Malotke Sews

This week's book review is on a book that one of my good friend's just surprised me with recently! It's "The Complete Book of Sewing: Dressmaking and Sewing for the Home Made Easy" by Constance Talbot, edited by Isabelle Stevenson, and published in 1949. I have a small assortment of vintage sewing books that I started collecting in college. I knew that for our senior year we would have a table to display our portfolios, other work, and decorate however we pleased, in addition to our senior collections. Pretty much from my freshman year on I had a general idea of the theme and color scheme for my senior collection. One of my ideas for my table was to use vintage books as props to add varying heights to display photos and other apparel works (such as the corset I made while attending the London College of Fashion).  This lovely book has loads of chapters with everything from picking the right fabrics to how to baste to time-saving details and pockets. Each chapter h...

Today's book review is on Valerie Steele's " The Corset: A Cultural History ." When I studied abroad my Junior year of college I attended the London College of Fashion (LCF) for a semester. How they operate their study abroad semesters is that you take 3 required classes and then you get x amount of hours to choose other classes. For my three classes I elected to take Shoe Design, Millinery, and Corsetry. A big part of my corsetry class was keeping a sketch book / research book. Well, if there's one thing I love it's research. My corsetry book was full of notes and images (See image below)! My sketching isn't the best but man oh man can I research. I loved LCF's library, Purdue had basically no fashion books available and LCF was filled with any topic you could want to look into. I spent a lot of my free time in the library reading books, collecting images, typing notes, and making wish lists of books I would want to purchase for my own home library. I...

This week's book review is a pattern making book focused solely on menswear! Gareth Kershaw's " Patternmaking for Menswear " is one of my favorite menswear patterning books. It's made for with professionals and students in mind, and provides an excellent step by step guide for different classic menswear patterns. I thoroughly enjoy the layout of the book. First it starts with short introduction to patternmaking for contemporary menswear. It describes how "working on these garment silhouettes you will learn the basic principles of patternmaking" and can then use those as your building blocks to alter and create your own patterns (Kershaw). I like how the introduction walks you through menswear over the years and how silhouettes have changed. After this you're given five chapters that encompasses the entire process for you. Chapter One focuses on the prep work for patternmaking - what you should have, what the different terms mean, how to take measurem...

Today's review is the Design Museum's " Fifty Dresses that Changed the World ." First published in 2009 by Conran Octopus Ltd, the text is written by Michael Czerwinski and has been reprinted a couple of times. At a little over 100 pages, this little book is a great reference for iconic dresses that any costume designer or fashion designer should recognize. I really enjoy the variety and the feeling that it does capture the dresses that did in fact change the world . The layout of the book is consistent with information and descriptions on the left and a lovely photo on the right. The book description explains that each dress appraisal explores " what has made their iconic status and the designers that give them a special place in design history" ( Amazon ).  The book is in chronological order for the dresses they selected to feature. It opens with the Delphos pleated dress from 1915 and then carries on over the decades and it ends with an LED Dress by Husse...

All three jackets. A few weeks ago I received an amazing gift from my husband's family - 3 vintage fur coats/jackets and 2 fur hats. I was over the moon excited about them. When his family offered them I was ecstatic at the chance to have some real fur options in my costume collection to use for future shows (when everything opens up again). At the moment I just have them in garment bags hanging in my office and the hats are in a hat box. We are in the process of redoing our garage and creating a better storage space for us, and once it's finished I will have the appropriate space for costume storage. Ideally I will have my own mini costume collection of basics and one of a kind pieces that I can use in shows.  Each jacket is different and it's really exciting to have these new fur options in my closet. One is a long white fur coat with an extra slip of fur (I assume for alterations). The tan colored brown one is shorter than the white fur coat and the two hats match the co...

I'm sure your social media feeds are full of face mask posts, but I  just wanted to share a few more pictures of some of the fabric face masks I made for co-workers, family, and friends. Above is a progress photo from a blue and white geometric printed mask I made where I was super happy with pattern matching around the slit in the middle. Pictured above are three black and white masks I made for family in Canada. There are two types of plaid and a lovely houndstooth one as well. All of my masks were made using the method I posted about: Project Homemade Face Mask . They're all breathable, cotton fabrics that are double layered and pleated. The slit in the middle allows you to add a filter to your mask for extra protection. 

This past week I finally got around to making a tie blanket out of fabric I've had in my stash forever. Probably last year I had purchased the black and white Jack Skellington fabric as a remnant from Jo Ann's when it was on super sale. Recently, to make my way through my stash I figured out what projects I could reasonably finish in the next few months and what materials I needed in order to finish the projects. I had decided I wanted to make a tie blanket using the Jack Skellington fabric, so I needed to purchase another fabric to make the fabric. Originally I had planned on just getting a plain black piece but once I started browsing the store I decided on a fun Christmas themed fabric with the Nightmare Before Christmas characters: Jack, Sally, and Zero. I think it's a super fun blanket that works for both Halloween and Christmas. It took about an hour overall between cutting the fabric to be the same size (the employees that cut fabric don't always cut it straig...