In the beginning there was.....

I graduated high school in 1975. Yep, that ages me a bit. But I was very aware of the fabulous 60's and the cool fashions that came out of that era. I can remember sewing crochet flowers to my very cool denim navy surplus jeans. Big bells and all. The military surplus store the next town over was the only place to purchase the utmost cool fashions. Pea-coats, sailor pants, army jackets... you name it. Unfortunately it went the wayside to the hipsters and their stock-brokerage firms and high end shopping centers.


So I have this very wonderful and interesting friend in Australia. (They call it OZ. I think that is so cool.) My friend Karen Ellis has a brilliant  blog called RudeRecord. Her and her husband are all about being frugal, recycling and reusing as much as possible to reduce waste. That is the utmost cool thing!

Karen told me about a book she wanted a look see at but it was out of print and not available in OZ. Also shipping from the US was more than she could deal with. Sooo, I checked it out.

With a measly purchase price of $5.98 including shipping, I was up to the task to help her out.

And then I procrastinated..... for a long time. Cuz that's how I roll some days. But she gave me a gentle reminder the other day and I knew I needed to get this done!

So to start... here is the cover.

It was written in 1976 by Diana Funaro.


Multitudes of great information is covered. So much that there is no way I can cover it all. But knowing my friend, I figured anything that dealt with up-cycling or re-purposing something might help.

So back to the 60's. First came the jean skirt. Then of course the inserts into those wonderful big bell bottom pants. The book covers how to do both. I scanned a picture of the jean skirt for you.

Most of the book looks like this as far as illistrations. Not many actual photos. I didn't think they did a good job of representing the garments. So I passed on those. (Sorry Karen.)

The classic jean skirt with the insert. A staple for the 60's gal.

 Of course there was another style of jean skirt too.
The cut off skirt with a different fabric at the bottom.

Shameless plug for two of my jean skirt creations. This is my modern take on the last picture.

Yep, I'm kind of a messy scrappy kind of girl. By the way, I used all kinds of jean scraps to make these.

Any whoooo, back to the book.
(I just realized I got stuck on skirts here.)

So here a couple more pages from the book.

They are about making wrap skirts from tablecloths and such. I love wrap skirts. They are great for dealing with size issues. One size can fit quite a few different sizes.

Here is one more popular skirt. The handkerchief skirt.

This is a very simple one! Just sew four square hankies together, fold and cut a circle for the waistband. Attach a waistband and you are set!

Here is one that would have helped me the other day with a sweater upcycle. (I really need to read more of this book!)

This is taking out a turtleneck collar and changing it to a crew neck collar. Needless to say, I botched mine terribly and it is very "free form" right now. Sigh... now I know what to do for next time.

So these were some of the easy projects I found. There is so much more! It goes into all kinds of alterations and instructions on different embellishments as well. Beading, applique, embroidery and more.
Again, every thing is pretty much line drawings but if you are good at following written instructions (I am not! Surprised?) you should do great.

So hopefully I was able to give Karen in OZ (soooo coool!!!) a good idea about this book.
Now, I need to go and fix that damn sweater collar!

If you just have to have this wonderful vintage book. You can get it on Amazon here...
It is offered at many different prices. Don't let the $0.04 fool you. I think it will cost a bit more. ...


Until next time!
Oh, and my skirts are on my Etsy website along with some pretty cool patched jeans. Curiousorangecat.etsy.com


Thanks for visiting!