History

The family mythology on my mother's side was that we came to the U.S. as fine English gardeners to a rarefied family in Cleveland.

This summer, I was at my grandmother's and found this album filled with images that provided us with unprecedented access into their lives.

I followed them as they worked in the greenhouse...




Climbed up onto the roof...


Took part in a summer fair...


and danced around a maypole.


Fell in love...




and played.

Getting settled

I'm finally digging into my new home, getting things put away and tinkering with my environment.

I want my little cottage (850 sq ft) to be homey, but lack much of the clutter than plagued me in my teeny apartment (485 sq ft).

A great deal of this was achieved through deaccessioning - it felt great to get rid of this and that - although I have the heirloom guilt in spades, exacerbated by being the child and granddaughter of makers.

Knowing I was coming into a large space, I braced myself and made it very clear what I would and would not accept, and so far, it's working.


I'm attempting to make due with mostly used or family items (sectional from Craigslist, Knoll chair from my old office, etagere made by my grandfather, rocking chair from my great-grandparents'), but I'll admit I have purchased a few new things as a result of the drunken fog of aesthetic reverie (curtains, lamp, dreaming of a rug from CB2).


The fun has been in finding ways to showcase those items I've had squirreled away, unsure of how to work them into my life but hesitant to release them back into the free market.

This kimono, for example.


Lovely, handpainted silk; I purchased it a Unique Thrift on Half-Price Monday for about $5. I was working at a museum at the time, and my urge to save all the poor helpless items of beauty was in full effect. It was folded in tissue paper with almost maternal affection and put in the closet, safe from rays of light, degradation of acid, and all the things that break down organic material (e.g., everything everywhere).

I couldn't give it up, so I was determined to bring it out in the new home. Somehow, I managed to amass a collection of thing accented in red with a vaguely Japanesque quality, so those things went in the bedroom. Among those items were two vintage Japanese paper lanterns, and Kt-friend suggested the following course of action:


Yeah, so that's a branch.
Screwed to the wall.
With lanterns.

Kind of college-sophomore crazy, but I dig it.

A short stay in Michigan

This weekend I went on short (but highly enjoyable) mini-break in Michigan.

The Steam Railroading Institute in Owosso was holding its first Steam Fest - which is one of those odd things that you find out about in 1 of 2 ways:
1: You are - or are related to - those who actively seek out steam engines (I fall into the category of the latter - although having been acclimated to the sound of a steam whistle by age 8, I was just as likely to yell "Steam engine!" knowing full well I'd be hastily tossed into the car to chase it as far as we could.)
2: You went to college with the person who coordinated the event and can't escape its presence on Facebook.

I fall into both categories, actually.

It was a bit of a last minute decision to attend, and because the event was in a smallish town with accommodations sold out in a 50 mile radius, Ann Arbor was the city of choice.

We stayed at a wonderful B&B called Vitosha - The bike at the door was indicator enough that I would enjoy my stay...



The room had a view of the courtyard from the charming veranda...



We reached the festival and were quickly swept up in the sights, sounds, & smells of steam...









After we got our bearings - we took a short excursion that was pulled first by a diesel - then back by a small steam engine.

Of course, we had tea...





I think I may be returning for a fall excursion with my parents - once lured by the siren song of a steam whistle, it's difficult to escape it's grasp.

The girl I used to be.

Because things come when you need them, a friend of mine is hosting a garage sale in Shaker Heights over Memorial Day weekend - and I am taking FULL advantage of this opportunity to de-accession a good deal of my past.

I do love the things I'm selling, but if I don't get rid of these things... well, I feel my things have definitely claimed ownership of me.



I'm getting rid of a good deal of my vintage things as well: scarves and gloves and hats and... well, things people gave me (like the furry face at the bottom there).

Fine. Merry Christmas.

I didn't think I'd want to decorate for Christmas this year. I skipped halloween due to overwhelming busy and figured Christmas would be the same.

Just a wee bit of cheer for me... (and the tippling elf)



I wanted to display my vintage ornaments and my shakers seemed just the thing...



My feather tree in the living room...



A deco Christmas...



Hurrah for Christmas cheer!

Inheritence

I spent the day at my grandmother's and came home with a box of whimsical, charming early twentieth century fabric love.

I always knew there was a seamstress and a quilter in the family, but I never who, when or where.

During the depression, my grandmother and her mother lived with the previous generation - the seamstress and the quilter. My great great grandmother, Ella Armstrong Coon made quilts from the fabric scraps left over from Clara's (her sister) work making clothes.

Clara started this quilt in the 20s, my great grandmother worked on it in the late 40s, my grandmother has worked on it on and off and I'm bound to finish it...










When she gave me the remainder of the fabric, it came from a box filled with other piecework...

Most were done by Clara, but we think these two were done by Ella, who would see something in a magazine and do it, just to see if she could.

Each piece is hand-stitched and many were done in the evening by kerosene lamp - grandma told she remembered sitting by the radio in the evening with them and working on quilt tops.








Other pieces weren't as well stitched, but the color play is amazing and the fabric itself is beautiful.



In the box were pieces that were almost complete...



and pieces waiting to be put together.



We have about 20 of the above pattern - and I think I'm going to hand-wash each one and mount it on padded muslin that can be framed - with the story about where these pieces came from for each of the descendants of these women.

We number about 20 - so I think there is more than enough of these brilliant pieces to shared.

Because the story is everything

I love a good story.
And like anything else the delight is in the details.
It's never just a man in a room, it's man in bespoke three-piece linen suit, edges slightly frayed from wear, sitting with a little more elegance for the cut, in a room filled with souvenirs of a life fully lived.

