An Austrian 1932 magazine and pattern catalogue

Some (a long...) time ago, I borrowed a stack of 1930s and 40s German and Austrian magazines from my aunt, with the intention of scanning them and tracing the pattern sheets that survived the flow of time. The tracing is tiresome and the scanning complicated, because most of them are bigger than our scanner - so I still have them. This is one of them.

"Die schöne Wienerin", from the year 1932 - it does not state the month, but this illustration suggests it was in spring.

It's a women's magazine and a pattern catalogue. It states on the cover that there also was a free pattern sheet attached, but that's gone now (sadly). ETA: I've now found out that the Czech magazine Nové pařížské módy used the same plates - and is freely available on the site of Moravská zemská knihovna, pattern supplement included. (They date that one to 1930-31, though. Weird.)

I won't comment these pictures... I don't have the time and patience to translate from German now. Just sit back and enjoy.

The cowl-necked blouse in the middle is available on the Czech pattern sheet.

The puffed-sleeved nightgown on the left is available in the Czech pattern sheet.

Kensington shoes & Courage films giveaway at American Duchess

Since I don't have a 1930s craft to post today, I have room for these:

The new Kensington shoes by American Duchess. Which you can win in a giveaway here, together with Courage, a series about a fictional 18th century American town. I have never heard of the series before, but it sounds intriguing.

I like the Kensingtons even a bit more than the Devonshires. They're more of my kind of shoe, somehow. The difference is subtle, but it's all the difference in the world... They're narrower. I have narrow feet but high in the arch (which proved to be a big problem years ago when buying sport shoes), so narrower latchet shoes sound like exactly my thing. Although they're not quite my kind of colours at the moment.

And as someone pointed out, these could actually work for Edwardian or 1930s style as well. I did not see latchet shoes in the 1930s magazines I have at hand (more tomorrow), but I agree that the shape looks similar. I like versatile things.

The best "chick lit" there is

And one more post for today! This is not a common practice on this blog, but it happened that way... This is for the "Fun Monday" in the Bramblewood Fashion blog event. "Share Game{s}/TV Shows/ Radio Shows/Music/Books from the era." 1930s for this week.

I love books, so I decided to go that route with all the eras. We have lots of books, and I like getting the old, pretty ones in second hand bookshops. Finding a 1930s book proved to be a bit difficult, though - it was not a common practice then to print the publication date in the books (I think it wasn't until 1940s or 1950s). So I went through all of my (our) old books and it turned out those that were dated were either from the 1920s or the 1940s. This one is not dated. It was first published in 1937. This is the second edition, but everything about it looks reasonably 1930s to me; these books were very popular, so I think it's fair to assume it was published at least twice during the 1930s. :-)

Sooo... that was the historical reasoning behind sharing this book. The rest is a heart matter.

"Gabra and Málinka Are Learning Latin"
It's a third in a series of six; I have read five of them; own the first as well.
They're semi-autobiographical books (the writer, Amálie Kutinová, is Málinka), following these two sisters as they grow up from children to young women. The older, Gabra, is lively, impulsive, a bit of a tomboy. Málinka is a daydreamer with a gentle soul. They come from the Moravian region of Wallachia, which shows in the way they speak as well; in the first book they live in a village, then they move to a small town, eventually (in the last book), they end up in Prague.
And the books are a lot of fun. Nothing didactic about these; it's pure, unadulterated yet quality and uplifting entertainment, a chicken soup for your soul kind of books.

In spite of the school-related name. In spite of being published by a teachers' publishing house and bookshop. There are moments that could sound preachy and didactic in a less capable writer's hands, but here you can feel the author lived what she writes.

And, as I said, in spite of that moral background it's pure, unadulterated fun. Like this story where Gabra desperately wanted to get skates for Christmas and did not get them because the family was not very well-off. So she followed her grandma's advice and used wooden logs instead. And being Gabra, she turned it into a advantage, had a lot of fun and all her friends and classmates envied her.
Which sounds kind of stupid when I write it like this, but it's not. See, that's the mastery of Amálie Kutinová.

Local colours: Málinka admires a folk band.

The last story is the best: Both Gabra and Málinka have a goat. Gabra's goat, Herka ("Nag"), eats paper. One day on the graze, she finds some papers in a hole - but those papers turn out to be money, and there's some jewellery and other things like that as well. Apparently, a robber's stash. Gabra takes it to a bureau to return it - taking Herka with her. Lots of fun ensue.

