In which the internet is a wonderful place populated by fabulous people.

So I posted a month or so back about Enid Gilchrist and my interest in her books, to which a very lovely comment was left by Bev ( a decidedly great Australian I reckon, whom I have never met) offering me some that she had which she wanted to see go to a good home rather than be tossed out. Oh YES PLEASE!

And yesterday when the twins and I got back from a very lovely play in the park with my sister and their almost-the-same-age cousin, THIS was on my front doorstep.

And inside, these:

(The white thing at the bottom of the photo is Nicholas' elbow. Yet again I can't do anything without close supervision.)

EIGHT Enid Gilchrist books! A couple of missing covers, one or two pages loose from the centres of one or two, and a few small tears here and there, but all complete and fascinating! TREASURE! I do get a bit squeally (is that a word?) and over excited about stuff like this.

I had a good giggle over styles considered appropriate for teenagers 40 odd years ago (hehehe, I mis-typed "odd" as "ood" - been watching too much Dr Who) which most would rather die than wear now, but there are many, many details and ideas which are completely applicable today. The more recent ones also had some styles in more than one size, and at least one book had instructions for increasing a basic pattern by two years, which makes them considerably more versatile than the early ones which only have one size given for each pattern. A few patterns appear in more than one book too.

This design caught my attention because I've been doing these back fastenings for dresses and love them. I've also been doing external facings because it keeps in inside of the garment nice and smooth. I don't remember seeing the back wrap over fastening idea anywhere but didn't think I'd invented it - as they say, no new ideas in fashion.

And this car coat with it's lovely shaped sleeve. (There are a LOT of shaped sleeves, which I'm really curious to try as one piece sleeves with little differentiation between front and back don't sit or work very well.)

I've never seen a hood quite like this one. Have to give this a go.

These are the hood pieces, which clearly show the very simple drafting technique.

I doubt many parents would dress little girls in a dress this brief these days, but it would look great layered over things. I'm going to make this one for Isabella to wear over leggings and long sleeved tops for winter. It could easily be made reversible too, which is handy for Kindy.

And that's all I'm going to post for now. If I put in everything on which I had something to say we'd be here till next week! Expect Enid projects to appear in the coming weeks/months/years.

So in closing, Thank You Very Much Bev, I am very very grateful for these and will enjoy them immensely.