Knitting pattern – 3.5mb PDF

A March 1955 special feature on Canberra. Canberra was a relatively new city, and after WWII, modern architecture sprang up everywhere alongside the original Californian bungalows and (almost Arts and Crafts) cottages. There are many excellent examples, and the best place to read about them is the Canberra House blog. One of these excellent houses is actually up for sale: an Alex Jelinek house at 10 Gawler St, Deakin. It comes with its custom made Krimper furniture! Price is ‘by negotiation’. Canberra prices are pretty outrageous even for ordinary houses, but if I was the kind of person who had a lot of money to spend on a house, I’d be up for this one. Looking at the pictures, I wonder if those are the original bathrooms. The fittings look kind of 1978 and out-of-place.

Anyway, the Home Beautiful feature has sections on public architecture, such as at ANU; private homes, including floor plans and interiors; and local craftspeople making pottery and furniture. I’ve put it all into a PDF for download, it’s 30MB: Home Beautiful Goes to Canberra – March 1955.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Here’s an ad for these bedspreads, from Van Winkle, as printed in Australian Home Beautiful for September 1955. The text reads:

“Now.. Bedspreads in the Manhattan Manner”   In Manhattan Penthouses, 5th Avenue Mansions, and Long Island Estates, tailored, quilted Spreads are high fashion. Now Van Winkle brings this trend to Australia. Flawlessly quilted, generously flounced, faultlessly tailored to an original American design, a Van Winkle Spread is bedroom beauty at a budget price. Six fashion-favoured colours: Mexican Rose, Hollywood Green, Miami Sand, Kentucky Blue, Florida Rose, Pacific Blue.

The room in the ad’s got it all! An Eames-ish chair (and balcony furniture), a pouffe, designer lamp, barkcloth curtains, and tiki style sculptures.

(Click to enlarge)

I had a lilac bedspread like this when I was a small child, way back inna seventies, I’m not sure what happened to it.

There’s no date given, but since it’s all about updating your tired old dark wood Art Deco and Victorian furniture with which you have Made Do with during the war, and there’s no modernist furniture in the pictures, I’ll take a guess at 1947-49. I found it in the National Library along with a few other interesting and similar promotional publications. Since colour photocopies cost something ridiculous like $2 a page, and taking a scanner to the library is fraught with difficulty, I used my iPhone to take photos of the pages. I’ve edited it together into a PDF which you can download: The Colorful Home (PDF 38MB).

There are plenty of before-and-after illustrations for all rooms of the house, as well as your exterior and garden. Here are the afters!

A living room: all the dark wood has been painted in "Biscuit", and the furniture modernised by cutting down the legs and removing frames.

Mission brown Victorian furniture and fittings painted in new "Llama Grey"(!) gloss, and the linoleum painted bright royal blue.

The bare concrete floor has been painted "Grotto Green" as has the window frame and door; the furniture is red-trimmed now; and the walls are an ever-popular bright cream.

A nursery scheme designed for a girl, with "Pale Orchid" walls and "Cambridge Blue" enamel paint on all the furnishings. Venetian blinds were advertised as healthful, because you could control "dangerous drafts" so the baby wouldn't catch a chill.

A very pretty little kitchen in a classic 40s colour scheme! Yet more cream paint, with "Oriental Red" trim, and "Burnt Sand" painted lino. The curtains are "snowy white muslin with red coin spots". I want a shiny red sifter like that!

The large kitchen, with walls in "Buttercream", furniture in "Lettuce Green", and floor in "Forest Green". Check out the Cornish ware crockery, and aluminium canister set.

There's that cream paint again! even on the bathtub exterior. The stool is "Marigold", the floor a grey-blue, and the shower curtains and mat have a seagull motif with black trim!

The "oppressive stained furniture becomes delightfully modern" when painted in glossy cream! The walls are "Distant Blue" (a soft turquoise).

Home sweet home - with "Mecca Green" and "Deep Cream".

Salvos in Tuggeranong had a bunch of pretty glassware and ceramics. I got this oval pink ceramic plate, it looks 1950s but could be newer. There’s no “Dishwasher and Microwave safe” label on the underside, in fact there are no markings at all. Mystery!

I also got these very cute space-age themed drinking glasses.

And these 1970s blue glass bits. They’re not really wide enough to be parfait or dessert dishes, so they’re probably brandy or liqueur glasses. They came in a shiny black PVC box with a YSL Parfum label inside (obviously a gift pack of some kind).

I also bought some very deco-looking EPNS bits, but I’ll post photos of those after I remember to buy some Silvo.