A Candid Chat About Being Out of My Comfort Zone

Good Saturday evening to you all!  I hope the first week of November was kind to everyone!  The first week of November saw me turning another year older...November 3rd to be exact.  I am now 44!  I have never been this old, so am still getting used to it!  hahahahahaha!!!  I had a wonderful day, full of family, love, blessings, a lunch with my Mom at Flat Bread Pizza, (OHMYGOSH...if anyone of my fabulous readers ever gets to Meridian, let me know, I am so taking you there!!!) a dinner of spiral cut ham, mashed Yukon Gold potatoes, green bean casserole, pickled beets and steamed broccoli, carrot cake and ice cream.  (I LOVE food, can you tell?)  One highlight of the day was when Mom and I went shopping at an antique store in Nampa, specifically to purchase a hat that I had been wanting since the first week in August and happily it was still there!  It is a fabulous millinery beaut that is from the late 1930s/early 1940s!!  When I saw it I lusted after it immediately and it obediently stayed in the store until Tuesday.  I was so thrilled and had just three weeks prior to my getting it, found some great plaid fabric at a thrift store that matches the hat to perfection!  Thank you Mama for my hat!!!

This brings me to what this post is about.  As anyone who has followed this blog for any period of time knows, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Victorian to the 1920s.  It has been where I have "lived" since 2002, costuming wise and antique collecting wise since I was a little girl.  Lately however, my eye has been straying to the "Vintage" eras...1930s-1950s.  I feel as though I am having an affair on my beloved Victorian era and it pains me to no end.  Ok, not really, but it feels weird, me looking at different styles, silhouettes, accessories, and hairstyles.  I blame this new love on TV shows and Movies like "Call the Midwife", "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day", "Australia", "Mona Lisa Smile", "Lawless",  and many others.  My turning towards all things Vintage started last year while researching for Costume College.  My fabulous friend Josie and I decided to go vintage to the pool party on Thursday night and that single act planted the seed to my wayward path.  Also, my historical fashion education group, We Wear Idaho History, is wanting to branch out and demonstrate fashion worn in Idaho from the 1840s to the 1950s.  What does that mean?  It means that I now have "permission" to make vintage dresses!  Huzzah!!  (Like I need permission...)

But.....

While I am loving more and more the look of vintage, I find myself feeling a bit unnerved and anxious.  I am so used to "Antique":  The fabrics (not to mention the AMOUNT OF FABRICS), the accessories, the styles, the ever changing silhouettes, the accessories, the hats (the glorious hats!!!), the hairstyles, the underwear...the EVERYTHING!!  This era is like a warm, comfy blanket on a blustery day.  It's like hot chocolate by the fire during a snow storm.  It's like a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup when I have a cold.  It's like...you get the picture.  It's home, it's comfort, it's happiness, it's....FAMILIAR.

This new voyage into the great unknown for me of vintage is scary, foreboding. intimidating.  I know, "That's ridiculous!"  But it is a really "real" feeling for me.  I have been collecting patterns and fabrics and hats and shoes for months, and have yet to begin ironing the fabrics that have been pre-shrunk.  I feel guilty every time I go into my sewing room and see the fabrics I have been collection...I feel the stares of said fabrics as well as their judgement and condemnation.  "Hey chicken!! That's right!  You with the fear in your eyes!!  When are you going to break out the patterns and start making us!???  YOU LILY LIVERED CHICKEN!!!"  That's right.  My fabrics can be so mean and bully-ish!  I know that once I get started, I will be ok, it's just that I want to do the fabrics, patterns, hats and accessories of this era justice!  (I remember writing a post about this fear before...so it must be a real thing...)  I have been seriously trolling Vintage sewing blogs, voraciously consuming every single image they put on their blogs.  It reminds me of a person at sea gazing longingly at a waterfall of fresh water.  Some of these blogs are:

Dolly Creates

Mode de Lis

Wearing History

Emily's Vintage Visions

Flashback Summer

Verity Vintage Studio

Lavender and Twill

The Closet Historian

Boyer Family Singers

They all have wonderfully beautiful pictures of dresses made by these talented ladies.  They are even so kind as to let us know what patterns they use for their fabulous dresses!  The wealth of information and inspiration in these blogs has been so invaluable to me.  Many of these ladies have even put up with me questioning them about fabrics and hats with great grace and and knowledge! To you, I say a very hearty "Thank you!!!"

All I have to do know is take the first step....

Vintage-ness!!!!  Here I come!!!

Some of the things I have collected thus far...

My Birthday hat from my Mama!!  I am so in love with it!!  It had some pretty sad pheasant feathers that I had to replace....

Birthday hat with new feathers and the plaid found at a thrift store.  This picture is not so lovely, as it doesn't show how perfectly the hat and stripe match!!!

This is the pattern (I just found it today!!!!!) that I will use for this suit.  

Another hat from the dealer who had the burgundy straw above.  She has more that she is going to let me look at!  So excited!  This one is a tilt saucer...that's what she told me it was...

Fabric I found at Wal-Mart...It is silky and slinky and looks very much like an extant dress that I will be patterning this dress after!

Pattern for the fabric above!  I love it!

Found this awesomely sweet hat last weekend at a Flea Market.  The cherries are glass!  Aren't they charming!?

Fabric I purchased this past summer.  I can't believe how well it goes with the hat.  

I am planning on using a combination of these two patterns for the fabric above.

I found these shoes at a local thrift store for $3.50!!!  Crazy!!  During my research I found a similar pair, in much better condition, but I love that the lady who wore these got lots of use out of them!!  I love the peep toe and cut outs!!

Another pair of great shoes found at an antique store.  They fit as well and are so fun!

Another dress is planned for this.  I got the bird fabric at Wal-mart!  It looks so very similar to some reproduction 1930s fabric I have seen...so early 1930s it will be!

I got this awesome vintage plaid fabric at a Vintage store in town called "In Retrospect"  It jumped out of the drawer and screamed "BUY ME!!!"  So I obediently obliged!!  I am thinking a dress made of the plaid and a jacket made out of the black wool I had left over from my 1840s mourning dress.

A few of the patterns I have been collecting...

So....I have the fabrics, the patterns, the shoes, the hats, the purses, still working on the jewelry and underwear....All I have to do is....

JUMP!!!!

Be blessed my friends and may all of your sewing endeavors be good ones!

g

Oh yes....and because I am the way I am, I have exploded my Pinterest boards with 30s, 40s and 50s inspiration!!

Era: 1930s

Era: 1940s

Era: 1950s