McCall's 3009 - Snowmobile Suit

1971
It's getting to be that time of year.  A deep snow pack is developing and the ponds and lakes are beginning to develop good thick ice.  For the vintage snowmobile enthusiast, this may be the best way to complete your look.  If you get a crack on, you can get your entire family kitted out (in maybe matching!) vintage snowmobile suits.

Notice the groovy two-color version B, shown only on the back of the envelope.

I had to look up one of the recommended fabrics - Cire, or more properly, Ciré,  is one of the family of fabrics with a hard, shiny surface finish.  Traditionally achieved with wax, heat, and pressure, by the time this pattern was printed ciré finish fabrics were beginning to be available in synthetic fibers.

Here's what snowmobiling looked like in 1971, when the price of Ski-doo's elan model would just about cover the cost of today's snowmobile suit.

McCall 7432 - "Mary Poppins" Stuffed Doll with Nanny Costume

1964.  Although I concentrate my collecting on the more utilitarian patterns, I'm intrigued by patterns produced as marketing tie-ins, so a few have made their way into the archives.

This one resonates for me because I remember seeing the film during its original theatrical release.  In my cohort of seven year olds, we knew all the songs and staged our own versions of the story in our back yards and wished we had picture hats and frilly white umbrellas.  The "Nanny Costume" is iconic, but I've always wondered why there wasn't also a pattern for the garden party dress.

Making dolls and their wardrobes is fussy work.  Look at all the steps just to make the carpet bag.

This printed pattern is unused.

Simplicity 7099 - Boy's Colonial Costume

1938, based on the cinema listings in a cutout from a newspaper folded in with the pattern pieces (Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was playing at the Melba, children 20 cents all times.)

Independence Day is always a good time to get your Colonial on.  There is something sort of uproarious about providing the 9d price in the British Isles.  Perhaps if you squint really hard, the instruction sheet says "George III," not "George Washington"

Size 6 is for a little tyke, and won't he look splendid riding on the fire engine in the July 4th parade?  That is, if Mama managed to work her way through the tiny instruction sheet and the half inch seam allowances.

Have a safe and happy Independence Day, everybody!

McCall 3298 - Men's Overalls

1920s. 

A nice basic bib-and-braces overalls pattern for the gentleman.  More research needs to be done into household management in order to understand the decision to make overalls rather than buy them.

And if you were struggling to decide whether to make these up in hickory cloth or denim (or perhaps white duck if the gentleman is a house painter,) McCall's helpfully offers...stripes or checks!

Whether or not this pattern has been used is a little difficult to interpret.  When I opened out the pattern pieces I discovered that the only pieces that had been cut were the front, the back, and the large pocket. Further, the front and back had been cut only down to about thigh-level.

What's going on here?  One idea that occurs to me is that this overalls pattern was used to make a bib apron.  I haven't yet found home sewing patterns for men's bib aprons as early as the 1920s, but butchers' and machinists' aprons do show up in the mail order catalogs of the period.  If this was the case here, my guess is that the inseams probably weren't cut in the fabric and the maker just dropped a line straight down.  But it's curious that the shoulder strap piece wasn't cut.