A while back I found a very tattered old mid-1940s pattern catalogue at an antiques centre. What was unusual about it was that it featured outsize fashions, something you hardly ever see. I paid a bit too much for it considering the condition, but I balanced it out with a few bargains elsewhere!

It’s a Leach-Way catalogue, a British company that seems to have been making patterns from the 1930s. You can find them now and then on eBay. All these patterns are for bust size 40″ to 50″, about a 14-24 in today’s clothing sizes. And they are about 5281% more flattering and lovely than nearly everything on offer in the plus-size market today, even in modern pattern catalogues. There are plenty of dresses, with complementary suits, blouses, skirts and coats. If you’re handy with patterns it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out how to construct them, especially if you have a few vintage patterns already. You can always trace and scale up a vintage pattern, too. Here’s a very useful tutorial: How to re-size a pattern.

I’ve put the whole catalogue into a PDF, it’s 27MB. A few pages are a little blurry on one corner or tilted off-center – sorry about that, but the disintegrating condition of the catalogue made it hard to scan properly. Download it here: Leach-Way Outsize pattern catalogue.

Fiddling about with Illustrator this evening, I made this, a tribute to 1950s abstract-atomic-biomorphic-pop art. It was inspired by a painting in the background of a Shag work.

Coconut ice has long been a favourite sweet! Often found at school fetes and at CWA or any fundraising cake stall, it’s a delicious confection of desiccated coconut and sugar mixture. Traditionally white and pink – tinted with chochineal – adventurous cooks branched out into other colours when artificial food dyes became available. Fact: there were Coconut-Ice skating rinks in Willie Wonka’s factory.

I made two batches last weekend, as you can see in the photo. The pink one is flavoured with vanilla and rosewater, and the green with lime zest and vanilla. There are several ways of making it: with a cooked milk mix; with condensed milk; with a boiled, kneaded fondant; and with Copha.

I used a variation on the Women’s Weekly coconut ice recipe and it created a nice fudgy texture. I don’t like the waxy texture of things with Copha!

Harp Lounge Coconut Ice

1. Line a 20cm square cake tin with two sheets of baking paper, crosswise, and long enough so that plenty overhangs the edge.
2. Sift the icing sugar (or at least make sure it has no big hard lumps) into a large mixing bowl, then stir in everything else except the food colouring. Mix until well combined – it should be quite dense. Add more coconut if you think it needs it.
3. Halve the mixture into two bowls, add the colouring to one and stir through evenly.
4. Press the white mixture firmly into the lined tin, and then the coloured mixture on top of that. Refrigerate for at least 24 hours to set.
5. Remove set mixture from the tin by lifting out with the baking paper. Slice into small squares with a sharp knife. (Should make 36-64 depending on how big you slice them.) You can refrigerate the cut squares to set them further, especially if the weather or your fridge is humid.

Eat deliciousness.

This is the Harp Lounge, after all.

Here’s an ad for Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, date early-mid 1940s, I think, going by the pageboy hairstyle. A time when beer ads featured classy lassies wearing more than a bikini! (Artist placed the lady sitting way too far down the harp, incidentally. And sitting on the wrong side of it! Sorry, that’s my musician pedantry at work. )

Not sure exactly what this one’s about, but possibly hand lotion, as the copy reads “Reason for calluses on slim hands – harp playing”. Again sometime in the 1940s, and this time she’s on the correct side of the harp and at the right height!

Here’s one for Bufferin for arthritis! 1950s.

And lastly for today, the harp being used for its connotations of elegance in this ad for wallpaper and furnishing fabric by Sanderson of England (click to embiggen). This was from a 1952 Australian House and Garden magazine.

Time for a fashion parade! Here’s a collection of covers from the AHJ – all from 1953. Click on the covers to enlarge them.

First, February. A full-skirted dress with a wrap-style bodice; a girl’s cap-sleeve frock; a sleeveless tennis dress.

Next, March.Interesting foldover-sweetheart neckline dress with pleated detailing on the front; frock with gathered panel bodice and a-line skirt; girl’s pinafore and blouse.

May! An autumn suit-dress with hip pockets and angular raglan sleeves; blouse with winged collar; A-line skirt; and gathered-shoulder bed jacket.

June brings some very stylish outfits for winter: a straight-skirted frock with layered hip pockets and kimono sleeves (accessorised with leopard muff!); a very full-skirted party frock with raglan cap sleeves; a full pleated skirt; a young girl’s double-breasted coat dress.

July brings sportswear: two styles of pencil-skirted walking suits with plain pocket decoration; a boy’s short pants suit; a toddler’s jumpsuit.

August presents frocks to make for spring: a 3/4 sleeved shirtdress; a turnup-cuffed short sleeved frock with a combined rollover and pleated sweetheart neckline; and a girl’s shirtdress.

September spring fling! A kimono cap-sleeved spring frock with crossover bodice; a suit dress with a wide spread collar, short sleeves and a pleated full skirt; and a girl’s pinafore dress.

October is time to start making your frocks for summer. Here we have a kimono cap sleeve dress with a twisted bodice detail and full circle skirt; a sleeveless dress with a very wide collar that almost forms cap sleeves; and a girl’s playsuit.

November has a sundress collection: a shirtwaist dress with a full gathered skirt; a frock with a camisole bodice with asymmetrical bodice buttoning and large pockets; a summer dress with matching cropped jacket and off-centre buttons on the skirt; and a girl’s puff-sleeve frock.

December, and dresses just perfect for wearing to Christmas events: A full-skirted dress with a pleated-detail bodice and scalloped trim; a circle skirt dress with short sleeves and a modest sweetheart neckline; two girl’s dresses – one more formal, the other a play dress.