Snood day

I am going to start with a confession. I really should have washed my hair this morning. In fact, I really should have washed my hair yesterday morning. But on both occasions staying in bed that bit longer and not having to fight with the hair dryer won out. I know that washing and drying your hair isn't really that much of an effort in the great scheme of things but some days, actually, it just is. My usual dirty hair day style is a quiff and a pony tail, I get a great 50's look and it holds better if your hair isn't freshly washed. By dirty hair, I do mean three or four days, not weeks and weeks on end However, this morning I wanted a change so I had a little think.....

and I realised - snood day! The perfect solution to a less than perfect hair day! I intend to learn to crochet so that I can make my own snoods but to tide me over until that day I have a couple that I bought from a seller on Ebay. This one is emerald green. Please excuse the not great photo quality, they are all taken on my camera phone as I didn't have my camera to hand.

Such a quick and easy solution - a bit of rolling at the front, a few kirby grips, tuck the rest into the snood, a few more kirby grips and done!  So, snoods - the way forward for those who want those extra precious minutes asleep!

Look at all that beautiful woolly goodness and gorgeous ribbon behind me. Thank you Ribbon Circus, purveyors of the finest haberdashery!

I paired my snood with my dark teal velvet dress (I love a velvet dress) and purple cardigan, grey tights and purple shoes.

These are the shoes that I wore on my wedding day so they have very happy memories in every step!

Thank you Secret Santa

I am a bit tardy with this one but better late then never! I kept forgetting that if you don't take photos in the morning at present then it is too dark by the time you remember later in the day. Add to that some very grey rainy days with no decent light at all and you get to this point - a late thank you.

Towards the end of last year Jessica from the marvellous blog Chronically Vintage had the genius idea to organise a vintage themed Secret Santa. It must have been a feat of organising to pull off but she did it and everyone who wished to participate was both given a Secret Santa and became one. People could give links to any social media sites that they are active on and write a short profile about themselves to help generate present ideas. I really enjoyed shopping for the presents to send to the person that I was allocated and I was very excited indeed when a parcel for me arrived in the post.

It was beautifully wrapped and was this is what was inside:

Such a pretty, sparkly brooch. A bunch of flowers tied with a bow. As I wear a brooch everyday I am always really pleased to add to my collection and it will go with everything.

Carefully sandwiched between two thick pieces of cardboard were these two knitting pull out booklets from some 1950's Women's Illustrated magazines. I thought it would be nice to have a further look at some of the great patterns that they contain. So much possible future knitting goodness!

A slim fitting jumper with a pretty beaded neckline.

A high necked jumper with unusual bands of cables up the sides.

A twinset with bands of mock smocking. I really like it when patterns tell you which colours were used originally and this one also gives us an idea of how much making the items would cost.

An amazing spotty jacket which looks like it might be a pain to knit - but worth it!

A ribbed dress with a large collar and elbow length sleeves.

This is a pretty, fitted jumper with its yoke detail and unusual collar.

A lace pattern fitted V neck jumper.

Another lovely twinset with a stitch pattern that looks like peacock feathers. This is gorgeous.

A very jolly stripy cardigan. I like the variation in the width of the stripes.

So thank you very much to my Secret Santa for such a fabulous present.

An outfit for an autumn day revisited

On Wednesday I got home to find that a parcel had arrived for me. I wasn't expecting anything so I was very excited to see what was inside this mysterious package. I was overjoyed with what I found.

The parcel was from my auntie who had read my previous post and had hada rummage around which came up with this photo of my grandma in the coat that I now have! I am so very pleased to have this. It is great to see her wearing it. It made me smile to see her feeding the ducks as she was always feeding ducks, garden birds, hedgehogs etc.

My auntie also included two scarves of my grandmas, both of which would go marvellously well with the green coat. They are both well worn and I am very pleased to have these further physical links to my grandma.

