographs are wonderful, in particular the close ups of embroidery and knitting, so clear and colourful which I don't think had been done like that before. Although some of the text is dated, and some of the fashion shots gave me laugh-out-loud moments, there are lots of wonderful things in these magazines and they will be a great resource. I'll post some pictures from inside them soon.

Yesterday we had a power cut here - an electric cable had broken in the road and it took 'the men' hours and hours to find and fix the fault. So Mr P and I spent a restful evening by candlelight and firelight. No knitting or sewing for me though...sigh. The power came on again at 4.15 am!

I hope your week has started well! And I hope to be back here tomorrow and a bit more regularly this week too. x