The first book is full of funny events, the last two books are less fun and a bit more serious or sad at times. But overall, it's definitely what I called it in the title: the best chick lit there is. There is nothing artificial about these books.

Random writerly journaling

An old picture of Bisha

Found an antique prayer book lying next to a revolver and a box of cartridges on a shelf in a friend's old flat. They just ended up randomly that way, together with some stones, a sea shell, a map of the Slovakian Tatra mountains and a small bronze Nefertiti bust.

Such a carefree approach to a gun may seem dubious. But knowing that, in the Czech Republic, the keeping of a gun is licensed, knowing that the owner has the licence and simply knowing the owner, it all fits together and makes perfect sense. Stones and sea shells and maps and bronze busts and prayer books and guns can all sit on a shelf together in companionable abandon. There's no need to glorify or villainise the gun; it just is.

* ~ * ~ *

The top of our old car, which we don't really use anymore, serves as the perfect sunspot for our Ksis.

Ksis ("Ksinky" in Czech) are the cats, Yksi and Kaksi. Kaksi was staring at me with her slanted eyes, and I was staring at her, slanting my eyes in the sun in return. Yksi is lying, probably sleeping, and ignoring all of the human world. Sun is a cat's best friend.

Before them, we had the Išky, Lisha and Bisha. Lisha - Liška - was named so because she resembled a curious little foxling when we got them as kittens. Biška was named so to rhyme with it, because they looked so similar. Also, "biša" was a word our small cousin used to say a lot. A word without meaning which gradually got a very special meaning with our black and white one.

Now we have a new generation of similar black cats. And just like the previous generation, they are actually not similar at all. Each cat is an individual.

Kaksi is the Cuddly One, the Jostling One, who loves hitting into you with her head, is not particularly keen on caressing but loves to be rubbed, can't stay in one place for a minute and keeps digging her claws into you when cuddling. We also call her Binturong. She looks like one in her winter coat.

Yksi is The Penetrator. This winter, she seems to have forgotten her door trick, but she keeps trying to get inside all the same. And once she's inside, she is often at a loss for what to do there. Yet she isn't able to just leave again. She will sit in front of the door, all of her appearance suggesting she wants to go out, and when you open the door, she bolts away. Kaksi, on the other hand, is very focused in this aspect. When she wants to go out, she goes out. But she can't seem to stay in one place for a minute. When Yksi lies down on the couch, she'd be able to stay there all night.

When you want to get rid of the cats and take them away, do not pronounce the word "take away". They will understand, and hide under furniture.

* ~ * ~ *

I saw a spotted woodpecker and a pair of jays on Friday. Saturday morning, birds were singing. This morning, it was about -5 degrees Celsius. Now sun is shining and it's 8 degrees. The cats have left the car to pursue further feline adventures. I'm eating yoghurt with blueberry jam and in spite of various bad things, life is good. I love early spring.

Crochet or bobbin lace? - A little guide to lace types (for online sellers?)

I'm not very good at crochet, and I still have not finished that first bobbin lace bookmark. But I understand what the techniques are about, so I was growing increasingly surprised (and slightly annoyed) when I saw many online sellers (including the very knowledgable proprietor of Vintage Textile!) describing what I knew to be bobbin lace (even if of the machine-made-type) as crochet. Why is that? The techniques are completely different! Not only do they work in completely different ways, they usually look different.

It probably would not bug me so much if it went both ways, but it's always bobbin lace labelled as crochet. Are people simply not familiar with the technique of bobbin lace? That would surprise me with Czech sellers; bobbin lace is rather big here. (As in, traditional and admired.) Is crochet somehow considered "desirable", as opposed to bobbin lace?!

I do not want to sound like I'm looking down my nose on crochet because I can't get it right. Consider this:


This is a vintage/antique crochet trim I got from my Wonderful Crafty Grandma. (It was probably originally sewn into a bedding piece or something like that.) It's approx. 4,2 cm wide and 1 m long. All handmade.

So, yes, consider this, as an example of what crochet looks like - click on the picture to see it in detail. Of course, this is a specific style of crochet (filet crochet), and there are other ways that make it look different, with scallops and picots and what-have-you.

(The only other example of crochet lace I found at home...)

But it's still crochet: a technique that works with one continuous thread, working it into chains and what is called "stitches" (English sucks here; it's called "columns" in Czech, which gives you a much better idea of what it looks like). There is never, I repeat, NEVER, a simple, "unworked" thread to be seen in a crochet work.

