I have been living in Norway for a year and a half now, with another 2 1/2 to go. The entire time we've been here I've been on the hunt for any trace of the seamstresses of 50 years ago. Allow me to explain. Sewing patterns never show up in thrift shops here. They all get thrown away. Sick, wrong, and horrible, I know. The only traces that anyone used to sew things for themselves is the occasional hand made dress popping up in a thrift shop from time to time.
I started to think for some reason that sewing things disappeared from Norway like the dinosaurs did in a mysteriously massive sewing cataclysm that wiped all traces of patterns out in one fell swoop. So I've been on a sort of pseudo-archeological hunt to track down the history of sewing in this mysterious land of the knitted sweater.
Today I had my first breakthrough. A tiny, dusty and dim antique shop that had a small stash of sewing patterns, and tucked haphazardly underneath that stash, were some of the most gorgeous sewing pattern catalogs from the 1940's I've ever seen. It's all in Norwegian, of course, but that's just a better incentive for me to pay more attention in my weekly Norwegian courses.
So for about $40 (dirt cheap by Norwegian standards) I bought it all up and raced home to carefully examine each page of my loot.
I just wanted to share the great pictures of my amazing find with you all. There are a ton more pictures on my blog
A Few Threads Loose.
Happy Sewing!
