little red fox

vintage; both in finds and birthdays

I think I found my very favorite new purse :)

We just got back from a wonderful birthday celebration for my mom's 60th in Mississippi. We made and ate delicious foods including Ina's Lobster Mac and Cheese...we made a couple of tweaks that I think helped it.

I have come to the conclusion that anything served in individual ramekins makes it that much more special.

We also had (among many other delicious things as my mom and all her friends are into gorgeous, fun food) some beautiful roasted tomatoes with basil, perfectly grilled cornish hens, an improv-ed and perfectly delicious butternut squash soup (which I will try and recreate this week)... And for dessert, since Betty isn't really a cake person, I made her a beautiful lemon mousse...

(See the 'B' in the middle? My first attempt with a pastry bag went swimmingly!) The multi-stepped recipe is here. It was complicated, but so good I think I'll make this for Thanksgiving, as well. It's a gorgeous alternative to a cake and such bright lemon flavor!

We all went to the thrift store and I found the purse above, a new winter coat ($9!!) and both of these pairs of shoes which I just can't believe...

When I tried on the sequined flats my mom said "It looks like you could join the circus in those" which were, of course, the magic words :)

And this strange little plastic frame. The 70s pictures are horrifying, but I think if I paint this red or black and add some strange little drawings behind the window...it could be the neatest little Edward Gorey tribute or something similar, couldn't it? It's hard to believe the things some people want to throw away but thank goodness they do since we all have different tastes!

My mom also gave me these little milk glass candy dishes that belonged to my great-grandmother Mamere (she was from France). They're so pretty and I love that they were hers.

I also found this:

An old beautiful plate from 1923. Complete with the calender year laid out...

Looks like November 2nd was a Friday in 1923 :)

And I've been meaning to show these for a few weeks. I didn't thrift them, my friend Larry (or 'Eagle-Eyed Larry' as he shall henceforward be known) found these for me at a garage sale in Michigan...

Might they remind you of a similar something seen in a certain line of clothing you might have seen from a certain post? So delightful! What good fortune!

Oh, Eagle-Eyed Larry, I owe you one :)

And Happy Birthday, Mom! I owe you quite a few more than one :)

a painted skirt tutorial/how-to

A while back I posted about a few items from Lucky magazine that I was taken with, and I haven't gotten over it. I have not moved on. It's still up on my bulletin board by my sewing machine. I see it 87 times a day. No matter that summer has long since past and it's now cold, rainy and gray (which I love, but still). The skirt (bottom center) especially kept popping back up in my head and wouldn't leave me alone. I knew I wouldn't find the exact skirt (for what I could afford anyway), so I thought I could try what I usually do: find something similar and make it myself.

So here's what I did:

A few weeks ago I found this skirt at a thrift store (hello $3.50!). My only requirements were that it be off-white, fit in the waist and have pleats--bingo! So last night I hemmed it to the right length and ironed out the pleats about 4 inches from the hem. I decided to make it a 2-inch stripe 2 inches up from the bottom.

Using my trusty 2-inch ruler (which I use about 16 times a day) and the tailor's crayon-thingy (what is that thing called again?), I marked the top and bottom of the stripe all the way around. Easy.

I happened to have this particular fabric paint around, which I think you can get pretty much anywhere:

When I tested how the paint behaved on a swatch (the left-over hem), it was a bit thicker and more difficult to paint on smoothly than I had anticipated. So, using regular old masking tape, I taped along the lines I had marked--on the top and bottom, all the way around--and painted inside the tape to get an even, straight line. Made it so much easier than just trying to free-hand-follow my drawn-on lines. (How the paint behaves will depend on the fabric you're painting, but you're guaranteed an even edge line when you tape off your design.)

I used a hair-dryer to dry each section I painted, dried it completely, then moved on to paint the next bit, then dried that, and so on all the way around, until it was complete. (The paint did bleed through so you will most likely need a piece of cardboard between the layers of fabric you're working on.) Then, just like when you paint the walls in a room, ripped off the tape to reveal a perfect black stripe with an even edge! So satisfying.