Unlike here:


This is a machine-made bobbin lace trim (again from my grandma). As you can see, hopefully, bobbin lace is completely different. Bobbin lace is, essentially, a type of weaving. It works with several threads and weaves them together. Sometimes it's quite open, like here.

Sometimes, there are tighter-woven motifs, like here:

But it's still very different from crochet. Simple, "unworked" threads. Weaving structure. Obvious on first sight.

The mix-up would not surprise me so much with this trim:


This is machine made just like the two examples above, and seems to be playing up to the crochet similarity. (BTW, as far as I know, there is no machine-made crochet. Feel free to correct me if you know otherwise. If you know it for a fact.) But if you look closely, you can still see the weaving structure here: there are several threads, not a single continuous one.

So here, that's the one signature difference, and now you should be able to tell crochet trim from bobbin lace.

(Note: Some types of sewn lace can look similar to bobbin lace, but those are rarer. Also, I'm only dealing with the cotton thread kind of lace in this post - I'm not as knowledgeable on the techniques involved in the making of other types of lace, like the - usually artificial fibre - stuff you find on your underwear.)

EDIT: Here are some more examples of what bobbin lace can do, from my grandma's work:





This, by the way, is the butterfly my sister wore in her hair to the Latvian exhibition opening.

Look what I've got! - the supplies edition; A 1930s tidbit and a giveaway at Brambelwood Fashion

(Don't you love long post titles? And posts with lots of tags? I've introduced a new one, "Blog events", to keep track of that kind of posts.)


If you're long-time readers of my blog, you might remember that some time ago, I wrote these bragging posts about things I got from my Wonderful Crafty Grandma TN (taboo name).


I realised there were many things I have not shown you yet. Some of them because I have not taken pictures of them yet, some - like these spiral bones - just because I forgot I have not written about them yet.

So here: spiral bones, apparently taken out from some sort of garment - guessing by their lengths, it was probably some sort of Edwardian bust enhancer. Because that's about the time grandma estimated their age at.
They're kinda aged, but not rusty at all. I may be able to use them again.

And here's a buckle - probably mother-of-pearl? Or is there a way to fake that? Not that I care that much either way. Again, taken from a garment it originally was sewn to.

I'm not sure why, but this very much puts me in mind of a 1940s evening cape or dress with a slit neckline. It'll probably be the dress - I have no use for an evening cape! But it will have to be wool crepe. That's just the way it is in my mind. Getting quality wool fabric in the colour I have in mind won't be fun... so it will take time.

I'll show you more of my little treasures later. With an intermission post explaining the difference between crochet and bobbin lace. You'd think it's obvious. By the number of bobbin lace I've seen described as crochet online, I guess it's not. Thus, a post on the subject.

("Nad Tichým oceánem", illustration by Václav Junek)

Also, somewhere in the meantime I'll probably post some things to go with the blog event at Brambelwood fashion. Today, we were supposed to write a research post on a 1930s subject. I could not really come up with anything worth the name "research", though.

So here's my tidbit, which is not quite historical, rather literary... but hey, it's from 1930s. And there is history, as you will see.

You see, this week I re-read two books (published in one in my 1976 copy) by Czech writer František Flos, who wrote adventurous books for children and is considered one of the first to write such in Czech. They're not just adventurous books, though - these particular ones, Albatros (1935) and Nad Tichým oceánem ("Above Pacific Ocean", 1938), include lots of geographical and biological and cultural info. So, in a way, the books are a product of their age - and their writer's job, because Flos was a teacher - being educational, not just for fun.

But I know I did not mind when I was younger - I actually loved it, because it's not as winded as it sometimes gets in older books, and you almost get a feeling of really being there, as in a documentary. All the while Flos never visited the places he wrote about! Also, there is the historical background as well - a bit of it - you learn which Pacific islands belonged to which colonial country, and the growing tension between Japan on one side and Britain and USA on the other is hinted at. Flos proved to be a bit of a prophet there, suggesting that Japan would surprise Britain and the USA in the Pacific ocean... It's the sort of thing you only realise as an adult, and only if you know when the book was originally published.

(And it goes to show what C. S. Lewis wrote, that, really, the only children's books worth reading are those you enjoy as an adult as well. These are definitely such books.)


Ashley is also hosting a giveaway of modest swimwear. Isn't it wonderful that there's a company selling that? I always feel self-conscious in my swimwear. :P My sister partly solved that by wearing a choli. But a swimdress? What a nice idea!

Latvian klezmer (sort of)

Father pointed me in the way of this video. A former metal band and a klezmer band, blending two songs into one? And somehow, it works.