Now more than ever, I'm so glad I live on the coast. I can get to the ocean in minutes, and southern RI is filled with beautiful spots to visit. In my continued effort to use every last scrap of fabric I have, I'm working on making mobiles, and shells seem like just the perfect addition. I tried shell collecting at a couple different beaches, with not much success, then remembered the best place I know to collect shells, Rome Point! Rome Point is the ocean front stretch of land at the John H Chafee Nature Preserve in North Kingstown. It's just over a mile from the road to the ocean, so I put on my sneakers and backpack and set out. The nature preserve itself is a lovely, wooded area, but the payoff is really that ocean front beach. The only downside to shell collecting is that you have to keep your eyes glued to the ground, so you don't get to take in beauty of where you are. But it's worth it for find like this one: And I did, of course, stop every now and then to appreciate where I was. The walk back hot and sweaty, and in a moment of utter defeat, the soles of my sneakers fell off literally mid step But the spoils were totally worth it! I'm excited to get crafting!
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Betsy here, taking over the blog this week! I noticed Marissa used a recent blog post to talk about where we found our love for vintage fabrics (thanks, Mom) and how she decided to use those fabrics for bloomers, so I figured I’d talk about how I got into the world of embroidery! While it was Mom who force-fed us all things vintage and antique while growing up, my love for embroidery began with another awesome woman in our lives: our Memère (our grandmother – the term Memère is a remnant of our French-Canadian heritage). By the time Marissa and I came along – the youngest by far of her grandchildren – Memère was already retired and had plenty of time to dote on the kids in her life. We spent a ton of time at her apartment, soaked up her attention, and was showed off by her to the other grandmothers in the building (it was this odd competition of who had the most adorable grandchildren – I totally won, as you can see below). I don’t know how it began but, for whatever reason, one day Memère began to show me knitting. I still have a vivid recollection of her bouquet of needles sitting beside her recliner: her go-to activity when watching bowling on television. Maybe it was my fascination with those needles, my need to copy whatever the grown-ups were doing, or my genuine interest in hands-on crafts, but before long, she had shown me the basics and we were off to the races. Pretty soon, she introduced me to other forms of knitting. The picture below is her walking me through how to use some sort of circular knitting loom and, as you can see, it had my entire focus. I don’t quite remember when embroidery came into the picture – in all honesty, it may have been a combination of Memère and Mom who fed that particular hobby – but I can say with certainty that it was Memère who sparked my initial interest in hands-on textile crafting. Sure, I may use the skill to stitch sass and swears – something a grandparent may not approve of – but if you knew our Memère, you’d agree that she would have thought it hilarious.
It wasn’t until Marissa already had Whimsy and Fluff up and running that I returned to the craft. With her fabric scraps and my love of stabbing things repeatedly with a needle (lol), embroidery soon became a staple in the Whimsy and Fluff product line. 20 years later, I’m still copying our Memère: my own mass of needles sitting beside me, television on in the background, happily stitching away at my latest creation. I love costumes. I always have. As kids, Betsy and I had an ENORMOUS dress up collection, and as an adult I think I have even more. I love going to faerie festivals, renaissance faires, steampunk festivals, period balls, you name it! But with everything being canceled this year, I haven't gotten to dress up much (though I will admit, I have taken to wearing my costumes around the house, much to my husband's amusement). So I've decided for this blog post we're all going to live vicariously through my pictures of costumes past. I also want to share with you some links to some of my favorite vendors for costume pieces. This is a tough time for small businesses, so I encourage you to support them!
Reyen Designs - They have the most beautiful hand dyed silk pieces you'll ever see. It's impossible to not feel like a fairy while wearing their work. Pendragon Costumes - They have a few different lines of costume pieces, and they're all amazing. Renaissance, steampunk, futuristic, etc. My most favorite costume piece I've ever purchased, a green steampunk-inspired corset with attached bustle skirt, came from them. Damsel in this Dress - She makes comfortable corsets. I can give no higher endorsement, lol. Those are just a few of my favorites. Who are your favorite costume makers? We had our first Facebook and Instagram live sale on Sunday! It went great, and we learned a lot of things. Most importantly, I realized after we were done that I went into it assuming everyone watching was already familiar with Whimsy and Fluff products, so I didn't talk about what we make and why we make it!