I had hemmed a pleated skirt once before and found the perfect tutorial right here, so I used it again to re-pleat the pleats-- and then wore it immediately feeling very self-proud and thrifty-smart :)

Also--Operation Italian Marie Claire (thank you, Jeffrey) was not completed. I went to buy it yesterday (wearing my lucky painted skirt, no less!) and I found it--but it was $30. I just don't think I can pay that much for a magazine. I'll have to settle for seeing the pictures here, I guess...ugh. They're so beautiful... But that's ok because I have the Circus book which was spun from baby angel hair and dipped in chocolate and gold flecks to keep me company until the end of time.

And so me and the skirt are going to be away for a few days--back to Mississippi for my mom's birthday. We're cooking some exciting new dishes so if they turn out (and they will! Let's be positive!), expect some pictures when I get back...have a wonderful weekend wherever you may be!

sally scott

I need to write a heart-felt thank-you letter to fellow blogger Sally Jane Vintage*. I have just figured out that I wouldn't know thing one about any new fashion labels or anything new fashion-related if not for her posting about it. I almost always love the ones she falls in love with, and this Sally Scott which she posted about recently--has me distracted, jittery, seeing the world with new eyes--I think I'm in love. With every single item. With their concept. With the whole entire feel of the clothes as a cohesive idea. As far as I can tell, it's an Asian label and there aren't any shops carrying it. But it feels distinctly like a 'thrifted-and-cobbled-together-accidental' wardrobe which is top-of-my-list of favorite stuff.

Feast:

 

 

(There's so much more here.)

Usually at a loss come winter, I know exactly what I want to be wearing. I have really come to appreciate modestly pretty, feminine and quirky. A reaction to exposed navels and cleavage? It's a little on the nose, but sure. I just think getting older, being sexy has become a much more interestingly mental and emotional event for me, as opposed to anything physical. I get completely captivated by people's brains anymore and maybe that's reflected in what I appreciate fashion-wise?...

ANYWAY. I think most of the "Sally-Scott-ing" of my wardrobe will be taking place both in thrift stores and my sewing room; breaking out and reworking the patterns, seam-ripping and reconstructing. I'm so excited at the prospect!

Please tell me other people get this excited about things like this too... :)

(fairly) quick skirt alteration and my first tutorial!

This was a thrifted skirt I bought sometime last year. It was one of those long, shapeless 80s things that just weren't flattering on anybody. But the corduroy fabric and the pattern appealed to me, plus it had pockets! So I bought and hemmed it into a mini. I wore it a few times last year but it still wasn't quite right. So this year--getting so excited about fall clothes--I dug up the remainder of the hem, and from it made the bow and now I feel like it's done. Maybe everything needs a bow :) 

Want to do it? Here's what you'll need:

• around 1/4 yd of fabric for the bow
• ruler
• needle and thread
• 2 snaps (or hook-and-eyes)
• scissors

Here's what I did (click on it to make it larger!):

 
(The pdf of these instsruction can be emailed to you if you need them!)

The long sash parts are just two 6 1/2" by 15" pieces sewn in half, sewn on one end, then hand-stitched to the skirt underneath the bottom of the bow. Also-- this bow 'technique' is the same I've used for the bow-ties I've been making, as well as big hair bows, just scaled down. Let me know if you want specific measurements.

On another note: I've been browsing etsy looking for new vintage patterns and I think I've found some real winners...very excited about that.

