The Sunday Snag – Sorority Sisters!

I'm so tickled to share this post with you! I recently had the happy opportunity to keep a couple of vintage sister blouses together and very quickly snapped up the chance. And quite by accident really!

Amy, the owner of Wildfell Hall Vintage (who happens to be a complete darling), occasionally puts posts up on her facebook page announcing stock that will be entering her lovely Etsy shop later that day or week. I hawkishly track these posts as I want to get 1st dibs on a great piece. Well, back in late July, just such a post appeared on my facebook feed. It was for the milk chocolate brown shirt you see here. My eyes quickly lit up and Amy said that a few blouses, including this one and all at reasonable prices, would shortly be listed in her shop. Of course, I obsessively opened her shop link for the rest of the day in anticipation!

Waited...waited...waited...BAM, listed! I quick as lightening checked the measurements, condition, and price, YES all good! Add to cart, purchased, mine! All within seconds of it being listed. Amy actually wrote me shortly there after and said that may have been the quickest she's ever sold anything! Hahaha! Can you blame me though?!

This 1950s brown top was just too perfect for those everyday, knock around adventures. Clean, worn in, cotton button up with a cropped waist (which happens to be a favorite style for me) and an unusual and sweet monogram pocket complete with a tiny silk hankie that pulls through two little slots. I figured this top would be a nice simple addition to my closet and would be perfect for multiple seasons.



And then!! Two weeks later, I clicked on Wildfell Hall's shop to take a peek at another listing and saw...what?! my blouse?! in blue?! What the what?! Perplexed, I clicked on the listing and lo and behold, they were the same blouse, only difference being that the blue one was slightly larger. Well how could I resist this?! I wrote Amy and asked if they were from the same owner and she laughingly said yes and that she meant to tell me she had another, but had forgotten in the chaos. Yay! How fun! I speedily snapped this one up too and now these sister shirts are together once again!

I really don't know what the insignia is, but Amy told me that the two blouses were from the estate of a rather well educated lady and that maybe they are college or possibly sorority emblems? Not sure. If any of you happen to recognize it, please let me know!

As for the photos, I felt like I wanted to introduce the blouses to you in a way that celebrated their collegiate past and because September and early fall are also associated with the start of school, I tried to give the shoot a "back-to-school" vibe. And apparently, I attend the most kick-ass school imaginable because Anne of Green Gables and The Princess Bride appear to be my textbooks.

You also get to see another of my recent snags in these photos! My pants! Aren't they cute? I've searched for 40s trousers for quite a while and really have had no luck. I really wanted a pair for the cooler months ahead though, so I looked for other options. I searched around Etsy and found a lovely lady named Kim at Time Machine Vintage who makes reproduction vintage clothing from actual vintage patterns. Jackpot! They aren't inexpensive, but honestly, they shouldn't be. They are well made with great fabric (I picked a wool garbadine) specifically to my measurements by a one woman business. Those are things you pay good money for and I did just that and with pleasure. Plus, trousers are a staple piece and I can just rotate cute tops for different looks.

I did something quite stupid and absolutely do not recommend this to anyone. Kim, please close your eyes and don't read this part! Those gorgeous pants came to me in the mail and were beautiful and fit well. But, I have a short torso and decided that maybe I would like the waistline a bit lower to fit better on my actual waist. This is when I did something entirely risky and stupid. I decided, "Hmmm, I think I can figure out how to move the waistband down...". What the crap was I thinking?! I'm not a seamstress! I should have taken it to a professional tailor, but instead (trying to pinch pennies where I can and being foolishly lazy about finding a good tailor) I figured I would take up the challenge and do it myself. So I took a pair of scissors and well...you know. Yikes! It was done. They were cut. Now what? Well, the now what ended up being a 3 hour trial and error adventure of cursing myself. But I did indeed end up moving the waistband down. I may have lowered it a bit too much, but I think it still works. Not a professional job by ANY means, but workable for me and not too horrific looking. To give you an idea, there used to be a four button closure on the side and now there is only three, so I must have lowered it by about 2 inches.

I kept the accessories minimal (I tend to) and just wore two of the rings from my shop. "Road to Nowhere" for the brown shirt and "Abstraction" for the blue. My white button studs, "Sugar Drops", were a nice clean touch since you only got to see a peek of them with my hairstyle. I did my normal pin curl set but pulled back one side with a vintage comb. My belt is the one I made early on this year from a modern belt sewn onto a vintage buckle and my shoes, "Gramercy" from Remix Shoes are the perfect oxford look for that school-girl charm I was hoping to achieve.

