Be Kind, Thrift and Rewind

I have been enjoying collecting vintage appliques as I stock them for my Etsy vintage shop. They are not easy to find. So far I prefer to get ones from the 60’s that are the sew-on kind. The glue-on ones still work best with quick little stitches to hold them in place. The older ones with no glue are softer generally and easier to work with when sewing. There is also the difference between appliques and patches. Either can be used to patch something, cover a stain or add an adornment of a picture to fabric. The appliques generally are softer and have no raised edge like the more solid patches that are often used on jeans or denim jackets.

I have seen appliques and patches showing up in all sorts of situations, whether on bomber jackets, or these Tommy Hilfiger jeans that I show in the photo from amny.com/fashion. I also recently was walking in Greenwich Village and saw that the shop Brandy Melville uses them to decorate their shop. I am not sure how old the ones they had on display were but they certainly added a unique vintage look in the shop and shop windows. The photo below of the lady with the hat and hot pants with appliques I found on Pinterest.

I recently added appliques to two of my sweaters. One is a soft really nice sweater from Uniqlo that was a gift but somehow I managed to get a couple of moth holes on the shoulder of the sweater. So I sewed these two lovely vintage floral appliques over the shoulder. The other sweater is just a simple sweater but I liked the instant vintage look that was achieved by sewing the vintage pale blue flower applique onto the sweater. I have been having repairs done in my apartment so I had to go stand in a different spot and I am not truly in the mood for an outfit post with all this going on. There will be better days for focusing on that! I did want to show you those appliques, though.

I have several other appliques in my Etsy shop. I am adding some more appliques soon. I have larger owls coming and some nautical captain’s wheels as well. They are fun to collect and as long as one knows basic sewing they should be an easy addition to sweaters, jeans or bags for instance. In this post, I inserted a picture of a skirt from my Etsy shop that has a 70’s applique on it. I think they are also handy for adding to modern clothing for a quick vintage look.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this post. My feet are healing up well from the last surgery now and I was recently able to run for seven minutes! I am looking forward to being able to bike ride a lot in the spring and it is a pure joy to have healthier feet!

Butterfly hat from the 70’s

70’s skirt with applique in my Etsy vintage shop. This links to the listing.

Vintage appliques

60's sew on appliques

60’s applique. This links to the listing.

Another 60’s applique. This links to the listing.

Brandy Melville window

My First Tattoo, My Grandmother’s Signature

February 6, 2017

02/062017

I recently got my first tattoo and it is a different type of fashion that I kept at bay for such a long time. What happened was my grandmother passed during the Christmas holiday season and my family was gathering for the funeral and memorial service. My daughter had the idea to get a tattoo of my grandmother’s signature. When my cousin, mother, and step sister heard about this they wanted to get one as well. I was the last one to agree. I wanted some symbolism of my grandfather on my father’s side since we were close. Therefore, I was still thinking about it but felt I was going to end up with two names when my cousin suggested I get two lavender stalks underneath my Joyce signature. We all called her Nanny Maxine. That was a great idea so I went for that one. Maxine’s last name was Joyce.

I wanted to write this post also because it is rather rare for a 54-year-old woman to have a grandmother. I was lucky she lived to be 95 and to get to know her better through the last few years since we always lived rather far away from her and my grandfather when I was growing up. For five years we lived in Europe during the time I was 7 to 12. During that time my two grandmothers came to visit but I didn’t see my grandfather, Rufus T Lavender and my other grandfather, Maxine’s husband Lester had passed away when I was 7. I loved to get my grandparent’s letters whenever they wrote me and I learned a lot from them when I was a teenager and got to visit them again after we moved back to the United States. Both my grandmothers loved to sew. Both of my grandfathers were creative as well.

My Nanny Maxine liked to sew clothing that was fashionable in France, for instance, and my mother grew up wearing some very lovely dresses as a result. I attached two photos of my nanny with my mother when she was young and most likely my grandmother sewed those dresses.

My Nanny also loved to garden. She spent many years growing up on a farm and that “farm stock” as it is called is what made her tough and got her through a lot of hard times in life. When she was a teenager her father and a sister died. Her mother went to beauty school to learn a trade. Later on, when her mother finished beauty school she spent the afternoons helping out at the beauty parlor. She worked hard at a young age to help out and she was a person who loved to laugh and joke around despite the losses she had endured. I will always remember her laughter.

