Opening Theme: BARNABY JONES

With the release of my new whodunit Nursing a Grudge starring geriatric amateur sleuth Earl Walker, this blog is featuring senior citizen detective shows the next several weeks ...

Barnaby Jones (1973-1980) starred Buddy Ebsen and Lee Meriwether as father- and daughter-in-law who run a private detective firm in Los Angeles. A spin-off from Cannon, starring William Conrad, the Barnaby Jones premiere episode "Requiem for a Son" found Jones coming out of retirement to find his son's killer. His widowed daughter-in-law helped him solve the case, and the two decided to keep the detective agency open. In 1976, Mark Shera joined the cast as J. R., a son of Barnaby's cousin.

A different kind of private eye, Barnaby Jones was a milk-drinker who caught criminals with his brains rather than his fists: "To its credit, the producers didn't downplay Barnaby's age, nor did they get cute about it," notes Thrilling Detective. "They simply treated him with respect and dignity, made us aware of his limitations but focused on his strengths. Not for Barnaby, then, the routine TV fare of fisticuffs and car chases. Rather he relied on his keen intellect, his home crime lab and good old detective work (a real rarity on the tube) to get the goods on the bad guys." Buy DVDs at Amazon

Barnaby Jones TV show theme song


Barnaby Jones on Wikipedia
Barnaby Jones on Thrilling Detective

More themes:
CHARLIE'S ANGELS
THE EQUALIZER
HARDY BOYS / NANCY DREW MYSTERIES
HARRY O
MANNIX
NBC Mystery Movie (COLUMBO)
PETER GUNN
THE ROCKFORD FILES
QUINCY
SIMON & SIMON


From The Thrill of it All:
Retirement is Murder: 10 Senior Sleuths
Detectives: MURDER SHE WROTE: JESSICA FLETCHER
Detectives: Lee Goldberg: DR. MARK SLOANE (DIAGNOSIS: MURDER)
Mysteries: Lawrence Block: BERNIE RHODENBARR
Detectives: M.C. Beaton: AGATHA RAISIN
Detectives: Agatha Christie: MISS MARPLE
100 Mystery Series: 1887-2010
Murderous Beginnings: 40 Detective Fiction Firsts
NURSING A GRUDGE: Hometown Mysteries
NURSING A GRUDGE is "summer fresh"
Download the first chapter free!

Love is a Seersucker Bathing Suit

Ta da!  A new bathing suit for me, me, ME!

We're keeping it positive today, friends.  Not one word about E-lame, who's obviously experiencing a meltdown judging from yesterday's desperate attempt to smear not only me, but my beautiful, not short cousin Cathy too.  I take it all with a grain of salt and a few Extra Strength Tylenol.

Yesterday, desperate to escape the ugliness, I faced near 100 degree temperatures and slogged my way to 39th Street for a little fabric shopping.  I won't show you everything I bought, but I did pick up a yard and a half of this multicolored cotton seersucker that I've seen in the store for many a month.  You'd think at $2/yd. it would sell faster.



I decided to make myself a pair of retro-style swim trunks from a vintage (well, 1984) McCall's pattern I bought last fall.



The pattern has cute little details, like this front pocket:



And the split hem on the outside leg:



The back waistband has a casing for elastic for a snugger fit.



Instead of a zipper fly I used velcro.  I added a velcro closure to the waistband too.



It all went together very easily and I still have enough fabric for either a matching short-sleeve shirt or matching chihuahua muumuus.   Is a cabana set too over the top?  Please advise.

Big hot day of sewing ahead, needless to say.  







Have a great day, everybody!

Monarch Monday Madness + GOALS!

Can inspirations from nature ever be too literal?

These ladybug print pants are kind of cute (I've been meaning to share this photo with you for quite some time):

But it's a slippery slope, don't you agree?  (especially if you're short)

Moving right along...

What a wild, warm and wacky week we just had, right?  And the week to come promises to be even wackier and warmer!

I have exactly one week before our Fire Island trip, and I'm just now sitting down with a pile of assorted spandex tops and bottoms (my research tools) and figuring out just how to make Cathy a bathing suit.  I'm trying not to panic.  

Meanwhile, look what I won on eBay last night:



Guess who I'm sending the bill to as soon as I can track down her mailing address.  I know you guys were pretty evenly split about this pattern but I'll try to make it worth your while.  If nothing else I'll learn how to do a rolled hem on my serger.

So, quick, let's review last week.   Not that much to tell, project-wise.

1.  I finished the Twenties dress and was able to rouse Cathy with some mild stimulants to model it for me.

I never did draft a shirt or make shorts, though with the temperatures hovering around 100 degrees I wish I had.

And as for this coming week:

1.  Must assemble Cathy's beach wardrobe.  She and I need to sit down and discuss just what I'm expected to provide and what she's bringing herself.  Hopefully she'll be carting her baby blue Samsonite make-up case.  I'm not her valet after all.

2.  If there's time, I may try to draft a shirt.  Or make shorts.  Or something.

Now how about you?

Sarah: Did you make your sundress?  Sewforward: How's the wearable art garment coming along?  Rebecca: Did you finish your beach cover-up?  Maybe you can give me some tips for Cathy's.  Elle: What did you wear to your 4th of July party?  Cath: When are you due and have you mastered your walking foot?  Lorrwill: How did the pencil skirt turn out?  Smarty Pantalons:  Who is Mrs. G?

