Vintage Books and More Pin Weaving

Today was very dreary and rainy and I worked on the pin woven bag until I needed the closure. I wanted the "chrome" finish and have to hit the JA's tomorrow for that.

This is the tab all piped. It is just waiting for the closure as is the body of the bag so I am on hold at this point.

Once I couldn't go any further with the tab I cut out the base bag fabric and fused the interfacing. I use two layers of Decor Bond, quite stiff but holds up and looks great. I cut the first layer with no seam allowances. Bags are so bulky to begin with that why would you want the interfacing in the SA? Then I cut a second layer of Decor Bond and cut back the piece another half inch as you can see above. I want to keep that needed stiffness out of the seams. I have been doing this a long time and find it works pretty well.

Another thing I did was place a piece of felted wool between the bag and the pin weaving. It really needed this to fill out areas that "collapsed" ( but not quite). It made the weaving more prominent and evened out all the different fibers. Something told me to felt those white woolen pants Ima gave me. The felt will be catch-stitched to the weaving and now I need to move on to something else until I can get my closure.

That something else turned out to be going thru more of Ima's goodies. For those newbies to the blog, Ima is this incredible 83 year old woman who was my next door neighbor out in the country for 21 years. She is a graduate of Texas A&M in textiles, and FIT in NY as well. I lived next door to an incredible sewist and designer! She recently decided to break down her sewing room and move to her daughter's in Oklahoma (or Colorado, can't remember). She called me and ended up giving me all of her stash, cept knits, which is fine, and everything else a passionate 83 year old sewist would have accumulated over the years.  So today it was a perfect day to dig thru the stash again. I decided to organize and dig out all of the books, of which there were many. Here are just a few that I thought you might like to see:

What I am showing you look like pamphlets but they are all pretty substantial tomes. This one must have been available at the Singer store, a place where very many, self included, learned to sew. The price is 75 cents.

This Simplicity Sewing book, from the pattern company is 69 heavily info laden pages. I am going to pour thru this one as it seems to have a lot of wonderful info, not the same o, same o. Gotta love that price!

Next, the classic of classics for knit sewing, Ann Person's Stretch and Sew Book. For those of you younguns, Ann Person had stores all over the country that sold exquisite knit fabrics  and gave lessons day and night on how to sew knits. Those were the days, I tell ya. While I have never been a knit sewist, I had many friends who were addicted to this place, taking every course possible and deciding they would never sew a woven again! I distinctly remember this place on South Willow, in Manchester, NH.
And last but not least:

This ancient looking book is by the wonderful Margaret Pierce, an icon in the heirloom sewing world. This book is a treasure, loaded with techniques and descriptions. The drawings are clear and take the mystery out of doing this sort of thing by hand. What I really find comical however is the 7-8 year old girls with bonnets on that should be on a newborn and no one else. Some are so small for their heads. But, they are beautifully made. I wonder what this would bring on Ebay......Bunny