There is no season I welcome more than Spring. I love the scent of azaleas and honeysuckle that hits me when I step out of the house. I am here for the sunshine that starts to peek through and hang around until early evening. But, most of all (and I know my fellow educators can relate), I’m pretty sure I wait for Spring with baited breath for the simple fact that I can see the light at the end of a very long semester…
Have you ever met a dress pattern and fallen in love at first sight? Some just speak to me, and such was my first encounter with Simplicity S8873. It’s crisp and clean, but has a bit of sass in the shoulder ties. Plus, it looked like a pretty straightforward make. Truly, sometimes simplicity really is best.
Well, it’s officially September. And even though we are still experiencing pretty sweltering temps some days here in NC, I’m already dreaming of layers and hot chocolate and leaves crunching underfoot. What can I say? I’m almost always in an autumn frame of mind.
There’s always that moment in the dead of winter where you start to see forward to Spring. Yet, there’s no actual benchmark for it. No physical moment you can point to. Slippers are very much a part of the daily routine, you still wake up to frost lining the windows, and coffee is as much a warming device as it is a caffeination mechanism. And yet it happens every year. You can feel the stirrings of a new season making its way up through frozen ground, pushing her arms upward, whispering that Spring will be here soon.
As we’re ticking down the minutes to the end of the year, I always start to feel a lot of pressure to think big thoughts. To close the year on something profound and find some meaning in the chaos. But here’s all I’ve got people: 2021, I am DONE with you.
When I was a kid, we had this massive purple lilac bush in the backyard. I can vaguely remember stepping off the back porch in late Spring and being hit with that immediate, sweet scent, a wall of purple calling me forward. There are a lot of memories of my childhood that linger. But few are as powerful as olfactory memories – one whiff of lilac and I can literally feel the start of summer.
Despite the fact that it’s 90 degrees outside, the minute the fall semester starts, my brain immediately clicks into autumn mode, and my wardrobe quickly follows suit. I think it’s been this way since childhood – whether the crisp temperatures have caught up or not, there is just a feeling that comes with a new school year. Without fail, late August always brought with it shiny new trapper keepers and as-yet-unused pens. Fresh fears and new possibilities. You can practically clock the smell of the academic anxiety as clearly as a you can identify the smell of new box of…
I don’t know about the rest of you, but days have certainly lost all meaning. I wake up and it takes a good 5 minutes to even know what day it is. It’s funny to think about this same time last year. The buds were just starting to break into flowers. The end of the semester was in sight, with thoughts of summertime looming. Nowadays, I’ve got lots of buds blooming in my sewing room, but not a lot of places to wear them. The end of the semester can’t come fast enough, but mostly because I’m exhausted at feeling…
You never know what’s going to draw you to a certain piece. We all have a penchant for something. Some of us swoon for 1940’s shoulders, others for border prints, others for 1970’s flare. Regardless of how you choose to adorn yourself, there will usually be certain things that catch your eye in a garment that instantly make you start to style it about 8 different ways in your head.
In times of crisis, I think we tend to go on auto pilot. We tamp down feelings of fear and insecurity, and then slip into a mode of Get It Done. At least I know I do. This past week we had to deal with a hurricane bearing down on us. And you could almost feel the shift. Fight or Flight. Stay or Evacuate. Stock up on supplies, secure any outdoor furniture, cover the vintage with plastic (oh, just me?). After the crisis has passed, there’s usually a period of euphoria. Where the flowers smell sweeter and we are so…