BUT FOR NOW-- I am off to get ready to go meet some girlfriends for a sangria happy hour--I already feel like it's the holiday weekend and it's Wednesday! I loooooove that feeling :) Technically, it is for us since we leave in the morning for a little cabin by a little river way up in the mountains of Virginia. There is no computer signal there so I'll be away for a few days. Have a great weekend wheresoever you are!

polka dots and stripes

I love this dress. A lot. I can't remember how I got there, but it's Jill Stuart. I often really love her designs but I never seem to look for her on-line or go to her shop in Soho anymore. I guess knowing it's so beyond my meager price range has something to do with it, but still. I saw this dress and just knew--I didn't really think I'd be able to make it but I had to try something--anything! Then I was pretend-shopping** at Modcloth and lo and behold--look what I found and can you imagine the screaming:

 

It's basically the same dress! This one probably isn't quite as nice as the Jill Stuart version, but it was only $50! And I'm sure the other was in the $500-$300 range. Silliness. I need to hem about 10" off of this one, but that's totally doable (today, in fact!) I'd like to tea-dye the cuff and collar to a nice off-white but I doubt the polyester (I know) will take the color. I'll try, though.

And to me (awkward segue alert), polka dots go hand-in-hand with stripes, meaning that I love them both equally and intensely. Here are some delicious stripey goodnesses I've been gathering as fall inspiration:

 

(This was on some person I didn't know but how cute? I'll be making a version of this for fall.)

 

 

The above images are from Orla Kiely who I swear I had never heard of until Sally Jane did a post about her/them/it. And it's now one of my all-time favorite labels. I'm going to do a whole separate post about this new line because it's my dream fall wardrobe. It's beautiful, cute, colorful, quirky, and interesting with a touch of orphan chic that is exactly to my taste. So that's coming next.

On another note--A VERY SERIOUS IMPORTANT NOTE THE IMPLICATIONS OF WHICH ARE WORLDWIDE--I am seriously considering dyeing my hair dark brown and cutting my bangs again (though I am currently in the 4th unsuccessful attempt of growing them out) so it would look like this (which has been my haircut for the past 3 or 4 years):

Obviously she is adorable and her hair probably grew out of her head in a color at least similar to that one, but here's the thing: I've never been anything but blonde in my entire life. My hair is naturally a dish-water kinda dark blonde blah color so I'd have to dye my eyebrows and eyelashes, which is fine. But am I crazy? Will it look horrible? Am I making too big of a deal out of it? Will it make me look a lot older? I'm actually kind of scared but I also feel like--you have to be risky and try things, because who knows? What if I absolutely love it? What if it totally feels like me? But then again, what if it looks like a wig. Anyway. Yikes! Thoughts?? Have any of you ever tried this? Could the results be disastrous?

Hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday! I'm actually going to the gym because I've been eating like I'm getting paid to clean my plate. I also have some art to show you that I am really happy with :)

(*pretend-shopping: a term I coined for the practice of going to my favorite on-line stores and pretending like I can buy anything I want and putting it all in my cart, imagining the perfect combination of items to make the most perfect wardrobe. I've spent hours doing this. I'm weird.)

fall adornments

Well, hello there! So sorry I was MIA for a bit. I was shooting an episode of "The Good Wife" last week (think it's going to be a really good show, by the way) and it ended up being pretty demanding time-wise. Man--filming an hour-long show is a brutal schedule. I got home at 4:30 am one morning, after having been there since 1 that afternoon. Crazy, I tell you. I was just a guest star but if you were the lead of a show like that--like Julianna Marguiles (who is so nice, by the way, as is Christine Baranski)--it must be tough to get the rest of your life squeezed in. I brought drawing and art supplies to set every day but never got to do anything except read a magazine--no time! I think I need to figure out how to blog from my phone--I actually missed it! I also missed making stuff so I got down to business today and made all those things you see above.

What are those and why did I make them? Well. Read on, and ye shall see...

