Simplicity 9362

At long last, we scrape the edges of the Seventies with this 1971 Simplicity pattern. It contains a long dress, a tunic, shorts, and pants.

Simplicity describes it in this way: "the dress or tunic with back zipper has low round neckline. Ankle length dress with short set-in sleeves has slit in left side seam. Tunics are sleeveless. Version 2 has a flat woven braid trim. Version three has embroidered braid or ribbon trim. Long pants version three and short pants version three have elastic waistline casing. Version two has flat woven braid trim."

The influence of the hippie styles is still going strong here. But what I love--other than the simple lines--are the accessories:

In version one, it's just a sprig of flowers. I love version three (in the middle): she's carrying her shoes, with a scarf around her hair and a leather accessory wrapped just below her right knee. It has hearts dangling from it. Those shorts are pretty short!

Version two (on the right) definitely kicks it up: she's wearing gold chokers, gold bangles on her upper arm, some kind of wrap-esque bracelet lower on the same arm, and she's got some mighty big sunglasses. They remind me of Jackie O in her, well, Jackie O days.

[photo: District H]

The pattern is a size 16 (B 38). There are two possibilities here--either my grandmother made a garment from it for her 21-ish-year-old-daughter *or*--for herself! My hunch is that these were patterns for my aunt. My grandmother was in her 50s in the early 1970s, and although I wouldn't put it past her to wear something like version one, or possibly even version two, I am positive she *did not* wear version three.

This is the first pattern I've found so far that is incomplete. But from what I can tell, my grandmother made the long pants for sure, and did not make the dress (the sleeve is not cut out). The tunic--I'm not so sure about, but interestingly, there's some fabric folded up inside, muslin, which looks like it's part of the shorts pattern. Did she make a muslin of the shorts?? I honestly can't imagine that. My bet is that she made the tunic and pants for my aunt, or possibly for herself, and maybe she did make the shorts. Her consistency--from what I can tell, so far--of keeping her patterns organized with all the pieces carefully placed back into the envelope--makes me wonder what happened to the rest of this one.

In any event, when do we get to revive the just-below-the-knee-wrapped-around-leather-thing accessory? (What are those called??) It's the perfect height for entertaining a baby while you wash dishes.