Thursday, September 29, 2011

Sewing and tucks

Hi everyone! This has continued to be one of those weeks where I struggle with my craft projects. Don't you just hate weeks like that? I went from not really having time to sew for over a month to trying to work on two projects this week and getting foiled along the way on both of them.

This time, though, I'm not really foiled, just looking for opinions! I'm going to sew Simplicity 4608, a smart little blouse pattern from the 1940s. View 3 and 4, pictured below, feature lovely tucks going down the front. Isn't it marvelous? I'll be sewing View 3 but with short sleeves.


I simply adore this pattern, and was so enchanted by it when I first saw it on Etsy that I accidentally ordered the bust size as the waist size, meaning I ended up with a copy of the pattern with a 34" waist. With all the tucks and darks and everything I didn't think I should chance trying to downsize it, so I hunted until I found it in my correct size. Which I finally did. Yay! (And that means I'll probably do a giveaway of the 34" waist size one, soon!)

On the pattern, you can clearly see the stitches going down the front of the tucks, almost like a long basting stitch. I'm assuming it was probably done to more clearly show the tucks on the drawn pattern envelope. The pattern simply says to crease along the dots and sew 5/8" away, then turn the tucks to the side. They aren't exactly pintucks as they aren't small enough, and there's only the two on either side. I'm sewing it in white, and assuming I should just go ahead and use white thread and a normal stitch length. What do you think? Will that look odd? I think the heavy lines on the drawing are throwing me off, so I removed them in the drawing, and I think this must give a better idea of what it will look like.



Speaking of dots... I've never worked with so many on a pattern piece. A dart at the side of the neckline (not really sure why it's there since the shoulders are gathered under the yoke), a dart at the waist, two tucks, and button holes. Wow!


Anyway, I'm excited that I'm finally sitting down to sew up this blouse. I'm using a lightweight cotton-poly blend that's semi-sheer, so I think it will look lovely with a camisole or slip underneath. I'll be doing French seams and hopefully testing out mock French seams on the armholes after some helpful consultation with Liz of zilredloh.com, who is a technique whiz. We'll see how this works out since there's also a yoke, collar and gathers to contend with (for instance, I don't see a French seam working on the front part of the yoke with the gathers, so I'll have to think about what to do there). This will be my first time sewing with a semi-sheer fabric as the main fashion fabric. I love sheer and lightweight fabrics but am more than a bit intimidated to sew with them, so I'm putting aside my fears with this one. Wish me luck!

Monday, September 26, 2011

Randolph Street Market Editor's Choice for Charity

This weekend I was honored to participate in an event that was not only fun, but for a worthy cause!

I was asked to be a part of the Randolph Street Market Editor's & Designer's Choice for Charity. Randolph Street Market is a big vintage and antique market that takes place in Chicago different times throughout the year. On Friday evening, I joined bloggers, designers and fashionistas for their first Editor's & Designer's Choice for Charity.


I wasn't sure what to expect, but I knew ahead of time what the concept was. Basically we would get to walk through the venue early, and would select 5 great items (whatever we wanted!) to receive a blue ribbon. If any of the items sold, a portion would be donate to the charity of our choice. Even if nothing sold, they would donate $100 to each participant's charity. Awesome, right? I selected Tree House Humane Society, the no-kill cat shelter where we adopted Dinah 7 years ago.

Here was my outfit for the evening. Pintucked vintage blouse closed with a cameo (from Mel's mom's collection), trousers by Heyday!, saddle shoes purchased last weekend at the Vintage Bazaar, green tweedy vintage jacket, Bakelite and celluloid bangles, a beret knit by me (finished recently, I'll be posting about it soon) and a shrug you can't see in this photo.


(Remember in my sponge roller tutorial I talked about those little pieces of hair that don't play nice? I swear I almost always have one. See my neck.)


There was a nice little spread for us when we arrived.


Mel went as my guest. We enjoyed some wine, got the lay of the land, and then I went to select my top 5.

Not all the vendors were finished setting up, but here's what the main ballroom looked like Friday evening...


And what were my 5 selections? I tried to vary it a bit in terms of items and prices.

A gold tone lucite-handled purse...


A wicker basket purse with a horse's head (dang, I wish I had bought this myself!)...


A first edition of a Nancy Drew book from 1934...


A 60s formica tiered end table...


And a butterscotch-colored jewelry set...


Here I am, writing up my selections!


All in all I was pleased to participate in the event. Almost all of the blue ribbon items sold, and the final donation count (split between the various selected charities) was $3,150! Outstanding! (ETA: I later found out my charity got $150 and all five items I selected sold!)

