• It's All About the Boots •

It's time for the big, exciting, amazing, and long-awaited shoe post.  :D

In short, I have new boots.  And to say that I love them is a definite understatement.

Last month, Royal Vintage Shoes announced that the Victoria Carriage Boots were no longer going to be available on the RVS website, and therefore were on sale.  Well, I have been mourning the lack of any winter-appropriate footwear in my "shoe wardrobe" for a long time, and these were so utterly tempting, I couldn't resist.

The boots are made of velveteen on the outside, with genuine mouton (soooo soft) fur trim, grosgrain ribbon ties, and a quilted sateen lining.  In short, they are the fuzziest, wuzziest, most wonderful boots I've ever owned, or will ever own.  And on top of that, they are gorgeous and oh-so-vintage, instead of looking like bedroom slippers!  ;)

Since the soles are made of leather, I took them in to our (amazing) local cobbler and had him put some thin rubber soles on the bottoms for both durability and traction.  He did an excellent job, and they are now ready for anything winter throws my direction!  I also gave them 4(!) coats of waterproofing/stain-repellant spray, which has worked wonders so far.  All the crunching through snow that I did in this and two other consecutive photo shoots left them dry as a bone; the snow didn't stick to them, and any moisture just beaded off.  Amazing!!!!!!!  :D

The boots are still available on the American Duchess website HERE, but only until the remaining sizes sell out, then they'll be gone forever.

As for the outfit, this skirt is a recent make of mine.  My dear sis Sarah sent me a "just because" package back in January, consisting of a vintage pattern and two different wools, one of them being this plaid and the other a solid brown, which I also recently made into a skirt.  I love wool fabric, plaid, and the color gray, so this was a total winner.  It is so good that I waited practically a year to make it into *just* the right garment!  ;)

I've been making quite a few skirts lately, and am having a blast wearing them.  Before I started making my own clothing, my wardrobe consisted of about 97% skirts and blouses with only about 3% dresses.  Now that I do sew my own clothing, however, the situation has just about reversed for whatever reason!  I am really enjoying adding more skirts and blouses to the mix though; they are so comfortable and very easy to customize for a dressier or more casual look.

For this one, I used a vintage '50s pattern in our stash for a medium-fullness, flared skirt.  I definitely wanted that chevron effect at the front and back seams, and shockingly enough, none of our modern repro patterns seemed to have that!  The pattern I used had the centers front and back directly on the bias, with the side seams being on the straight grain.  It was the perfect pattern for the fabric, because it fit on to the 2 yard piece just right!  :) 

The blouse is a make from earlier this year; you can read about the construction of it here.  

Although I love plaid, I tend to avoid making garments out of it like the plague, because I have so little faith in my matching skills (and rightly so!).  This one was a real confidence-booster though!!  It's always so fun when something comes out just the way you want it to.

Have I mentioned it yet?  I love these boots.  --->SO MUCH<---

Another super-exciting aspect about them is, they not only work great with my everyday vintage wardrobe, but also will work (even more so, if that's possible) beautifully with my historical dresses as well, since the original design dated from the 1860s-1920s.  I can't wait to pair them with a big, fluffy dress.  ;)

This is a pretty good photo to end with; it pretty much sums up the way I feel about my new shoes, and this skirt.  ;D

A big thank you to Sarah (<3) for my gorgeous wool, and also to Lauren and the crew at AD and RVS for the stunning boots!!  I would highly, highly recommend them to anyone looking for wintry vintage footwear; comfortable, incredibly high quality, and downright gorgeous.

****ALSO****

My Etsy shop is having a Christmas sale right now!!  Save 20% off your purchase when you use the coupon code MERRYCHRISTMAS20, valid through Sunday, December 25th.  Stop by the shop and check it out!  :)