OK, that's enough nagging.  When the temperature reaches 90, I start to tune out and seek mindless distractions.  Yesterday I watched my fourth (of four) Troy Donahue movies from my "Warner Bros. Romance Classics Collection" and when I think that less than ten years later he was making soft-core exploitation movies like "The Love-Thrill Murders"....well it makes me very scared -- for Cathy.

Oh, by the way, I'm SO very grateful for all your wonderful style icon suggestions yesterday.  I'm still trying to figure out who they all are and will report back later in the week for sure.

So, what are you sewing this week?  Nothing with butterfly wings I hope!

Stay cool!

Find Me a Style Icon - Win Valuable Prizes!

Friends, once again I come to you for help.

After yesterday's post about female style icons I realized that nearly everybody -- Cathy included -- has a style icon except me.  I am among the icon-challenged. 

I've thought about possibilities but I'm hitting a wall.

Naturally, one starts with those one is said most closely to resemble.

Zac, obviously.  But he has very different coloring than I do and he's hardly a fashion leader.

Paul.  He was short, but I don't know...I'm not feeling it.

Dan.  He's certainly attractive in a boy band sort of way, but that shirt...no, he's off the list.

Then there are the classic debonair types:

Elegant and well tailored all, but I'm not a suit and tie sort of guy.  I've never worn a pocket square in my life and I'm not about to start now.   Uh uh.

What's to become of me, readers?   It's like being out to sea without an anchor or a sail or a rudder or something; I haven't spent much time on boats to be honest.

So this is what I ask of you.  You know me pretty well by now.  Give me two names.  One a living person, one dead.  Living, so I can trust this person dresses like people really do today;  dead, so I can potentially track down some of their old clothes.

As for valuable prizes, I have some fantastic vintage patterns I've accumulated over the last year.  I'll let you pick one; we'll work something out.  But goodness, I would hope you'll do this out of friendship and not for the reward.

Won't you find me a style icon?  Please.

Jackie and Audrey: Style Icons for the Ages

Dress them up...

or dress them down.

No one embodied true Fifties style better than Jackie Gleason and Audrey Meadows.  Simplicity itself -- inspiring!

And then there's Grace...

Folks, it seems we're stuck in a rut when it comes to female style icons.  Are you with me on this? Maybe it's just the women I hang out and/or blog with.  It's all about these three, again and again and again.

Is it just the historical moment we're in and all the "Mad Men" hoopla?  It seems these women have never really gone away, not in my lifetime at least.  I say, Enough.

I brought this up with my cousin Cathy after our photo shoot on Wednesday and I asked her about her own style icons.  You know, she never once mentioned Jackie, Audrey, or Grace?

Cathy's style icons -- and there are many -- include:

Suzanne!

Valerie!

 Mitzi!

OK, they're pretty much all from the Seventies, but at least we've moved up twenty years.  They embody casual chic, with a little Bob Mackie oomph from Mitzi of course; glamour for a more democratic age.  More separates, less satin.

Cathy wears Charlie.

Audrey wore L'Interdit.

Need I say more?

Readers, who are YOUR style icons?  If you had to eliminate Jackie, Audrey, and Grace, could you still find someone to admire?

Is your style icon truly someone whose style you seek to emulate?  (I mean, how many Givenchy-inspired gowns can one person wear?)

Does she (or he) have one classic look you could describe and/or share with us?

Do tell! (You too, men.)

Sheers, Gowns, Elaine + POLL

Kids, I'm hooked on sheer fabrics.  I know it sounds crazy -- sheers tend to shift like crazy and fray something awful.  But they're purty.  I like the way they float.

I loved the sheer chiffon yoke on Cathy's Twenties dress...



When I recall childhood memories of favorite movie gowns, the black one up top always comes to mind.  Marjorie Reynolds wore it in "Holiday Inn."  Remember how she and Fred Astaire pose in silhouette behind that big paper valentine and and then leap through it at the end of the "Be Careful, It's My Heart" number?

That's the gown I want to sew -- demure, sheer, floaty, Forties.

Here's another floaty childhood favorite, albeit from the 60's.  Who doesn't love a champagne gown with ermine trim -- and crown?  (That's "Queen" Ginger Rogers licking her upper lip at 0:37.)

So friends, was it mere synchronicity that a certain you know who -- let's call her "X" -- no doubt bored out of her wits altering old schmattas reeking of paradichlorobenzene, suggested I make this gown for Cathy?

Do you like it?  I'm on the fence.  I like the gown itself but that sheer gathered overblouse...I don't know.  Is it a little too jeune fille for a sophisticated New York model on the wrong side of thirty?  "X" says it reminds her of Ginger Rogers.  But are we talking the Ginger of "Swing Time" or the Ginger of "Love Boat"?

(Apologies for the simultaneous Polish translation...)



Look, I accept that "X" has impeccable taste even if she can't see that taupe satin T-straps with a blue-gray dress are oh-so-wrong.

So what do YOU think?  (I also welcome your written comments: I hate to put words in your mouth!)

Cathy models the Twenties dress!

The Twenties dress saga is finished at last.

Still a little jet-lagged from her transcontinental flight, Cathy -- a true professional -- gave it her all during our photo shoot yesterday evening.  It's amazing what a cold shower, black coffee, and some nicotine will do to get a model back on her feet!

So sit down and enjoy our latest trip into the past -- a world of flappers and sheiks, Wall Street fortunes and wild parties.   A world on the brink of a financial catastrophe.  A world so very much like our own.



As always, to see these photos full-size, please click on any image and then, in Picasa, choose "View All" in the upper left hand corner, and "Slideshow."

 Enjoy, everybody!

 So, what do you think?  Does Cathy do justice to my poly chiffon?