Working up the courage to try my "murder patterns"

Remember my yard sale boots - or more appropriately, my murder boots? Well just after I stumbled upon those lovely boots, I found these old patterns. They are made by Advance, a company which ceased operations in 1966, according to cemetarian.com, totally boosting the vintage coolness of them ;-).

I am not much of a seamstress. To date, I have made two pairs of lounge pants (in 7th and 8th grade home economics), and a few Simplicity skirts (I'll post about one of them tomorrow). But, for some reason, I have this need to learn how to sew clothing.

It could be because my mother and I had so much fun designing and making (she did all the making) all of my high school dance dresses. Or because my aunt carefully created my wedding dress. It could be leftover genes from that French taylor that my mother insists is in our lineage. Or it could be blamed on my obsession with Project Runway and sewing's newfound popularity.

Regardless, I am longing to sew.

So when I spotted these patterns, I couldn't resist their fabulousness. They were 25 and 35 cents apiece originally, so I think the old lady selling them to me actually made money on them. The one above has been drawn on but if you look closely, the actual pattern is really cute.

I love this bow on the shoulder. I think I would add it to the short-sleeved version of this dress.

Now if I could just work up the courage to move away from Simplicity and to try these out...