Simplicity 1962: The New Eased Look

Selections from the 1962 Simplicity Spring Pattern Catalog

The catalog is broken up into articles/features showcasing the new spring clothing line.  The first feature is the announcement of the new "Eased Look...most becoming fashion in years."
" ...the Eased Look is as easy to wear as it sounds, and lends it'self to endless variations for every figure.  The key to the look is the waist-skimming effect that eases gently through the midriff, creating a fluid, unbroken, line both slim and supple."

The Eased Look is a boxy, casual fit, with a lack of a fitted nipped in waistline that was so popular the decade previous.  Here are a few examples:



This look is not too bad. I think it's the A line skirt that is helping to create a slim silhouette.



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I love the color of this outfit and the styling for the most part.  But the Eased Look makes it appear that the top is ill-fitting and too big for the model in the waist area in my opinion.  Also this style makes her look like she doesn't have any boobs...



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This outfit works.
 I think it has to do with the cropped top length and the interesting darts.

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There is something cute about this outfit as well.  I think it's that the slim skirt offsets the boxy top.  I don't think I could wear orange and yellow though.  Make it moss green and gray.

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Fail!  This looks ridiculous.
The only way to help this outfit is if she tucks in the shirt.

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And what the .... is going on with this photo.  It looks like an "oops" taken pic got sent into the printers by mistake.  The outfit would look better if the waist was more defined...but that's the style of the Eased Look.

I like the idea of the Eased Look because I know that for myself my waistline fluctuates and this style would allow for greater concealment.  The Eased Look appears to be a bit more comfortable than a waist fitting top.  Only I doubt it because the skirt waist band under the top would be snug fitting and non-elastic.  So it breaks down to the boxy top would cover your flabby midsection, only the unforgiving waistband underneath is going to be cutting into your gut, but no one will see!  Maybe that's why that last model is putting up her hand in defiance.

For the most part I think the look is a bit frumpy.  All sizes and figures look best with some slimming definition in the waist area.

All pattern envelope source images came from various sites including: vintagepatterns.wikia, ebay, and etsy

Simplicity 1962 Spring Fashion Pattern Magazine

(Simplicity 4308 on cover)

I recently picked up this super neat magazine catalog (200 pages, 132 patterns!) for Simplicity Patterns Spring line 1962 at a library book sale for only 50 cents!  While my fashion interests are more 1940's-50's, this catalog still held a lot of gems...but also some real horse apples. 

For the next several posts, I am going to be highlighting some of the articles and pieces from the fashion line for your viewing pleasure.  I also scoured the nets to locate images of the original pattern envelopes to see all the options, compare, and pass judgement!

With spring just around the corner it's a perfect time to start planning your new wardrobe.  Maybe some of these fashions will inspire, while some will dissuade.

To start off, the first 24 pages hold all of the ads. 

 You would think with that many options there would be some great stuff but no. Everything is just photography printed in black and white, no art or concept involved in the layouts either.  But here are a few of (minimal) interest:

I liked this one because of the Belt and Buckle Bar display rack, along with it having some decent illustration work.

This ad has a great 1940's-50's feel to it.

This is the goofy 60's rearing it's ugly head.  She is a Peggy Bundy predecessor! 

In a costumey way I do kinda like this outfit.  It's something I would wear and parade around the house in.  I have a  similar 1970's 2 piece double knit polyester pink and white gingham pants outfit.  I mostly wear it to torment PB!  Sometimes I'll put it on right before we have to go to an open house or some other equally embarrassing public place and ask PB if he is ready to go.  He hates it!  I don't really wear it out but it's fun to get him worked up over it.

Here I am in my "beloved" outfit along with a 1970's apron from my apron show in 2015.

All pattern envelope source images came from various sites including: vintagepatterns.wikia, ebay, and etsy.

Mendets

Here is a fun little Mendets set I picked up at an antique mall for 4 bucks.  If I ever have any pots with holes I'll be set--watertite FOREVER!
Until I get myself in a tite spot, I'll be hanging it up in the kitchen as wall decor!

For the next month and a half, I am going to busy with birthdays, our anniversary, holidays, and a little vacation so MHICTY is going to be running on auto-pilot.
 I have a whole slew of scheduled posts to delight and hopefully entertain though!  

Nightmare Theatre Cake

Nightmare Theatre just wrapped up it's first season with our local PBS channel.  Nightmare Theatre for those not in the know is a horror host show that Mr. Husband Sir and two of his friends have been doing as a hobby for nearly 20 years.

To celebrate the final show I designed and baked a special cake to enjoy while watching the final episode. One of the props on the set is an old early 1980s black and white television set.  I thought it would be fun to make one similar out of cake!

