• Very Overdue, Very Random Post •

Well now, it's only been about half a year since I last blogged.  That's not very long, is it?

It's been a whirlwind of a fall and winter, with plenty of drama, plenty of fun, and plenty of blessings.  I'm thankful for where the Lord has brought us in past months, and wouldn't change a thing.  This year is going to be a good one!

I apologize in advance for the extremely varying sizes and shapes of these photos you're about to see - they are all gathered from my phone from varying sources.  Enjoy!  :)

Back in August, we were able to attend and participate in D-Day Ohio, and that was just an amazing experience.  We sewed up day dresses for day one, and went in uniform the other two days.

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Mom was an American Red Cross Gray Lady, and I was a Pharmacist's Mate in the USN WAVES.  Emily Stringham of Emily's Vintage Visions has done an amazing job gathering a (growing) group of ladies to represent WAVES at D-Day, and her WAVES display as well as her leadership of the group is amazing.  I am so excited for this year's reenactment!

Can't forget to add this -- we welcomed two little kittens into our family in October.  They are mischievous little rascals but we love them so <3 

A dear friend had a western-themed graduation party, so I planned to make a western shirt to wear to that.  I decided to procrastinate until the night before to finish it, so I sewed the last button on at 2:30 in the morning.  Sure was fun to wear though!  :)

We attended Mississinewa 1812 once again this year, and per usual I was dying of the worst cold ever.  I felt just exactly like death, and literally that entire basket you see in the picture was filled with Kleenexes.  But we went, and we conquered.

There is a really amazing antique market that has sales once each month, and one of the amazing things we found there was this box full of vintage fabric pieces and quilt blocks.  I could sit and look at them for hours!!!

In December, we were blessed to be able to participate in a choir society's production of Handel's Messiah.  The practice sessions each week beforehand and the nights of singing were some of my favorite moments of the year.  Such wonderful fellowship and the words - the beautiful, Biblical, Christ-honoring words were and are so moving.  Lord willing, we'll be participating again later this year!  

We needed black and white outfits to wear for the concerts, so......

....I made a 1930s and a 1950s ensemble, one for each night.  Once again, I had planned to make these outfits far in advance, but ended up waiting until less than 2 weeks before the concert.  Lots of evening sewing after work, and I got them both done!  And I sewed a blouse from rayon....everyone congratulate me.  That experience once again confirmed what I already knew, which is that I really, deeply detest sewing with rayon.

1930s for me, 1940s for Mom.

1950s ensembles.

At the concert!

Here you can see both of the adorable fluffballs :)

We took a trip to Minnesota also in early winter, seeing dear loved ones along the way.  This picture was taken in my grandma's very wallpapered bathroom, wearing a blouse with a very complicated history......

It was a UFO for quite some time, and I finally decided to finish it for our MN trip.  I had just finished sewing the last button on and went downstairs to iron it so it was ready to go.  We had purchased some cheapy iron in the summer, and we knew it always ran a little on the hot side.  I turned it on to an extremely low setting, lower even than normal, and proceeded to iron the blouse.  Right as I am ironing the front of the blouse, I notice that the fabric is strangely scorched-looking.  To my horror, I realize that the iron has literally scorched two large spots on the center front of my brand-new blouse, and not just minor scorch marks, but orange-y, horrible, awful scorching.

In my great distress and anguish, I took the little old iron upstairs, informed my mother of what I was about to do, at which time she proclaimed that the garbage man was coming the next morning, but I insisted that that was not good enough.  I marched outside in my jammies in the moonlight and chucked that iron over a 15' cliff at the back of our property.

That is what happens to naughty irons at our house.

End of story.

Mom got this beautiful coat from Stephanie <3, and it looks amazing on her.  Soft, fuzzy green 1950s loveliness!  We had just arrived in our favorite place (Duluth), and were marching out to watch a ship come in the harbor.

I scored this Dale of Norway sweater on Ebay in the late fall, and it has definitely gotten plenty of wear.  It's very heavy and warm, so it was perfect for traipsing through Duluth in the chilly gales!