Outfit Details:

Both Blouses: 1950s Cropped Cotton from Wildfell Hall Vintage

Trousers: Reproduction 1940s Wool Garbadine from Time Machine Vintage

Round Button Ring: "Road to Nowhere" from my shop ChatterBlossom

Square Wooden Ring: "Abstraction" from my shop ChatterBlossom

Button Earrings: "Sugar Drops" from my shop ChatterBlossom

Shoes: Reproduction 1930s/40s "Gramercy" from Remix Vintage Shoes

Last Week's Sunday Snag:

An Evening Glow

Saturday Shop Talk – Daisies From Dawn til Dusk

"Daisy at Dawn"

Personality: The Old Soul
Places you'll find yourself: Watching the first morning rays alight upon the flowers

"Daisy at Dusk"

Personality: The Old Soul
Places you'll find yourself: Watching the last of the summer sun fall upon the flowers

In keeping with the theme of sisters that we started in yesterday's Friday Photo Swoon, I'm introducing you to two sisters who've journeyed many long years apart. These necklaces were made with two antique buttons (title: Daisies, circa 1880-1900). The buttons have the same floral pictorial, but each has a unique color tint. The golden tint of the first reminded me of the rising sun and the navy tint of the second was just as fitting for the dying light of day, hence their two names. I really love that these would have had different owners, been on different garments, and each made their way to me to share a few brief moments of sisterly love and gab of memories spanning 100 years. Recently, "Daisy at Dusk" sold to a lovely customer in Australia. "Daisy at Dawn" is in my shop, currently awaiting her future owner. How lovely to think that as the sun rises here on her, the sun will be fast asleep upon her sister on the other side of the world.

View my entire shop here.

Last Week's Saturday Shop Talk:

Awake in Dreams

Friday Photo Swoon – Sisters

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In anticipation of this weekend's Saturday Shop Talk and Sunday Snag, a post of sisterly love is in order! My sister is one of the dearest people to me on earth and I can't imagine not having her steady friendship in my now adult life. I say adult life because, as do most older sisters, I didn't exactly make my baby sister's life easy when we were kids. But now that I'm no longer a stupid idiot, I realize how wonderful she is and how much I love and like her! Aww, the wisdom that can come with age...

Sisters

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Me and My Sister

(I'm the ridiculous one, sitting down)

Last Week's Friday Photo Swoon:

Riveted by Ruffles

Thursday Thrill – A Very Crappy Kind of Thrill

So today's thrill is not my usual of food pictures, fun times, and pretty clothes. I had today's post scheduled for my monthly birthstone post, September Sapphire, but that will have to wait. Monday changed our plans. My husband was riding his bicycle back home from work (we only have one car and he frequently rides the few miles to and from work on his bike to save gas, money, and get exercise). He had made it to less than a mile from our apartment when a car hit him...and then left. Left him laying in the road in an intersection and drove away.

My husband said that he just rolled over onto his back and took a second to realize what happened. A woman who witnessed the hit and run stopped and immediately got out and asked if he was okay and called 911. She was apparently so shaken up by witnessing the event that she didn't think to get a license plate and didn't have a clear memory of the car or driver of the vehicle that hit him. However, I cannot be thankful enough that she stopped to help. Another driver also stopped and they helped my husband to a nearby shade tree out of the road and sun.

My husband was in a lot of pain, but adrenaline was pumping so he was upright for a bit and then started swaying from dizziness, so they laid him down and waited with him until the fire department, police, and ambulance got there. The impact of the fall from the bike cracked his helmet, so the ambulance said they had to take him to a trauma center instead of the ER. They put him in a neck brace and on a board and started for the hospital.

Then I got the call. The call came with my husband's name attached, but when I answered it was another man's voice. A member of the fire department, he said...accident...husband hit...go to hospital, was all my brain heard. Calm panic, if there is such a thing, set in and I grabbed my purse and keys and ran out the door. The only other time I got a phone call like this was when my dad died. These are the most frightening calls you never want to get.

I got to the hospital and they let me in the trauma center and my husband was hooked up to everything, had his clothes cut off him, and a neck brace on. Needless to say, I freaked. Inside, of course. I didn't want to scare him or stress him in any way, so I just approached, took his hand, and asked what happened. He explained everything and said that the hospital did all the tests and were waiting for results. He said his left shoulder took the brunt of the fall (and it looked like it did), so it hurt along with his hip. We were in the trauma unit for six hours and they told us that his spine and head cleared. No major injury to those or his internal organs. YES!!! I screamed in my brain. No broken bones either, which was amazing. He just tore away a ligament in his shoulder (which is why his arm hung there and his shoulder looks deformed). No surgery needed though. He had some major road rash (scrapes, bruises, etc. from hitting and skidding on the pavement) on his hip, shoulder, and back, but that would heal up quick. All great news...until...

Oh my god, we don't have insurance. Keep it together, I told myself. My husband is alive and no major injuries. But oh my god, we don't have insurance and he rode in an ambulance, had to go to a trauma center, and had all those tests! This is going to be very scary, but I'm going to do some research and with any luck we will figure this thing out.

But my husband is alive! The bastard that hit him and left will hopefully be found, but the odds of that are slim. I still can't believe anyone could do that. To feel the impact of a body hitting your car and just drive away... Makes me so angry that he lay there in the road. My husband. And someone just went about their day not knowing or caring if he was okay after hitting him.

BUT! Our friends and family were amazing. We got an outpouring of support and kindness from them all. We've only lived in Raleigh for a year and a half and the people we've met here have been so wonderful! Everyone sent messages, people volunteered time, resources, and meals to help us. Me and my husband were both pretty overwhelmed at the generosity shown by these beautiful people.

Going forward, I'm going to try and keep the blog and my shop at the same pace, but at least for the next couple of weeks I may be a bit behind while I try to help my husband recuperate. I did successfully bath and clothe him the morning after, so I would call that success so far! Thank you all for you understanding and for letting me share this exhaustively long post. Things will get lighter from here, don't worry! For yours and my sake! :-)

Last Week's Thursday Thrill:

Summer Fashion Recap: Part Two