On the way home Friday evening, I got a couple of really interested city shots to show you. Look at the sky!


Blurry, but I love the train going by on the platform, with downtown in the background...


And one more gratuitous outfit post, once we got home that night...


On Saturday morning, Mel and I went back to the market to actually do some shopping! It started off as a horribly dreary day. This was snapped under the shelter of the train platform as it rained cats and dogs. Outfit details that you can see include the same jacket, a black purse that got a strange amount of compliments that day, a skirt featuring scottie dogs, and wedges formerly owned by Beth of V is for Vintage! The big bag in my left hand is a vintage knitting bag.


Here's a selection of photos of some other neat things we saw around the market.








A pretty good variety. I was so glad that when we went back outside from the indoor portion of the market the sun was shining. It turned out to be a nice day, after all.

Here are a couple more photos from errands later in the day. I love this close-up of Mel's deadstock tie. The jacket was Mel's dad's from college. Family vintage!


Knitting while waiting for Mel to get a haircut...



But... of course you want to know my haul from the market, right?? Well, here's a funny story. While we were there for the Editor's Choice event Friday evening, I saw a pair of shoes that I fell in love with. They were a gorgeous 30s/40s pair, perfect for me, looked to be my size and a beyond reasonable price for the condition. Only, that seller happened not to be at her booth, so I couldn't even attempt to buy them that night. I couldn't stop thinking about them, however. We returned on Saturday morning and when we got there, the shoes were still there! Phew. I tried them on, they fit, and now they're mine! For whatever reason I have had a hard time finding vintage shoes that fit and are comfy (thus I wear a lot of repro shoes), so this was a big score for me. I mean, look at them! They make me so happy.


But it must have been my day for shoes, because I found another pair that I had to have, too. These were a little big (nothing an insole couldn't fix), but the older gentleman selling them was so dapper and gave me a great price, and they were Cuban alligator peep toe pumps, and I rarely wear heels but they were a sturdy and sensible height, and well, I couldn't resist. You can see why.


I also picked up a couple of inexpensive bracelets that I forgot to photograph, but I didn't forget to photograph my last big score, a Pendleton jacket. Now I need another Pendleton like I need a hole in my head, but this one has my perfect pillar box red! Plus I've been starting to wear them occasionally as kind of over-sized blazers to work, and it was a good price and in nearly flawless condition, so it wasn't hard to justify the purchase.


And that's it from Randolph Street Market! But here are a couple of photos from Saturday evening, partially because I love Mel's vintage fisherman sweater and tweed cap so much.



Sunday was much less eventful, spent inside during another rainy day, mostly involving projects I couldn't get off the ground. I was going to finally sit down and sew my Wearing History trousers, having cut out the pieces a few days before, except I realized I didn't have a matching zipper. And then I started a swatch for my Vintage Knitting College kickoff (thanks for all the support!!), except the colors looked horribly 70s once swatched. So not a very productive day for me, unfortunately. Don't you hate it when your best laid plans for your projects are foiled?

Hope you had a nice weekend!

Friday, September 23, 2011

Introducing...Vintage Knitting College

Happy Friday! Thanks for all the positive comments about my sponge roller set tutorial! I'm so happy to know some of my tips may help someone else out there. :)

Today I just have a brief post to unveil an exciting and big new project for my blog: the Vintage Knitting College!

I was chewing on the idea for the Land Girl sweater knit-along after I proposed it ever a couple of weeks ago. There was some interest, but not as a much as I was hoping for, with at least one or two people interested in the idea of the KAL but wanting to do a different pattern. That got me to thinking that it might be better to do something more like a series of posts and tutorials about vintage knitting and colorwork. Out of that (plus my obsession with campus-inspired fashion this Fall) hatched the idea for the Vintage Knitting College!

Basically, it will be a long-term project of instructional posts about knitting, geared towards knitters who knit from vintage patterns. I'm not going to set any specific deadlines, but figure I'll continue to periodically post tutorials and informational posts for the Vintage Knitting College over the next year or longer (possibly including fun things like guest posts and giveaways now and again, too!).

Because my Fall-focused mind is on colorwork knitting right now (fair isle and other stranded projects, as well as intarsia picture knitting), and because it did seem like several of you liked the idea of a fair isle knit-along, I'm going to focus first on vintage colorwork patterns.



In a series of posts over the next several months in a "class" called Colorwork: 101, I'll cover techniques that can be applied to vintage patterns that involve colorwork. Such as converting patterns to knit in the round, steeking, and charting colorwork when the pattern doesn't include charts (many vintage patterns don't include charts for where you change colors, which slows you down like molasses). I'll also probably wax poetic now and again on picking colors with a vintage look in mind, yarn suggestions, and more. And while it looks like from my opening logo that I'll be focusing only on sweaters, I won't! Expect accessories to crop up now and again, too.

