That's So 70s - So You Think You Can Sew!

One of the small (very small) pleasures of the old Big Book catalogs was the excitement of discovery of the tiny pics of our favorite models in sections further back in those 1000+ page tomes.  And one of those sections that consistently produced results was the "Roll Your Own" sewing section.....

Yep, this is what I'm talking about - lots of 70s-style patterns and tiny pics of of Top Models (here it is Karen and Kathy) AND some tongue-in-check sub-title "Sew Soft, Sew Cool, Sew Easy-Care These Many Pretty Ways"

Welllll, what to say?  First, is the obvious "What the heck is a top model like Kathy or Karen doing here?!?!" It would be like today a supermodel, let's say Adriana Lima, in a Home Depot circular on a riding lawn mower (on second thought, that would be pretty hot!)  Second, it was obvious that folks sewed their own clothes a lot more back then.  There is a noticeable decline in the size of this section from the beginning of the 70s to the end. (1)  Finally, some of these pics are pretty cool!

Obviously, they would rather sell you the finished product than the raw materials.  After all they could send that off overseas to a sweatshop where people are paid virtually nothing to sew garments all day.  Nah, that'd never happen.....

Totally mod Bell Bottoms Man!! And Kathy does them righteous like!! Check out those patterns, the possibilities are endless!!

What!! Here's Shelly Hack in the back sections of a Penney's catalog!  Whatever you've gotta do to move the stock, man!!

Of course one of the great things about sewing your own is that you can really let your animal side out like here - lions, tigers and bears, oh my!  Check out those groovy go-go boots matched with the animal print mini skirt!

Speaking of mini-skirts from the early 70s.....

Sighhhh.  Those were some groove-tastic, good times weren't they!  

Like I said earlier, these sections often had the goofiest sub-titles "More Ways to Play the Mating Game" Hmmm, something tells me that the author of that was a guy, just a wild guess.  And yes, that is Kathy on the far left where where the middle crease is..  One thing about these sections further back in the catalog is that is darn near impossible to get a good scan if there is something along the crease, and for some reason it seems that there is a lot of Kathy pics there, always irritates me.

Okay, I can't end on a sour note.....

Big, bright smiles from Kay and Dottie - that'll brighten your day!!  "Companionable?!?"  I bet you can't say that word(?) without smiling, chuckling, and saying to yourself  "That's Soooo 70s!"

footnotes:

(1) Probably someone should do an actual academic study on this.  Someone, like an Historian Blogger perhaps?? Oh wait that would be me.  Uhhh, I'll get right on it, promise, no really, well maybe later....