nostalgia

Morplan’s catalogue of dreams

I pinched this post title from a friend of mine who once described the Argos catalogue as ‘the catalogue of dreams’. For those not in the UK, I should explain that Argos is a UK retailer that sells just about anything you can think of. You pick your goods from a huge catalogue rather than browsing in a shop. We always used to have a copy of the catalogue at home and as a child I found it fascinating. They have a website these days as well as the catalogue, but browsing on the web is not the same.

I’ve recently discovered a similar thing for sewists. Last year I ordered a huge roll of tracing paper from a company called Morplan. They mostly seem to supply fittings and equipment to the retail clothing industry, but they’ve got a good range of things that home sewists might be interested in. This tracing paper will keep me going for years.

And last week they sent me their full catalogue in the post. Who knew there were so many different kinds of carrier bag? Or coat hangers? And that’s before you get to the sewing stuff. More things for marking fabric than you can shake a stick at. Curious gadgets for making pattern pieces.

Forget sewing, I’m going back to put large red circles round my favourites.

Unworn special occasion wear

I’ve not made much progress on my current project this week so I’m going to muse randomly about old clothes instead. Be warned, navel-gazing ahead.

I’m going to some friends’ ten year anniversary party this weekend, which I’m really looking forward to, and I’m wearing my black and white vintage maxidress. Which I also sometimes wear for lounging around the house on weekends. The dress I bought for the last wedding I went to (gosh, before I started sewing) also gets worn for work with a t-shirt underneath and a cardigan on top. I don’t ever wear ‘special occasion’ clothes these days, just regular clothes with a bit of extra face paint and different shoes.

But I do have a box under the bed with some party dresses in it from when I was at university. I never wear them now but I can’t bear to throw them out. I keep thinking that if I do get rid of them I’ll regret it. It’s not that they haven’t been worn in the past, but these days I don’t have much need for a floor length slinky black jersey halterneck dress, or a silver jersey column dress. (There’s a bit of a jersey theme, now I come to think of it).

They’re sharing the box with other things I ought to get rid of but can’t: a couple of old dresses that I liked so much I wore them to rags, and keep thinking that one day I’ll make copies of, and some other clothes that are no longer my style but I keep just for nostalgia value.

Anyone else have boxes of clothes they don’t wear but can’t bear to throw out?