Here are a few views:

The cake it's self is homemade from a recipe I found in a book called "Decorating Cakes and Party Foods Baking Too!" by Louise Spencer 1969 .  This book doesn't have very many pictures but it has great information. I picked it up from a thrift store about a year ago and it was well used (and loved) by the previous owner.  One of the pages for frosting recipes is stained and splattered from years of use.  The cake I made was from a recipe called "Old-Fashion Pound Cake" and was recommend by the author for two-piece molds due to it's firm texture.  I figured it would work well for three dimensional carved cakes too.

Recipe:

Preheat Oven 300 degrees

Grease and flour pan

1 cup butter

1 2/3 cups sugar

5 eggs

2 tsp extract (I used coconut and threw in some shredded coconut too)

2 cups sifted flour

Cream butter and sugar.  Beat the eggs in one at a time.  Add extract, beating at medium speed til blended.  Reduce mixer speed to low and fold in flour a tablespon at a time.  Pour into pre-pared pan.  Bake immediately about 1 1/2 hours.  Cool on cake rack 10 minutes before removing from pan.  Cool about a hour before frosting.

The cake texture was very dense and easy to work with while I was carving and shaping the cake.  I also liked the flavor.  I made the cake a couple of days before the event so I would have time to decorate it properly.  When eating it, it did seem a little dry, which could have been from it being made 2 days earlier (I did cover it though).  

For the decorations I made the knobs and other features out of pre-fab Wilton fondant.  I dyed the fondant with Wilton food coloring to get the grey color.  The wood grain part is fondant that I tinted brown and pressed the grain in using the end of a spoon.  The photo is a printed image that I laminated.  I decided to use a color image instead of what the TV would have been, black and white, so the cast would be more clear.  The antennae are bamboo food skewers painted silver.  The driving force that brought this cake together is the cake "glaze" I covered it in.  I found it at Joann's on clearance, and it was suppose to be black.  It's made by Cake Craft called Mirror Glaze, Voodoo Black. It worked out better I think with it being a dark brown.

I loved making this cake from the beginning to the end.  It was so much fun and relaxing. The cake was a hit with it's appearance but like I mentioned earlier was a bit dry and dense.
 However even with that I still liked the cake and the flavor.

Here is another electronic cake I made back in 2006

Radio Cake


And here are past Nightmare Theatre Posts you can tune in to!
El Sapo fan club
Nightmare Theatre Plan 9
Nightmare Theatre Revived

Tears of Shame
Horror Host Fame Crafty Wares Selling Suitcase 2018
El Sapo lassos the moon 2017
Criswell Predicts 2007
Scrap Crafty T-Shirt Corset 2006

Peek-a-Boo Tie 2006
Our Bizarre Bazaar 2005

Kaymar Little Dikkens

Mr. Husband Sir super surprised me by giving me this vintage Kaymar winking devil kneehugger named Dikkens for Valentine's day this year! 

He has been on my wish list for a long time, always in a price range I couldn't bring myself to paying.

Mr. Husband found him on ebay and while he did pay a pretty penny (45 bucks) for him, it wasn't as much as some are going for (200 bucks).

I always start jonesing for one of these cuties around Valentine's Day, since he would be perfect for the decor.  

I had been window shopping some of these guys on ebay earlier this week, but hadn't even mentioned it Mr. Husband.  And lo and behold, here came this little guy!  Mr. Husband always out does me in the gift giving department. He also got me a book I am always checking out of the library and a box of cold brew coffee.  I always see Valentine's day as simple little gifts and edibles, which means the coffee should have been the highlight but nope! Poor Mr. Husband Sir just got some protein bars and beef jerky....and of course, he has me, ha!

Fried Chicken Valentine Bouquet

Some people give their loved ones a bouquet of flowers for Valentine's Day, which is nice, but if the bouquet is also full of fried chicken that's even better!

I put together this Fried Chicken Floral bouquet bucket for the fam as part of our
 Valentine's Day dinner.
How to: Place chucks/rounds of Styrofoam/foral foam inside the bucket filling it about half way.  Add flowers around the rim, inserting firmly into foam.  Skewer chicken pieces on bamboo sticks and insert into foam in the middle area.  Present to the lucky recipient!

I have been wanting to make one of these bouquets even since first seeing

Charles Phoenix's Flying Fried Chicken Birthday Bucket Bouquet.
His is far more amazing than mine is, but everything he does is fantastic..."I knowww!"

Valentine's Decor

I love Vantentine's Day.  It ranks up there with Halloween, which is saying something.  I like it because as with Halloween, everything is optional.  Sure a gift of some sort is usually exchanged and that's a bit of a requirement.  But really it can be anything...simple treats or doo-dads, nothing over the top is required, just tokens. I see it as St. Nick Valentine stocking stuffers.  You can go to dinner or do something at home.  Make a fancy dessert or just have some cutesie Krispy Kreme donuts.  It's just about showing your closest sweethearts you are thinking of them.
You can also be very creative with Valentine's Day, as with Halloween.
So I opted this year, for the first time, to do some full fledged Valentine's Day decorating!