This scarf is particularly autumnal with that gorgeous array of coloured leaves and the conkers in each corner. I am pleased that it contains orange and purple as it will go well with my hat and mittens that I wore in the previous post. The colours are more vibrant in real life. It has been raining here the past couple of days and the light has not been brilliant for photos but I didn't want to wait any longer to post this. Excuse the creases. I hate ironing!

This is the second scarf which is a beautiful midnight blue with lovely golden roses scattered over it. Again it will go really well with the green coat and several other outfits in my wardrobe.

I wanted to share these to further tell the story of my grandma's coat and it has made me very happy to have these pieces of hers to take care off. Many thanks to my auntie for kindly giving them to me.

Top Ten current favourite vintage brooches.

I love a brooch. Or two. Or three! I wear one almost every day and have quite a collection going on. They are such an easy accessory, just place, pin and go, yet they can make a huge difference to finishing off an outfit and giving a period feel. I tend to wear mine on my left hand side on a cardigan or dress. I sometimes place them on a collar or to do up a scarf. I also use them to pin together any V neck dresses that show more than I am prepared to reveal! Remember that they can also be pinned on a hat, a turban, a bag, a belt or a coat. You can alter the effect by having a single brooch or placing them in a cluster or by using two similar ones in the same way that you might use dress clips. You can also pin them to a fabric hairband or just a piece of fabric or a scarf to tie around your head to add some glamour to your hair.

Due to my affection for brooches I tend to notice them on other people's outfits, admiring them, looking at styling ideas and sometimes downright coveting them. Someone else who has a brooch collection that I admire is the lovely Jessica from the fabulous blog Chronically Vintage. When commenting on a gorgeous brooch on one of her outfit posts we had a little chat and the idea of current favourite brooches came about. When you have a brooch collection obviously you do want to wear them all but at the same time you do tend to have favourites. However, these favourites change over time with new acquisitions (of both brooches and clothes) and the rediscovering of ones that have languished at the back of a drawer or box for some time.

So without further ado and with thanks to Jessica here are my top ten current favourite brooches.

I found this at a vintage fair amongst a huge selection and pounced on it straight away. It is an early plastic and I really like the geometric style. But the thing that attracted me most was the colour combination because it made me wonder if it could be a piece of suffragette jewellery. This is jewellery in the colours of either of the two main UK suffrage organisations which women wore to show their support for the suffrage cause. In 1908 the Women's Social and Political Union (founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst) decided on purple, white and green as their colours. Purple symbolised dignity, white symbolised purity and green symbolised hope. I guess I will never know but I like the fact that at the very least the brooch symbolises the suffrage movement to me.

I could probably do a top ten animal brooch post (in fact, I might), but this little chap is one of my favourites. I think I got him from a vintage fair. He is a marcasite Scottie dog and is just so cheerful. You can almost see him wagging his tail. Scottie dogs were a popular motif in the 1930s and again in the 1950s and brooches of them were produced in metal, Bakelite, wood, marcasite and felt amongst others.

This is the first of several brooches to feature pearls in my top ten. I love pearls as much as I love brooches so it is very exciting for me when I find the two combined. I like the fact that this looks like pearls and diamonds ( a winning combination ) but sadly it is made of neither. The pearls are just coated in a pearlescent paint and I imagine the diamonds are glass. However, I don't mind at all as it is still very glamorous and it was only £3 in a charity shop.

I have several wreath shaped brooches and it was the gorgeous violets in this that attracted me at a vintage fair. They are hand painted on metal and have gemstones (probably paste) in their centres. the colours are very delicate and are just enormously attractive. It feels quite a ladylike piece.

This is from an antiques/junk shop and it was the lovely colours that attracted me. It is very bright and shiny and looks particularly good cheering up a plain knit in grey or black. It reminds me a little of a plume of feathers or of a sort of Fleur de Ly's. I think it is a 1950s piece but I wear it on vintage and modern clothes.