I am so excited about clothes for fall--I'd be embarassed to tell you how much of my brain space is occupied by it. I've been thinking about and wanting a black bow-tie for awhile--probably since around this time--and for some reason it never occurred to me that I could just make one. So I finally got around to it--well, three 'its'--today. They were so easy! I used fabric I already had which happened to all be from hemmed skirts, funnily enough. As much as fabric scraps can clutter a space up, times like this I'm so happy I have them. I just made little rectangles, cinched them up in the middle and sewed these little pin backings on which I already had lying around (and by lying around I mean packed neatly in a small labeled box and stored in the section marked "jewelry supplies"):

 

The hat--also made from fabric left over from shortening a skirt--is a pattern from here. I wanted to try and make a beret using panels like this so you can have a bit more freedom with the fabric choices. And I don't knit. Probably never will. No interest. The hat is a tad shorter than I usually wear my hats, but still really cute. Look at this little detail:

That would be a covered button. Isn't that a great idea? I've already thought up about 75 different ways to snazz these up with different kinds of embellishments (and bedazzling is not one of them). Very excited about this. Never enough hats!

(**If you want to make either one of these and have any questions, email me or leave your question in the comments. I'm always happy to help!)

The best part is that the skirt also has a matching 40s-style little jacket, so I now have a matching skirt, jacket, beret and bow-tie. I can't imagine ever wearing them all at once, for Gods sake, but...never say never! I was partly inspired by this picture from somewhere on Flickr that I can't remember:

 

Cute, right? I would love to find a little collared sweater like that somewhere.

Well I promise not to be in absentia that long again. I have some recipes to share this week as well as some more head-wear things. I'm a maniac, I know.

Be well and as always--a big, hearty thank you for stopping by and leaving comments. It makes my day--no exaggeration.

planning ahead

(from Gatochy's Flickr)

Is it weird to use illustrations as fashion-inspiration? It may or may not be, but it does get me into some trouble with buying patterns. Everything looks good on a tall, skinny pencil drawing! But they can be great jumping-off places, like the one above. A shorter skirt might make this look a bit more modern or at least more flattering on me since I am not 6 feet tall. But I love it. This picture and this one are two huge inspirations for me this fall (I am currently on the hunt for those tights!).

I can't really believe it but I'm getting excited about cooler-weather clothes! I was so distraught with this extended winter we endured this year and the summer (mine, at least) has only just begun and it's so pretty and mild so it really makes no sense. Except that I just really, really love fall clothes. Like this super-duper cute cape from ModCloth:

 

And this blouse which I am absolutely salivating over:

And this dress:

 

(Both from Anthropologie, in case you couldn't tell.)

But whyyyyy is it so expensive???? Who can afford this, I keep asking myself? And, sadly, this is not really a dress I think I could make. Finding the fabrics alone seems nigh impossible. Sadly, I may just have to be an audience member for these.

Probably these ensembles too:

 

(All from Anthropologie, again.)

I suppose I could (and probably will) find cheaper variations of these, but all of them, head-to-toe, I find just delicious. The combinations of colors are so exciting! I even love her hair. I know I could never pull that off (she barely is, after all) but it's just so dang interesting which I really appreciate. For daily life? I don't know...but a girly-girl who has a little bit of 'boy' in her look is just adorable to me.  And the best kind of unexpected sexy. Also the above reminds me of this (minus the headpiece, of course):

(from Pennelainer's Flickr)

For me, so much of 20s/30s fashion is completely right now if you shorten the hems. Check this out:

(from Good Golly, Miss Molly's Flickr)

And they really had an appreciation for detail--the little things that make one item of clothing special unto itself. We've lost so much of that with all this mass-produced, cheap, throw-away clothing. Which is probably a big reason why some of us love vintage clothing so much. You have less items, but more special ones that you take great care of. I like that concept. It fits into where we are right now with the economy, doesn't it? It feels more respectful, somehow. It's the new "frugality" :)

divinity.

1920's Woman Dressed As A Man, originally uploaded by Vintage Lulu.

This is the closest thing to fashion=religion for me I've ever seen. I originally saw it tonight here (one of my favorite blogs ever, by the way), and was originally on Vintage Lulu's Flickr. This is why I love these old pictures so much. Who was she? What did it mean to be dressed as a man in the 20s? Why did she? What was she like? Who was she in love with? Where was her first kiss? What made her more nervous than anything? What was the saddest moment of her life up to this point? Who took this? I need to know it all.

And by the way, you will see THIS outfit on me this fall.

it's pronounced vin-TAJH...