The table centerpiece featuring PB's He-men.  We bought these near Valentine's Day 2015 and every year since they have ventured out as part of the Valentine decor.  I picked the red fabric tablecloth up at Target on Christmas clearance.

The major bit of decorating I did involved clearing the main wall in the dining-room to put up this focal spot.
The honeycomb hearts and tinsel hearts all came from dollar tree.

The primary focus was the poster sized print I made of a vintage valentine card from my mom when she was a kid in the mid 1960s.  It is my favorite!

I attached several more of my mom's vintage valentine cards to the tinsel hearts with mini clothes pins,
also from dollar tree.

Here is the original card next to the enlargement.  The original has silver embossing on it.  I produced the same look on the large version with Elmer's school glue and silver glitter.
I am really stoked about how it turned out.  My local library has a wide format printer and on certain nights you can do free printing.  It's great for making decor for holidays, birthdays, anniversaries.....all sorts of great stuff.  I used it for several prints from my last birthday party.

I don't typically do loads for Valentine's day, such as this much decorating.  I am usually hard core busy planning and making stuff for PB's blow out birthday parties.  This year he told me he didn't want a party, which I translated as he didn't want a big party.  I mean, he's got to have a party!  I have been doing big themed shindigs for him for the past 14 years and I am not ready to hang up the cake sprinkles just yet.  This year is going to be a smaller surprise theme party which meant I could also squeeze in some Valentiney stuff too, hence the decor.

I scoured through the MHICTY archives and came across several more Valentine lovey dovey type stuffs.  To check it out, click on the tag below left "valentines".

"Be My Valentine" Cake

For our Valentine's dinner, I made us this "Be My Valentine" cake as suggested by Baker's coconut 1950.

Woman's Day Magazine Feb 1950

image source

I am not sure what the recipe calls for, I just made it up from looking at the image.  I made a pre-fab red velvet cake, used pre-fab tub cream cheese icing, covered it in pink tinted coconut, and the heart is Red Hot cinnamon candies.



It is quick and easy to make.  Also having "pennywise glamour" as the ad totes,
costing about 5 bucks to make and it's super cute.

Here are a few more Sweets for your Sweets of the past:

Be Mine Sweetheart Cake
Sweet Tooth
Sugar wafer treats for your sweets
Valentine Cookies

Sweetheart Heart Doughnuts

Krispy Kreme has Sweetheart candy inspired heart doughnuts this season!

There was panic in the streets a few months back when word got out that candy company Necco (started in 1847, officially named Necco in 1901) had shuttered it's factory.  Necco also makes those yank your fillings out of your teeth Mary Jane candies and Squirrel Nut Zippers.  The Spangler candy company (since 1906 well known for Dum Dum lollipops) did buy the rights to Necco wafers and their Sweetheart heart candy and plan on returning them to store shelves in 2019.  I doubt we will see a lag in product though...cheapy discount stores have had the same rolls of wafers on their shelves collecting dust for the past 15 years.  It is said that Necco wafers were a favorite of Civil War Union soldiers.
If you need to get your Sweethearts candy fix,
Brachs Candy company (since 1904) makes Conversation hearts, which look just like Necco's Sweethearts candy.  They are, as always, available for Valentine's Day this year, so there's no need to panic.  While conversation hearts are great, I think you will get your sweetheart's attention much better with a dozen of these doughnuts!

You could also make your own calorie free virtual conversation hearts at

cryptogram hearts , such as this gem, not of my making, but funny nevertheless:

Banana Meatloaf

I had come across a recipe for Banana Meatloaf awhile back in one of my vintage diet books and thought it sounded intriguing.  Bananas in meatloaf, it's just weird enough to be good.

I looked up on the nets a few other recipes to see what other serving suggestions were out there and most all of them were the same ingredients.  It was also said that the meatloaf was quite tasty and no banana could be noted.  It's sounding better and better!

Recipe:

{Click to enlarge}

I did do a few modifications, as I always tend to do.  I used ground turkey, oats in place of the breadcrumbs, and prepared brown mustard instead of the dry mustard.

This was horrible.  It most definitely tasted like bananas...only with meat, like a meat filled banana bread.  I even made a ketchup based sauce to accompany it (drown it in) but even that was unable to help.   Nothing would help it.  However, Mr. Husband Sir really liked it and salvaged it from going into the rummage bin.

The best thing going for it was my presentation of piped mashed potatoes and parsley garnish.
I don't know where it went wrong...maybe it was the substitutions or maybe bananas just shouldn't be involved with meatloaf....ever.