Pattern Behavior Cartoons

by Natalie Kossar · February 19, 2015

After my mother insisted that I help her “use Google” to find a particular sewing pattern from 1989, I became fascinated and inspired by McCall’s vintage sewing patterns. Only instead of using them to make clothes, I decided to make these cartoons.

 

TeeTime

 

Hungover

Rhonda

 

Anna

real big lady 2

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70 Comments

  1. ramina +80

    This speaks to me on a deep emotional level. People on the front of patterns have not changed too much, in fact, I wonder if they are just stuck in some sort of pattern limbo.

    I’M LOOKING AT YOU, VOGUE.

  2. bitzyboozer +68

    This is awesome. As someone whose mom made her clothes for most of her childhood, this is unearthing some long lost memories of sitting at Hancock Fabrics for waaaaay too long thumbing thru these things wondering when the hell we were going to get to leave. I probably made up some similar narratives in my head at the time.

    1. aravisthequeen +48

      You too? My mom could spend hours at Jo-Ann Fabrics while I sat there bored and obsessing over fancy historical Renaissance costumes she would never make me.

      I still remember the feel of those uncomfortable chairs!

      1. ramina +6

        The chairs at our local fabric store are so notoriously flimsy that both my best friend and I have fallen over in them while pattern hunting. What is it with fabric stores and painful chairs??

        1. aravisthequeen +9

          HOW MANY OF US ARE THERE?

          My mom really did make me a number of outstanding costumes so I can’t bitch too much, but I always craved an enormous, 30-yards-of-fabric Civil War dress.

      3. Shelly +6

        You all think you had it bad? My mom worked at JoAnn’s. I spent hours in those uncomfortable chairs looking through McCall’s and Butterick thinking why are all the clothes starting to look the same.

      4. katmarie13 +3

        Yessssssss, I obsessed over the fancy Renaissance costumes for many an hour. And then there was this collection of reproduction 19th century dresses, and I obsessed over them too.

    2. bibliobotic +30

      OH GOD. The Sitting At Hancock Fabrics. Goddddd. I just looked at all the Halloween/costume patterns over and over, dying inside every time my mom was like, “Let me just check Butterick.”

    3. katni +19

      Yessss. So many hours spent absentmindedly wandering around the store, running my hands over all the silky/fuzzy/sparkly bolts of fabric.

      1. Perdita McLeod +15

        Yes! I put my grubby little hands on probably every bolt of fabric in Hart’s Fabric Store. Also: staring at all the buttons, and there may or may not have been a big tub of orphan buttons that I liked to run my hands through.

        2. cleoreads +6

          The bargain bin of buttons! We had one of those by the register at the fabric store I worked at and it was irresistible to kids. And many adults.

    4. coloredlights +19

      YES ME TOO. To this day I get a little twitchy walking into Jo-Ann Fabrics, even though I am now in total control of when I get to leave.

    5. dakimel +19

      I love that there’s a whole community of us who have a mildly-PTSD reaction to fabric stores now thanks to our moms who made all our clothes.

      I did love the pattern cutting board, though – unfolding it and spreading the fabric out, pinning the pattern pieces. Getting to use the roller-cutter-thingy. But that I could leave anytime, and there was never any fluorescent lighting looming over me.

    6. saffiedarling +5

      Whereas after reading all these fabric-store flashbacks I am now thinking about what horrors I will inflict on my currently non-existant children, because lazily flicking through pattern books and then doing circuts of the fabric displays is currently my idea of heaven.

  3. sagerenee +42

    As the owner of a completely ridiculous collection of vintage patterns, I have to say that these cartoons are PERFECTION

  12. Owlmouse +67

    Interestingly enough, I thought Rick was the average sized fellow and his pal in yellow was tiny.

    1. susanintoronto +16

      Rick is the tiny guy. He’s looking for a very big lady, so they can have normal sized kids.

