I remember watching Grease as a kid. I was always a huge fan of musicals (what can I say? People bursting into song really does it for me) and the poodle skirts had me at hello. As your quintessential “girl next door,” you might imagine I would dream of one day snagging the role of Sandy. But, I never liked the way she changed herself for a guy. Even at 15, I had the wherewithal to know that spandex and a boyfriend didn’t happiness make…
Well, what a year this has been. Safe to say it ended up the way NONE of us would have expected when we turned the calendar to January 2020. I can hardly believe that the entire world can literally turn upside down in such a short timespan. Never before has a year moved so glacially slow and at warp speed at the same time…
One of my most vivid childhood memories is of autumn. My grandmother had this massive maple tree in her backyard and every fall we would bundle into the car to her house to help her rake the leaves. I remember there were so many that I could stand almost knee deep in what had fallen to the ground. We would spend the afternoon raking them into even greater piles, jumping into the crisp signs of autumn with abandon. I remember moving them one pile at a time over the fence into the wooded area behind her yard.
There is no time that you miss the city quite like during a global pandemic. It started small: a twinge, a mild craving for the bright lights. It grew to invading my thoughts, with taxi cabs and bustling streets dancing before my eyes. And, much like when you tell yourself not to think of pink elephants, suddenly Pepto-Bismol tinted pachyderms are the only things stampeding through your brain: I need me some bright lights, big city!
In a chat with some of my best friends, I’ve come to realize we have all hit (or are very close to hitting) a breaking point in recent months. The reserves that we had a few months ago to power through what we hoped would be temporary circumstances have been depleted, leaving us all with a sense of helplessness and a stress that just won’t quit. The only possible response to this seems to be to find ways to escape – even for a few minutes a day – or to use the dreaded F-word on repeat (and the F-word…
It’s hard to believe it, but it’s that time of year again. This has been such a strange year in so many respects…but one thing that will never change: time just keeps on moving forward. I barely blinked and here we were, at the dawn of December again.
You know how sometimes there’s a certain phrase or tv show or new app that you’ve never heard of before, and then all of the sudden 5 people tell you about it in one day? Well, I had been navigating my life and circle-skirt-making-mania very pleasantly, until one day I heard about the Cricut. Suddenly, without warning, came the deluge of readers and followers asking me if I had one and the hours upon hours of hand cutting I would save. And with a few simple clicks, I fell down the rabbit hole…
I can get so committed to my love of appliqué circle skirts, that sometimes I forget how much fun it can be to make a beautiful dress. It always a good idea to flex your creative muscles now and then and step outside of that trusty circle skirt comfort zone. And given how dark and grey the world has seemed lately, it should be no surprise that I turned to the sunniest yellow floral border print I could find….
I have a dark secret to share with you, which is likely to be a very unpopular opinion, particularly in the vintage community. Trust me when I say this confession has raised many an eyebrow and the gasp is often heard around the world. There are memes about my truth. It’s resulted in a bar brawl here and there and I’ve lost friends over it. You may decide to stop reading my blog altogether once you hear my terrible secret. Brace yourself people….
More often than not these days, I’m taking a bit of a hybrid approach to my dressing (and no, I’m not just talking about pairing a cute top that can be seen in my Zoom meetings with some snazzy pajama bottoms). We’re at that magical time of year when Mother Nature is refusing to commit to one temperature, criss-crossing between rain and drizzle and dazzling sun. Truth be told, this is my favorite time of year, because all of my velvet and felt Juli Lynne Charlot circle skirts can come out to play.