I learned to enjoy crafts and appreciate handmade things from all of my grandparents. My Nanny Maxine just so happened to live the longest of them all and we were very blessed to have her company for many years. My nanny had two children and she helped my grandfather when he built homes. She had a mind for helping layout electrical plugs in a way that didn’t create extension cords showing up everywhere. When her husband passed away she took a job selling children’s wear in retail. She helped raise my cousin Star as well and was a loving grandma to me, my brother and my cousin Laura. She also had three great-grandchildren. The picture of the sailor doll is a doll my Nanny made for my mother when she was a little girl. Her father was away in the war and therefore my mother didn’t know what her daddy looked like. She carried the doll around since she knew her daddy was a sailor.

The picture of the sailor doll is a doll my Nanny made for my mother when she was a little girl. Her father was away in the war and therefore my mother didn’t know what her daddy looked like. She enjoyed carrying the doll around since she knew her daddy was a sailor. My mother must have been thrilled when she finally got to meet her daddy. He came home around the time she was four. In the meantime, my mother saw some other sailors but Nanny had to tell her those weren’t her father.

Later on in life my Nanny Maxine discovered she liked jazz music. Some jazz musicians came and played at her funeral. She wanted a party of sorts to celebrate her life. The pastor told about when she crawled around in the yard helping my mother plant bulbs. Despite her age and not being able to work in the garden regularly anymore she wanted to get involved. She kept pulling herself along and didn’t mind getting dirty.

I am happy with my tattoo. It was a bonding experience to get it done with so many family members and my mother went first. She is 75 and it was also a first for her. Even my step-sister Amanda decided to get a Joyce tattoo. The tattoo artist, Shauncey Fury, said one lady that comes into Hula Moon in Pensacola, Florida had never had a tattoo until after her husband and parents had passed. Apparently, her parents didn’t approve of tattoos. After one year the woman has had 69 tattoos. I am not planning on anymore for now but I thought this story was worth sharing. I hope you enjoyed this post!

Nanny with Emily, my daughter

Nanny with my mother and Jeffrey

Thrifted Black Dress from a Housing Works Shop

January 19, 2017

01/192017

I fell off the blogging sphere there for a bit but now I am back. I have been busy with adding items to my Etsy shops, taking some classes online prior to beginning my work search again soon and just living life.

I have been in need a black dress for a while. The one I had no longer fits due to lifting small weights at the gym! I put off buying one since I haven’t been working more than a couple of days a month with my foot healing. Now it turns out I am in need of one so I had to buy one.

I found this Cache dress at the Housing Works thrift shop in the West Village. It is at 245 West 10^th Street and they were having a January sale. Any purchase from Housing Works goes to help fund their efforts to help those affected by HIV/AIDS and homelessness. So you can shop further down the chain of mass production plus help a good cause at the same time! They have various shops in NYC and Brooklyn.

I found another designer dress I liked more but it needed a repair and it wasn’t as practical. So I went for the more practical dress since it could be more multi-functional. At first, I wasn’t sure about the leathery looking appliques on the dress. I thought perhaps it was too much like a superhero look but I put that caution aside and tried it on. Then I was sold on the dress.

I always like to brighten up a black dress somehow so in this point I used a red silk scarf that has a floral design in the center. If I was going to wear a slightly bold, mod look I have some red plaid stocking I could wear with it. That is what is great about a relatively simple black dress; it is more versatile than a fancier one.

I recently found a group on Facebook for women who are in the process of going gray or who decided to stop coloring their hair. It is called GGG Going Gray Guide. It could be a confidence booster if you are on the fence about stopping dyeing your hair. I for one am very happy with my gray hair. It was a hassle to keep dyeing it and I have eczema so I wasn’t happy about the dyes and any chemicals.

Well, I hope you all are enjoying the New Year thus far. I am in the midst of serious spring cleaning since after spending so much time opening two Etsy shops the last few months I need to do it now. There are numerous things that I need to recycle or donate. It feels good to clear out some old things and make way for the new with being more conscious not to get too many of certain items. T- Shirts for instance. I am letting a lot of them just wear out and not replacing them. I always need some for wearing under wool sweaters so I won’t itch (the wool makes me itch) or just to have to wear when dressing casually. I am however aiming to end up with a small fraction of what I had before.

I hoped you enjoyed this post and I will try not to fall off the blog sphere again any time real soon!

housing works find

Holiday Windows In NYC Christmas Time

December 22, 2016

12/222016

This is going to the quickest post ever. I am going to visit family so in a rush. I had to take my annual photos of Saks Fifth Avenue windows and Bergdorf’s in the daylight since I sprained my pinky toe. Yes, while I am recovering from foot surgery! Therefore some photos have a glare from the sunlight which normally doesn’t happen at night. The cool thing is in some of the photos the city scene and the window scene seemed to merge in a very cool way.

Anyway I hope you enjoy the pictures and have a great holiday season!

shop windows for christmas 001