You keep me warm

Just in time for Valentine's festivities - our tulle skirt in the softest petal pink.  

A handful of good things:

My bestie's beautiful grey ruffle scarf

the way the sun shone and shone and shone today in blinding brilliance on deep new snow

an enormous pile of orders packaged and ready to mail

Adam Young singing

my Christmas mug, which says "we do what we want and we do it right."  Tasha, you're awesome.

Playing piano duets with my sisters

freshly baked sourdough bread

Matthew 6:33

Sweetheart Pink Tulle skirt // Kellie Falconer Design

fisherman's sweater // Tulle

ruffle scarf // Wool and Whatnot

fingerless gloves // made by Winnie

lace collar tee // made by me

rose hairpin // Kellie Falconer Design

boots // Sorel

Sapphire Safari

royal peplum top // made by me        zebra maxi // made by me
boots // Amazon        black wedges // thrifted      fisherman's sweater // Tulle

Two exciting things here - the first, I've been working on my extra-curricular sewing pile in spare moments (why kid myself... who has spare moments?  I just made the time and am so glad I did)!  The second is that I've finally completed some designs that have been on the board for months.  Namely, the bluest blue knit peplum top, and a wildly awesome zebra knit maxi skirt.  The top is a perfect pairing of comfort and class.  I think I'm going to be making a lot of these for basic tees in my own wardrobe.

And the skirt... let's just say I wish I had discovered animal prints sooner.  They're so much fun!  I was kind of hesitant to make a floor length wall out of this crazy print, but the material is an amazingly thick, soft terry knit that just begged to be a maxi.  I've been snuggling in it for three days straight and feeling marvelously chic.

I shot this outfit a few days ago, wearing the black shoes and two rope braids in my hair.  My computer proceeded to viciously devour all of the images from the shoot.  So the next day I styled the outfit again, coiling the two ropes into an updo and switching out the flats for boots.  A fresh dusting of snow covered the landscape... and lo and behold, when I downloaded the second shoot, the first popped up out of nowhere.  C'est la Vie!

Zebra print maxi skirt:  awesome or appalling?  Tell me what you think!

The Violet Hour

Outfit Details:

wool trench // Tulle

fisherman's cardigan // Tulle

denim skirt // Kellie Falconer

purse // Cath Kidston

fingerless gloves // made by Winnie

boots // Sorelia Earhart

This wool olive green trench coat is absolutely positively Kellie perfection.  I've always wished for a trench coat, and though I'm still looking out for the right khaki one to jump off a thrift shop rack at me (yikes... now I'm going to be terrified of the coat rack when I walk by.  I meant that figuratively!), this winter number will serve me well for many years, and I adore everything about it.  It makes me feel like Barbara Stanwyck or Greer Garson... all Christmas in Connecticut and Random Harvest-ish.

Something about the gray, dark times of the war that came after the war to end all wars, so harsh and bleak yet shot through with light and heroism, never fails to thrill me.  Hollywood's golden era during the 40's, with Fred and Ginger waltzing across the screen in matchless lighthearted perfection, often fools us into thinking that those times were the pinnacle of progress, fashion, talent, and opportunity.  But those films were made as a stark juxtaposition, an escape, to the realities of privation,  uncertainty, and even death that so many faced daily around the world at that time.  

I wonder what it was really like.  I wonder what they really thought about - what they dreamed of the future looking like as scrap metal drives canvassed down the streets or bombers flew overhead.  The ordinary people - in America, in England, in Germany.  

The only way we can discover the key to that world is from their writings, their films, their newspapers and photographs.  Perhaps from the remembrances handed down from people still alive who belonged to that world.  My Great Grandmother was there in England, as a young girl, during the bombings.  I heard her stories from her own lips... some funny, some inspiring, some tragic.  I will always treasure those stories as my own key to that world, a personal link in my own life to that time in history.

And I love the way a simple coat, a piece of music, can carry one away into that world, remembering and pondering and searching for clues by studying history, culture, and art.  It's like time travel in a way.

Misty Gloaming

 

The last week has been misty, grey, cozy.  Cozy but a little bleak.

The other day the girls and I went for a walk before dusk, and the world we found outside was incredibly beautiful, veiled in fog.

Then, not even a mile up the mountain, we neared a level space and suddenly broke out above the mist, revealing a brilliant blue evening sky and the most fantastical candy colored clouds.  It was like stepping into fairyland.  A sherbet-hued sunset lay below us, and the comforting trees surrounding stood tall and still against it all. 

All too soon we descended down into the fog again before darkness fell, but I'll carry the memory of that beautiful place above our little world of grey mist through many a day when everything looks bleak and dreary below. 

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands."

--Isaiah 56: 8-12