Fashion Friday: This Is How It's Done!

Thank you, Better Homes and Gardens Sewing Book 1961.

Now we know how to do it, because clearly, This Is How It's Done.

I LOVE each and every one of these little outfits.

And the illustrations?

Absolutely Reek With Charm.

"Making an attractive costume is only one part of being smartly dressed.
Accessories -suitable belt, buttons, trimmings, a becoming hat,
correct handbags and shoes, attractive jewelry-
also contribute to the smart, fashionable ensemble.
.... Choose accessories that suit your personality."

What?
Not sure of your personality and how it relates to your wardrobe??
Click Here.

Here's to The Smartly Dressed.

Please... I just want to be one of them.

xxoo,
Betty
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Bitter Betty's Thanksgiving Tip

 For added elegance, when in doubt, always add a sprig of parsley, as a garnish.

Thanks to you... For Reading!

Happy Thanksgiving!

 Love, 

 Betty

Tutorial Tuesday: Vintage Fall Fashion How To's

 

click on the photos to enlarge

It is windy and chillier here today, so the BBI wants to share a quick vintage sweater washing tutorial to celebrate. 

YEAH! Sweater weather!

But before you go out in your smashing fall ensembles be sure you print out and carry our handy door check diagram and put your best fall fashion foot forward.

Don't you just love the Fall? 

Actually we have been pretty Busy here at the BBI factory, making handmade holiday stuff and some pretty serious holiday decorations, and while I doubt I'll actually get everything finished by my original goal.. I'm still holding out hope for Finished By Halloween.

Raking Up Leaves For You to Jump Into,

Betty

Tutorial Tuesday: Standing... No, Really.. you might be blowing it.

Well, It isn't just standing, it is the all important Hand on Hip stance, specifically.

Brought to you from The Nurse's Guide to Charm..
The same wild bunch who brought you "How to Remove Your Coat"...

click on them... make them bigger
this is info you need to read.

Picture me standing over my computer in "the thinker's position"
trrryyying to wrap my brain around all this juicy new info..
I mean screw the dieting and excercise!
Strategic hand placement Is The Way.

and don't even get me started on "Expressing Pertness"
where I'm from, we call that "Sass".
And you know what Sass will get you!?!
Friends like me, that's what.

I now must mosey off into Tutorial Tuesday's Sunset,
in the perfect, practiced and learned "cowboy hand postion"..
Adios, Amigos
and happy trails.

( so much fun, I hardly miss Sally at all...)

Made it Myself Monday: Go Vote !! Pillow.

This is my new crafting for the home from the last several days: I thrifted the lamp. The deal included a small dent in an otherwise swanky shade. I used a thin strip of wood veneer around the dented spot, and good as new. The golden color is great for counteracting the weird glow from the new florescent light bulbs that I finally gave in and installed. I paid a whooping 12.00 for the lamp and shade but I think it really looks great there and without the floor lamp that was there it looks a lot less cluttered. I have an idea of someone who could use a cute cottagey floor lamp in their window display, so I think it will go to a good home.

I also made the patchwork pillow. I used some of the fabrics I got from Whiplash last year and they are so fun to work with.

I made an American sign language embroidery awhile back. I really liked the way the sign looks. The idea of putting in your vote. Contributing your vote. And we are pretty politically vocal around the home, so I felt it was also "a family value" that I could see as a modern day sampler for our house.
Samplers are such an old fashioned notion, but the whole hand stitched motto idea has such an interesting, meditative ambiance about it. (The sign language diagrams are just something I have been fascinated with since 2nd grade when we had a teacher who taught us all to sing and sign at the same time, and I like the way they make words graphic.)

I have been doing a lot of reading lately, especially books and magazine articles from the first half of the the last century. I guess I am trying to access my inner housewife.. Anyway, I came across this excerpt from an article that was originally published in the Ladies Home Journal March of 1919:

"Many have thought that the longer woman suffrage could be postponed the better prepared women would be to exercise the privilege and duty, and the less the voting women would effect the average intelligence of the electorate.
I have shared this view and have not observed that women are denied any substantial property or civil rights because they can not vote. Indeed, laws in non-suffrage states are quite as liberal as laws in suffrage states."

William Howard Taft

Please ladies, if you are in a Super Tuesday State, please get out and effect the average intelligence of the electorate.

Your country needs you.

Tutorial Tuesday: How To Remove your Coat

Okay, Ladies:

Now that cold weather is here, we, here at Bitter Betty Industries, would just be heartbroken if you gals were just shedding those outer wear garments any old shulmpy way. We offer this handy tutorial from the Nurses Guide to Charm, which was loaned to BBI by the utterly charming Becktress.

Click on the image to enlarge and you will see how to remove your coat and have it neatly folded over your arm in 6 simple movements...This is, of course, assuming Prince Charming isn't there to assist you most Gallantly.
(Don't look at me sister, he doesn't live here.)

So, practice!
Because if you just dump that thing on the floor, I am telling your mother.