The Woman in Black and White

I've just started watching an excellent old series of Sherlock Holmes movies from the 1940s that my Grandma told me about. She'd seen them when she was younger and I agree with her that Basil Rathbone makes an amazing Mr. Holmes. Not that I have anything against Robert Downey Jr in particular, but that adaptation of the story—in my opinion—was practically a mockery to Sir Authur Conan Doyle's brilliant work. In this version, I love the interactions between the characters and the quietness of some scenes as Holmes is deep in thought or plays his violin as Watson smokes his pipe. I guess what bothers me about many modern period movies is that they basically dress up a modern man in old clothing. They don't capture the character and atmosphere of it all. Today's movies can't spend more than two seconds of quiet...perhaps because they fear the audience will be bored? But that was such an integral part of their lives back then. The pace of life was so much slower. Holmes should be an extremely intellectual and clever man, more concerned about a difficult mental challenge than looking suave in a ten minute gunfight. But I digress...

We saw "Dressed to Kill" the other day (about a trio of music boxes that are hardly worth money but mysteriously worth a life), and just now finished "The Woman in Green" (where a serial killer's trademark is to keep a severed finger from his victims).

The best part is that if you have Netflix instant, you can watch many of them for free! I definitely recommend it. They're really well done, extremely entertaining, and capture the true brilliance of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

Here are some stills from "The Woman in Green" :

Sew Much Fun

This past week I decided to start a new sewing project. The outfit consists of a shirt, skirt, and shorts set, but I decided to make them into three separate pieces. This (Simplicity) pattern didn't have a date on it, but judging from the look of it, it seems to be a little newer than the 40s dress I did; I'm guessing it was from the 50s. The shorts were actually the easiest thing to make so far and are so comfortable I've worn them almost every day since I've made them :P The opening is held together by snaps except for the top which is a hook and I added this awesome button that my granny gave me to decoration. (I still have a little fixing up to do with that corner, but I wanted to show the button so excuse the messiness of my sewing.)

These pictures are taken in my Granny's back yard. She had a little storage shed made and decorated it to look like a small house; it's so cute. The sign that says Florence Nicholas on it is her actual beauty parlor sign from when she lived up in Pennsylvania! It was made back in the day when they used to hand paint signs and it is an amazing work of craftsmanship.

This is the skirt that I made. I love the big pockets and all the gathering. I'm still practicing my button hole stitching, so currently it's being held up by safety pins, but I wanted to show it nonetheless.

I really wanted to show the shirt also, but unfortunately I started to get eaten alive by mosquitos again by this point, so it will have to wait. I still have the buttons to go on that one too. Anyway, that's all I have for today!

Holding On By A Thread

I had bought a crinoline skirt awhile back, and since I had nothing to match it, I thought it would be worth an effort to try and make my own matching sweater. I went to Jo-Ann Fabrics and out of all the yarns they had, was able to find one that matched the perfect blend of magenta and red from my skirt. And to keep it old fashioned, I am trying the cable stitch, from a pattern that I found on the Vixen Vintage blog. It's awfully stressful trying not to miss a single loop. This is my second attempt and I'm doing okay so far! I work on it a little bit each day, but hey no rush...I have several months til I can wear it anyway, right? ;)