I wanted to share some recent vintage finds. We've traveling a bunch lately, seeing family, a wedding, etc., and I've been seeking out vintage/thrift shops whenever we have a spare minute (the iPhone really is amazing, I have to say). My husband is very sweet to humor me. I keep telling him "you never know! You have to increase the odds!" So these things are from Memphis, Vermont and Massachusetts. The above is (obviously) a sweet little vintage apron that I got for only $4. I've been avoiding collecting vintage aprons because it seems like a slippery slope--they're so cute and so varied and there's so many of them! But I may have just found my gateway apron. The fabric is just darling:

 

At the same store I found this which I am in love with:

 

I've always wanted a KitchenAid mixer but they are waaaay out of my price range. But I just love this one. We plugged it in at the shop and it works as is! It just needs a good cleaning (which it will get today) and I thought I could probably find some mixing attachments on ebay if I needed them. I already have some recipes planned from this book which I just checked out of the library to try today. I may just have to go ahead and buy it, I think it might be just the cookie book for me...

(Update: I just bought the book! It was only $3.19 used on Amazon so I just figured why not? The link above will take you there. I'll post on it later after I've made some of the recipes from it in case you'd like more info.)

I found these little beauties in Memphis:

I'm a sucker for vintage gloves. I'm lucky because my hands are really small, so vintage gloves tend to fit me, which makes me very happy. I try to just admire from afar, but these weren't too expensive and I know I'll wear them out come fall. And it's weird, but I'm already excited for fall weather. (??) Totally premature. I'm thoroughly enjoying this gorgeous summer so far, I'm just saying I won't be sad when it starts to cool off in a few months...

And lastly, from an antique store in Vermont:

 

The hair...oh my. I've never seen anything quite like it. How long must that have taken? I found a bunch of great old photographs that he was selling for only a dollar a piece but I had no cash (save $1 in coins) and he didn't take credit cards. But at least I had enough for her! I love these old photographs /images so much, so I've decided to keep them "collected" over here for awhile and see if that satisfies my itch...

Also: just finished watching this movie and highly recommend it if you can get your hands on it. The music in it (and there's a lot) is WONDERFUL and you get to see Connie Boswell performing which was a real treat for me. :)

Well I've got some baking to do! Be back with some recipes tomorrow. I've so missed cooking and baking while I was so busy with the show! I have a feeling I'll be doing a lot of that in the weeks to come...enjoy your day/night!

42nd Street

I watched, then re-watched, one of my all-time favorite movies, 42nd Street the other day. It is by far one of the strangest things I have ever seen. I'm sure they weren't intending it, but it really seems like everyone involved was tripping on some illicit substance during filming. I love it so much for this reason. I love it for a hundred other reasons as well, including Ruby Keeler's astonishingly bad performance. Truly--it's jaw-dropping (apparently she was married to one of the producers or something). I also love, love it for the outfits. Jaw-dropping in a different kind of way. Look at her collar above. I might have to make that.

I really wanted to share, so I was pausing my computer and doing the screen-capture thing, so please forgive the poor picture quality. I think it's worth it.

I had a hard time getting a picture of this lovely girl at all. The camera just moved over her (how could it??) so this one is particularly blurry but I just think she is stunning. And the outfit. She also had black loafer-style tap shoes. Which is important to keep in mind--all these are the girls in their "practice clothes." They are literally tap-dancing day and night in things like this:

Complete with hat, sash, hair bow, and ankle socks. Dreamy.

Here's Ruby Keeler in her tap-dancing onesie looking particularly exhausted (this is right before she passes out while tapping her face off):

And Ginger Rogers in this sassy number (which I may have to re-create):

Why wouldn't you wear a monacle for around-the-clock rehearsals?

And I just love this girl--her outfit and her expression which never changed from what you see here:

I thought this would be pretty easy to recreate/make--a halter top and blousy white shorts.

I'm off to do a matinee and then my weekend begins! Have a lovely day wherever you are!