When I was a little girl, probably around 8 to 12 years old, I used to love going over to my Aunt’s house… she had 2 things I liked… a Pfaff sewing machine and Montgomery Ward catalogs. Even at that early age, I loved looking at the catalogs and would get lots of ideas and then duplicate them as closely as I could. It was fun for me and by 10 years old I was in 4-H and off and running with my sewing. Her Pfaff probably got a few extra hundred miles of wear because of me! I made many a Barbie outfit over there and still have some of them that I’ll share in a later post.
When I started making doll clothing to sell, I turned to the catalogs and smaller fashion magazines again for inspiration. I have quite a few old Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs in the 1940’s range, some 1904 and 1905 McCall’s Fashion Magazines, a few 1970’s pattern books and some very old 1894 and 1896 Delineator Women’s catalogs filled with more ideas than I could use in a lifetime.
Here are just a few of my copycat creations…
Look at this price…. $2.98!!
Hope you enjoyed this short trip down memory lane…
See you tomorrow,
Blessings, Jeanne
Jeanne, the more you write, the more alike we seem to be! I too, used to pour over the Montgomery and Sears catalogs and made doll clothes on my mother’s Kenmore! Those outfits are adorable, and right up my alley, since I have Molly! I also was in 4-H and entered many of my creations in our county fair.
Are those dresses currently for sale, or are they long gone?
Linda,
It does seem like we have similar dolly backgrounds! It’s fun to think that there was someone else like me enjoying the magazines…
Molly’s dresses are long gone… they were ones I made a few years ago. I have had my eye on getting another Molly though, just as I did my Kirsten… old habits die hard I guess…
Those girls just pull at my heart strings…
Thanks Linda,
Blessings, Jeanne
You were and are such a clever seamstress….these dresses are wonderful copies and you must have had so much fun seeing the pages of catalogs come to life.
Jeanne, love your dresses, if I had collected AG dolls, Molly would have been the one. She is of “my era” and some of her accessories I recognized! Love the clothes you made for her. I used to copy clothes from catalogs, but only for my own wear.