No visit to Duluth is complete without a picture "next to" Split Rock Lighthouse :D

While we were visiting with my grandpa, I knitted up my first rendition of this "pixie hood," based on this picture from the '40s.

I didn't do a swatch, so it came out a little bigger than intended, so I just cuffed the front edge and went with it.  It made for very good elf-walks-on-waterfall pictures.

Mom looking amazing in her '40s lumberjack-vibes ensemble.

I didn't end up making most of the planned vacation outfits, but I did get this dreamy '50s skirt done.  Back when I first got into vintage sewing, I found this fabric on Etsy and saved it for just the right project.  I pleated it up, put pockets in the side seams (they're invisible!!), and finally got it finished!  I didn't have time to make the blouse I wanted, so my amazing mom made me this beautiful red '50s number.  It is one of my favorite patterns, and you might recognize it as the same style as my "Messiah" blouse.

Since it was practically balmy on Christmas Day, we dressed accordingly......

(minus one cat that didn't want her photo taken, apparently)

We added a whole bunch of Pendleton skirts to our wardrobes this year, and I am not sorry about it!  This Christmassy number is one of my absolute favorites, and it pairs very well with my favorite red 49er.

I also found this to-die-for collegiate sweater on Ebay, and it is just tooooo perfect.

We took our usual weekend down to southern Indiana in early January, touring gorgeous Madison, IN with its beautiful historic homes and doing plenty of antiquing, as you'll see here in a minute.

We had matching sweaters here, but no one will ever know....haha!

Matching Pendleton skirts as we trekked through what I'm quite sure is THE largest antique store anywhere in the world.  It is so enormous that you become quite fatigued only a quarter of the way through it, but it's worth it.  Ohio River Valley Antiques or some such.

The haul.  Or at least, part of it.  There was more than would fit in one picture.  :D

Another Pendleton skirt, paired with my favorite new RVS boots.

We've been enjoying beautiful concerts with the FW Phil this winter, the highlight of which has been Valentina Lisitsa playing her "Love Story" themes.  I never get tired of her playing!

One of my most recent (and favorite) projects is this 1940s housecoat!  I joined the Sew A Dress Each Month challenge for 2020, so this was my January project.  It is a literal dream and I put it on pretty much every evening when I come home from work, and some mornings as well.  It's got the dreamiest ruffles on the pockets, and it is soooo comfortable yet elegant to wear.

We also started working on a feedsack repro quilt in recent weeks.  It has gotten put on the back burner recently with preparations for a reenactment, but we're still so excited to work on it.

Just living the dream in my housecoat and mom-made ruffly apron.

This is version 2 of my Pixie Hood, this one fitting much better than the first!  Now that I completed it, we're not getting any cold weather, but maybe there's still hope before Spring comes marching in....

We did get a few flakes of snow, however, so I grabbed the opportunity to get pictures of my amaaaaazzzzzing new 1940s coat.  I still can't believe I have a piece like this!  It's in absolutely perfect condition - the best blue wool with a quilted lining and fur for days.

I also wanted pictures of my freshly-completed snowflake hood!  I started to knit one by hand, but not only am I not cut out for fairisle knitting (ugh), but I also was using much too large of yarn for the size it needed.  (No swatch again, naughty naughty...)  I decided to give it a whirl on the knitting machine, which I did, and it came out fairly decently! 

I did the body of it on the knitting machine and ribbed it by hand, which went fairly quickly.

I'm hoping to knit up a bunch of these and offer them for sale this coming fall and winter....

Another one of those projects that just makes you feel good....only 8 years after remodelling my bathroom, I finally made curtains to match.  Slightly overdue, but VERY satisfying.  Found a home for this gorgeous antique pitcher, too.

Lastly....just me being "me" with my loopy braids.  Growing my hair out again, and enjoying the benefits of that!

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If you made it to this point, I'll be shocked, but if you did, thanks for reading, and I hope you are all doing well!  I post regularly on my Instagram account, so head over and follow me there if you'd like.  Have a fantastic weekend, friends!