    2. Unreadaethel +9

      Oh hey, my mom made that caftan for my brother in high school.

      He had an allergic reaction to a belt buckle. He also had long hair, and he got called “ma’am” several times that week.

  17. merveille +46

    How did you know I was up until midnight last night searching eBay for the perfect vintage knitting patterns to put up in my bathroom as art? HOW DID YOU KNOW?

    PS: The answer is this one, right above the toilet, for male visitors to enjoy.

    2. hergart +8

      That is officially my favorite thing right now. I have a vaguely Chinese-ink-painting of a sulky cat that I think would also do well over a toilet. Nothing like a cat glaring at you to make you remember to put the seat down.

      1. Mrs_Peel +7

        “Just two guys, hangin’ out in the woods in our yellow 4-ply sweaters, like manly guys do”.

        1. Unreadaethel +4

          They actually really look like they’re trying to be Burt Ward and Adam West, but aren’t quite sure they’ve managed it.

          “This is how it works, right? Totally a Bruce Wayne & Youthful Ward thing, yeah? Guys? Are we doing it right?”

    5. Anne Iredale +1

      Yes, that’s what goes on birthday cards in the UK – old Patons knitting patterns at 9 shillings

  18. cleoreads +26

    So many memories.

    My mom sewed, and I remember going through the giant pattern books as a kid.

    I worked at a family owned fabric store in my early 20s – it was a fun place to work. This was in the early 90s, while the fashion silhouette was changing from the 80s oversize tops with giant shoulder pads / skinny bottoms to the more fitted, body conscious clothes of the 90s – and it was so obvious to me what was going on because of those crazy fashion drawings on the patterns we sold. I could see it really clearly – it’s about the only time in my life that I paid attention to fashion, but it was fun.

    One of my favorite memories is of waiting on a woman who was making a wedding dress for her lawn goose – why yes, we sold patterns for clothes for lawn geese. And patterns for hats for dogs.

    1. Holly_Kat +42

      I used to have a neighbor who had a lawn goose that she dressed up. She would go out early every morning and put him in a weather-appropriate outfit, which saved me from having to watch the news every day. If the goose had a rain slicker on, that meant I should take an umbrella. Eventually she got him a wife, and they both wore wedding attire for a week or so, and then after that, they both were dressed for whatever the day might bring.

      My boyfriend and I wondered where she got all the lawn goose clothes, and now it looks like that mystery is solved.

        1. Holly_Kat +16

          I actually never even saw her. My boyfriend had lived across the street from her for a few years before I moved in, and he had only seen her once or twice. We both met her husband a couple of times, just briefly. But she was mysterious. Like…the Emily Dickinson of the lawn goose world?

      2. RochelleS +6

        In the lawn goose’s heyday, you could buy pre-made clothes at bazaars and craft fairs as well. (We never had a lawn goose, though I knew several people who did.) That might have been where the slickers came from, as rain slicker material is difficult to work with.

  20. Anne Iredale +2

    Love these. We have this kind of thing – only knitting patterns – on comic greetings cards here in the UK – do you guys have those in the US?

  25. Unreadaethel +14

    This seems like a good place to confess that, when I was six, my mom made me a pair of lemon-yellow culottes. Oh yes.

  27. deleted5647547 +4

    Um this is hysterical.

    Are we sure the last one is a huge man and a normal man, and not a normal man and a tiny man??

  28. thisclimbingbean +6

    HA! I loved these 😀 How I wish I’d thought of doing this in my head for the endless hours I spent looking through pattern books with my mum. It would have been much more amusing!

    She spent hours making clothes for me, for which I’m eternally grateful, but I’ve never told her that I used to base my choices for clothes on whether I liked the look of the model/drawing wearing them. I was invariably disappointed when I put them on and did not look like the youngster on the pattern cover. I mean, some of these other children were not even the same race as I am, so my expectations were way off. Yet another example of what an odd child I was, I suppose.