Another pearl! This brooch is very special because I bought it to wear on my wedding day. My parents very kindly bought me a pearl necklace to wear on the day and my lovely husband bought me some pearl earrings so I wanted a brooch to make up a set. It was also my something old. My dress had a collar that was a cross between a short funnel collar and a boat neck and I pinned the brooch on there. It is a piece of Christian Dior costume jewellery and I found it in a vintage clothes shop.

Whilst these are dress clips rather than a brooch I am including them here because I use them in the same way and because it is my top ten so I can! My parents bought me these one Christmas and they were in a pretty little box nestled on a blue satin cushion which my mum had made alongside another couple of brooches. It was a fabulous present. I have been wearing them a lot recently to dress up a plain 1940s style dress. The last outing they had was to my cousin's wedding.

This marcasite lily with a pearl centre is from a vintage fair and I wear it often. It is delicate and glamorous but also quite simple. The petals are all shaped which gives it depth and makes it stand out. It is just lovely.

This brooch is very special but is also a bit of a departure for me as I very rarely wear gold jewellery as it often does not suit me. This was my mum's 21st birthday present from her parents and she gave it to me to wear a couple of years ago as she wasn't wearing it very often anymore and it was a shame for it to be sat in a box. I love the roses and the use of the different textures of metal, it looks great on a plain knit.

I could also do a top ten china flower brooch post as I am really enjoying this style of brooch at the moment. This is from a charity shop and is in good condition. It is quite hard to find ones that are complete as they are so delicate and the edges of the petals and leaves (as you can see here) can easily be broken off. It is possible to find undamaged ones and I don't mind a bit of wear and tear as it probably means it has been worn and loved and I like that. China flower brooches are just so pretty and do look in a cluster like a massive bunch of flowers.

So these are my current favourites. Do you have a current favourite brooch?

How to make a 1940s floral accessory

Recently I had a craft day with a friend. Sometimes it is great to craft on your own as your mind is free to roam and be creative. But, I also enjoy crafting with others - its sociable, you can exchange ideas, swap techniques, add moral support or cups of tea through disasters and you get to be nosey and see what others are making. My friend made lots of beautiful items for her home - storage bags and boxes, a table runner and cushions.

I was inspired by a 1940s pattern that I have for leather accessories. It features a bag, cap, purse and a gorgeous carnation. I was thinking about how 1940's women always accessorised their outfits well, often out of necessity as buying new was not always an option. So I decided to make some carnations to brighten up dresses, cardigans, hats, bags, as buttonholes or perhaps just to put in a jug on my desk. I have used felt, as women at that time often did.

On plain paper I drew 2 grids, one 2" by 3" and one 3" by 4". I have used inches as I wanted to make my flower to its original dimensions. I used these grids as a guide to draw my petal and calyx templates. You could draw these by hand and could also change the shape and size.

Once cut out I pinned each pattern piece to the felt. Each carnation needs one calyx and 12 petals. I cut round the template rather than draw round it so that no marks would be on show on the finished carnation. I used pinking shears round the petal top as carnations look a bit feathery, you could also cut a fringe or leave it plain.

Next, take one petal and roll it into a tube. I secured it at the bottom with a few stitches. Then cut 2 petals in half leaving a join at the bottom. Position these around the tube and stitch in place when you are happy with the result.

The next stage is trial and error as this gives the final shape of your flower. The petals need to be added one by one, keep checking to see that you like the shape that you are producing. You can hold them together or add a couple of stitches every few petals.

Leaving 5cm free at each end I then tightly wound a 36cm length of florist's wire around the base of the flower. You can rearrange your petals as you do so.

Twist the ends of the wire together to form a short stem. Position the calyx so that it covers the bottom third of the petals and all of the wire stem. The calyx piece needs to be tightly wrapped around the stem. I used a dot of glue to attach the calyx to the petals, then stitched it down the stem. You could also cut a leaf shape from the felt and stitch it to the stem.

That's it! One carnation made. Now all you need to do is decide what to do with it!