I never fill a room with "stuff," I fill it to tell a story.
Those stories vary - some tell an honest history of me, some tell of the life I wish I had lived, and some point to the life I plan on living... when I get around to it.

Most of my themes revolve around the train of thought that certain experiences indicate a particular strength of character.

I'm partial to stories of ex-pats, especially early 20th century women who go from genteel society to pioneer. Delicate flowers who leave the superficial debutante scene to keep house at the mercy of an untamed land. Osa Johnson, Grace Crile, Beryl Markham, Karen Blitzen and Elspeth Huxley are the keepers of some of my favorite stories.

So, little surprise that when I was introduced to the J. Peterman catalogue circa 1994, I was entranced. To me, it was so much more than the ridiculous narratives that accompanied the vague sketches, it was the inherent lack of concern that the whole thing had for the opinions of anyone else.

The clothes were from the closet of someone who eschewed the look of the moment and wore a hand-made suit handed down from her mother, or the caftan she wore on weekends of her three-month safari - it was the closet of the sincere eccentric I was in training to become.

Years passed, Seinfeld made it the butt of so, so many jokes - and Peterman eventually went bankrupt. But I started watching his website.. and first he continued to sell his cologne and the duster... and slowly, kept adding merchandise over the years.

I'm happy to share that it seems to be back, and as romantic as ever...

Between the years 1906 and 1939, a trickle, then a light rainfall, then a downpour, of Englishmen, Germans, Scots, and some remarkable women, began to fall upon the immense gorgeous plateau of East Africa.
Some came for a year, and stayed a lifetime. Some came to farm; or make a fortune; or to put something awful far behind. Don’t ask what.
All came to start life over again. Fresh.
Discovered they hadn’t been expelled from a Garden of Eden after all, but were just now entering one.
That first night they lay awake listening, hearing Africa, hearing for the first time how to hear.
And how to read a flattened blade of grass: who or what had passed through here; and exactly how long ago.
It was paradise. It lasted three decades. Days of laughing, dancing, talking all night; ostrich omelettes the morning after; walking thirty miles to see an ocean of oryx, a river of hippos; flying low over a sea of wildebeest; driving among elephants in a maharajah’s 3-axle Buick; great luxury; great simplicity.
We couldn’t bring back the era, but here are some of the clothes, judiciously updated for today’s Karen Blixen.

I'm not quite as smitten with it as I was 14 years ago, but I still very, very much appreciate the ideal of the people he intends to sell to - who we are, where we've been and what we can eventually become.

Chix with Stix

About a month ago, a friend started a stitch n' bitch at a coffee shop on the east side.
I'd tried to learn to knit 3 times prior, to no avail and whole lotta knots.
Thanks to P for teaching how to cast on and purl, K for my knit stitch and L for casting off.

My first completed project... a muffler scarfie thing with sassy vintage pin.



Action shot...


Now if only it would cool off so I could wear it.

Don't throw it out!

As much as they always tell you
"If you haven't worn it in a year,
(or 6 months, or 2 years, or a decade)
then get rid of it!"

Pish!

I bought a black sweater vest last month.
And only now am I getting to wearing a pair of
white suede buck shoes that I bought in...

1995.

These shoes are twelve year old, people.

Twelve.

If they were a person, they'd have public hair and heads full of self-doubting akwardness and algebra I.

So I say DO NOT THROW IT OUT if it's something you swear you'll wear.

Let it bide its time and promise you'll...
lose the 10 lbs
see the fashion come back
find a reason and a season to wear it again.

I can't imagine how disappointed I'd be if I had the vest but no bucks.

PLUS the black and white diag striped skinny tie purchased 5 years ago at the thrift...
it's a whole Patricia-Fields-does-country-club-causal-but-kind-of-mod thing.

v. cool.

Update: What are bucks?


Classic summer men's shoes of the early to mid twentieth century.

Impatience

So I had to wear them today.
Not tomorrow.
Not the day after the day before a week from today.
But NOW.

Had I intercepted a 9:30 phone call I missed because I was too deep in buttons and bows, I would have worn them out and about, one complete, one plain in a personal ode to Camper Twins.

Me wearing shoes.



Me wearing shoes with curious Tilda-beast.

why should kate spade have all the fun

Over the years I've collected a good deal of raw materials for sewing.
A textile-lover at heart, I've always been a sucker for antique ribbons and the odd 30s button.

Thanks in large part to the democratization of style, hipster hand-made and the rise of Anthropologie, Miu Miu and Kate Spade, it's perfectly normal to dress like you raided your eccentric aunt's clothespress and decked yourself out like Little Edie.

You've seen the feather shoes.
Now come the flats.

I purchased a pair of silver flats from Target a couple of weeks ago and they left me - pardon the pun - flat.
I dug around my suitcase of scraps and came up with silk ribbon and art deco buttons...

Before and after



Lounging in my bedroom



I think I need feather flats...

Bounty: A Sunday Trip to Unique Thrift (a post for girls or foot fetishists...)

This overcast Sunday brought me a leisurely breakfast at Lucky's (I highly recommend the breakfast burrito... more like fresh breakfast echilada in mole sauce... waffles were good too, but I was more of a savory girl this a.m.) and a trip to Unique Thrift on Lorain.

I haven't been in ages, and was pleasantly surprised to find a wealth of vintage footware in good condition and in my size.




Behold the wedges!... both dress and casual.

Envy the mint condition of the dainty low heeled sandals.

Gawk at the lines of the 1960s poison-dart pump fashioned from the skin of a venomous serpent that will infuse the wearer with the same slithering grace and basilisk glance of its previous inhabitant.



And of course, a fabulous Thai cotton shift for drinking mai-tais alfresco, smoking exotic cigarettes, and listening to beat poets pound their words to the rhythm of a distant bongo drum.