• The Latest Antique Haul •

I can't believe it's almost November!! Where has the year gone?! The time is passing awfully fast, but I'm actually really looking forward to winter. :)

In any case, here's our latest antique finds! We went antiquing last weekend, and boy did we have fun!! The first store we went to didn't have a whole lot of stuff we were interested in, but the next one was smashing! So smashing that we spent all our money. :) But that's why we went, right?!

It was a humongous antique store, and they had pretty much anything and everything you could possibly want. And it was all amazing! They had an 1830s couch (gorgeous, of course, and YES I wanted it), two different 1850s baby carriages, one of which was wooden, had "Baby" carved on the side, red velvet lining and a silk tasseled umbrella overhead. That's what I call riding in the lap of luxury. I wanted that too.

Another booth had 40-50 Sears, Montgomery Wards, etc catalogs from the 1940s-60s. It was just too amazing. I could go there and read clothing catalogs like it was a library. ;)

Then there was the especially sewing-oriented booth. Hehehe.

Zillions of buttons. Well, not zillions, but quite a few, and they're so neat! My particular favorite are the ones on the top right. They look just like marbles, but they are in fact buttons!! :) I already have a plan for them.

And....patterns!!!!! I'm pretty sure patterns are my favorite thing to shop for at antique stores. I just love them. We got a number of adorable kids' patterns, plus an apron and dress pattern that's our size.

Butterick 4420, McCall 5710 and Simplicity 1472 are all listed in the Etsy shop! The rest that aren't my size I'm just hoarding. Because vintage patterns are sometimes almost always too. amazing. to let go.

Ordinarily, we can't bear to buy an apron, however amazing it is. We just can't do it. The ever-prominent saying, "Oh, we could make one of those!" always prevails. Except this time.
This teapot/vase/sugarbowl/flower-laden beauty rendered itself irresistible. The fact that it is completely hand-sewn was a contributing factor! The print is seriously adorable, and it's just so pretty!! :)

*Sigh* 

So pretty!! :)

Here's where things get amazing. We bought 13 separate and distinct belt buckles!!!!! (!!)

All of them were either $1 or $2, which is a very decent price, if you ask me.

And would you just look at that red one?!! We have crowned it "The Most Amazing Buckle EVER." It really is. And it matches and fits so many of our dresses/belts we already have, it's just incredible. Eeek!!

And on a side note, the white buckle came with those four white buttons in the button photo. And....of course.....I already have a plan for them too. ;)

Since we didn't quite feel like dishing out $35 for a great big dress catalog, we bought this smaller "Midsummer Sale Book" for under $10. And it's surprisingly loaded with everything you can think of, up to and including typewriters, refrigerators, and dolls' bathtubs.

I was very excited to add this Deanna Durbin sheet music to my collection! Eventually I hope to collect all of them, but I've still got a long way to go.

Aaaannnd, a very large photo of a button hook! At least you can see it in detail! ;)

We only have a really small, short button hook, so it was great to find this nice, long, big one. I can't wait to try it out on my Renoirs!!

I couldn't help but throw in a couple pictures of our fabric haul as well! We stopped at Hancock Fabrics and found a couple of real treasures! First off is this wool-look fabric my mom got. It's the most gorgeous color of green! We are in desperate need of some wintry fabrics, so this was a good investment!!

And this is what I'm seriously excited about. Remember my green 1940s dress? This is the very same print, only in black. And I have wanted it for at least two years!!! When I bought the green, I had deliberated between it and this black, but went with the green because it was more practical. I saw it again on a later trip to Hancock, but once again passed it up. I just recently told my mom that if I ever saw the black fabric again, I was buying it for an 1800s dress of some sort! 

I searched all over the place at this Hancock store with no success, but then found it in the clearance section for $2.79 a yard. EEEK! Yes, I bought it all! Sadly there were only 6 3/4 yards, but I can still get a very decent dress out of that! It's the most wonderful fabric; it's very thick and stable, but at the same time it doesn't wrinkle one bit. AND, it's made in USA. So basically, it's a winner. ;)

It's destined to be an 1830s dress to wear to several mansions of that era when we go on vacation early next year. Speaking of which, we've got a whole week's worth of outfits to make! You just can't go on vacation in old clothes, you know! ;)

See you Monday!