So now I'm going to. My previous blog post talked about how I first came up with the idea to use vintage sheets to make bloomers, so if you're curious about our "origin story", go check it out. But there are so many benefits to using not only an upcycled material, but vintage sheets specifically, so let's talk about them! 1. It's eco-friendly. The environmental impact of fabric manufacturing is intense. There's chemical waste, greenhouse gas emissions, tons of water usage etc. I'm (obviously) not a scientist, so I'm not going to get into the specifics, but by using already existing materials (that might otherwise be destined for the landfill), we're cutting down on the need to manufacture those textiles! Plus, once I (Marissa) cut the fabric for the bloomers, I pass the scraps on to Betsy to use for the embroidery, so our own waste is minimal! 2. They're sheets. Which means it's material that's been specifically created to be soft, comfortable, and cool. Cool is the key word right now; summer literally just started a couple of days ago and we've already been experiencing temps in the 80's! The fabric I use to make bloomers is breathable, light, and as one customer told me, "so much more comfortable than regular pajama pants". 3. They're vintage, which means they're pretty! There's just a certain vibe that vintage sheets have. And they come in such variety! Yes, they're mostly floral, but even within that there are so many different styles. There are bold flower power patterns, soft and romantic patterns, and sometimes patterns that you would never expect (the greatest pair of bloomers I ever made were from a vintage sheet with cowboys against a red background. Amazing). 4. They're one of a kind. There have been points in the life of Whimsy and Fluff where I played around with making bloomers out of new fabric. And every time I've made a pair of bloomers out of new fabric, I brought them to an event, and someone else there was selling a piece of clothing made from the same fabric. And not to say that's bad, but let's mix it up a little, you know? I'm sure eventually someone else will realize that vintage sheets make pretty fantastic bloomers, but right now my bloomers are unique! One sheet only yields two, maybe three pairs of bloomers, and I always mix up the styles, so you know you're wearing something that no one else has! In short, they're pretty awesome. I love people’s reactions when they realize all our skirts and bloomers are made from vintage linens. It’s not something most people would have thought to do, but it was the most logical thing for me! I grew up surrounded by antiques. My mother loves all things vintage, and our house was always full of treasures from the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s. Eventually, she decided to start selling antiques, to feed her habit, as she would say, and that was the beginning of Moongarden Antiques (now Moongarden Vintage). I’d long been accompanying her to yard sales, estate sales, and auctions, and we upped our game once she started Moongarden Antiques. It’s like treasure hunting. But we were constantly coming across really cool things that had just enough damage to make them unsellable. My mom had long been re-purposing things (read on to see the hankie quilt!), so when we pulled a mildly damaged vintage sheet out of a box of linens, it clicked for me! This was a box lot we'd gotten at an auction (this was about 10 years ago, and I think I still have the quilt with that particular hankie). We love a good box lot, because you never know what kind of treasures you'll find. This particular box contained a lot of vintage hankies, which is liking striking gold for my mom, because she takes those hankies to make hankie quilts: Are you starting to see where my upcycled inspiration came from?
Today we tend to think of bloomers as frilly, ultra-feminine undergarments, but did you know the term "bloomers" actually refers to a clothing garment, not underwear, and they were, in fact, a feminist revolution?
Prior to the 20th century, women's clothing was intense! It involved corsets, caging, multiple layers of heavy fabric, underskirts, overskirts, etc. Needless to say, this didn't allow for a wide range of movement, and a slow walk was about as much activity as a woman could hope for. In the mid-19th century, a medical journal noted that current women's fashion was detrimental to their health, and so readers began searching for alternative fashions that did not involve such heavy, constricting garments. Some women adopted lighter, shorter skirts, but some women went so far as to start wearing pants, loose around the thighs and gathered at the ankle (sometimes accompanied by a short skirt). Among the first women to begin wearing this new style of clothing was a women's rights activist named Amelia Bloomer, and thus, bloomers were born. Bloomers became a symbol of the women's rights movement. Not only did they allow women to participate in activities that had been previously off limits, this new, more streamlined silhouette created safer work environments for female factory workers. When the bicycle craze of the late 19th century hit, bloomers became the standard uniform for women bicyclists. As women's athleticism grew, female baseball teams began to pop up across America. Known as "Bloomer Girls", these teams of female players would travel the country and play against local men's teams. And they won. A lot. As women's fashion continued to change and shorter skirts and shorts became more acceptable, bloomers fell out of fashion. But they played an enormously important role in the history of women's rights! So rock those bloomers and pay homage to those women that pioneered them! This past Sunday was the New England Quahog and Sea Creature Parade in my town, so naturally I had to participate! I agonized over what kind of sea creature I wanted to be, and after cruising Pinterest for ideas, I finally settled on jellyfish.
The basic costume is pretty simple, you get a clear, "bubble" style umbrella (I bought this one), and ribbon, cellophane, whatever to create the jellyfish tentacles. Never being satisfied with the simple version of something, I added lights. These ones worked out really nicely - they're battery operated, remote controlled, and lightweight, plus they had multiple color options and light pattern settings. After that it was simply a matter of gluing everything on! I used some sparkly tulle, cut into strips, some cellophane streamers, crepe paper, and this really awesome yarn that looked totally like jellyfish stingers! I had grand plans to cover every last inch of the bottom of the umbrella with streamers and such, but this process was way more difficult than I thought it would be! I couldn't figure out a good way to sit the umbrella while still being able to glue the spots that I needed, so I spent a good amount of time uncomfortably hunched over it, holding the umbrella in one hand, glue gun in the other, trying desperately not to burn myself. But I got it done to my satisfaction. I added to the look by wearing a red tank (for that oh-so-scary red jellyfish look), and a flouncy pink skirt trimmed with more of the tulle, crepe paper, and stinger yarn. Overall I was pretty pleased with it! Check out my pic in the Providence Journal from the parade here! Here's a quick photo I made my husband take in our living room so I had some sort of image of the final look |
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