Over time I'll probably cover some of the basic concepts I went through in the Briar Rose KAL, such as resizing patterns, creating your own sleeve caps and the like. I hope to have several posts per topic area, like colorwork, basic techniques, advanced techniques, lace and such. This will get fleshed out more thoroughly as I go along. If you can't tell, I'm trying to take this fairly easy, so it remains fun for you and fun for me! :) Expect things to go at a fairly slow pace sometimes as I don't always knit only vintage patterns, and not everything I plan to knit will get documented in the Vintage Knitting College, or I'll never get anything else done. lol

Many of the posts on a given topic will follow through the life of a project. So even though it won't technically be a knit-along, I'll let you know ahead of time what I plan on knitting and instructing on, so if you'd like to follow along with that or a similar project, you are more than welcome to. And depending on interest level, I may start a general Vintage Knitting College Flickr group for people to post inspired-by creations to! I'm hoping over time for this to become a nice resource for vintage knitting, and will probably devote a separate page on the blog just for the knitting college, once it gets rolling.

And the first project on tap? Well, I admit I'm still deciding! But it will be a vintage stranded/fair isle pullover pattern from the 1940s, and possibly one of the ones shown in my logo! Oh speaking of logos, as this gets going I'll create little logos in case you'd like to promote it on your own blog. :)

Phew, I've finally shared my little (well, big!) idea. Do you like the idea of the Vintage Knitting College as an ongoing knitting resource? Let me know via comment or email if you have any suggestions (for colorwork or other knitting). I'd love to hear from you.

Have a great weekend, and happy knitting!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

How I do a late 30s/early 40s sponge roller set (and avoid dents!)

I'm here today to talk about hair!

Now that I've settled into a routine with my haircut at shoulder-length, I thought I'd show you one way I set my hair for a late 1930s/early 1940s look. It's just a nice hairstyle that I think is easy to wear and easy to style. No fuss, no frills. I know over the years I've learned a ton from vintage hair tutorials online, so hopefully this will help someone out there and I can pay it forward. I don't have a video camera yet but I'm working on it, so in the meantime you'll have to make do with photos. Lots and lots of photos. :)

Let me say at the onset that I really admire gals who do full pin curl sets, but my lack of patience combined with fussy, rather fine hair and a bit of laziness thrown in means my preferred method of setting my hair for vintage hairstyles involves sponge rollers (also known as foam rollers). It's quick and it's easy, what can I say.

Sponge rollers sometimes get a bad rap, I think in part because of the tendency they have to leave a dent at the top of each section of curl due to the little plastic bar closure. (People also complain they don't keep their shape, but all you have to do to fix that is get them wet and they'll bounce right back by the time they dry.) I sometimes use perm rods, which I like well enough although they have their own quirks, but I always return to my sponge rollers. I'm going to share my tip for avoiding dents!

This hairstyle will work for shoulder-length hair up to about chin-length hair. You can achieve a somewhat similar look with longer hair, but your whole style will be much fuller and you'll need to do a lot more brushing.

So, let's begin!


A late 30s/early 40s sponge roller set (with no dents!)

Supplies:
  • sponge/foam rollers
  • setting lotion, like Lottabody or Motions Foaming Wrap Lotion
  • a handful of duckbill hair clips
  • hairspray
  • optional: water-based pomade, hair serum or your favorite styling products

I start with freshly washed hair that is mostly dry but still a little damp. If I wet set my hair with completely damp hair it takes forever and a day to dry, so I start the process when my hair is about 75% dry. Though you'll notice during these photos it may look a little more dry as it took awhile to take all the photos!

Even doing this, about the latest in the evening I can start a fresh set from washed hair is about 7pm if I'd like it to be dry by the next morning when I wake up for work. And that's 7pm to be putting the rollers in. Even that is pushing it.

Here's my hair in its normal, slightly damp state. Before I begin, I part my hair the way I want it to be parted when it's styled. You can't really tell but my hair cut is slightly layered. Not like a true middy, but in the spirit of it, with a bit of layers and a U-shape where it's a bit longer in the back than in the front, and is cut parted. (Also, cut by a gal who knows vintage hair.) In case you're curious about the texture of my hair, it's fairly fine but there's a lot of it. And it's really resistant to curls.


I start with my bangs (fringe for non-Americans). I pull back the rest of my hair and leave my bangs loose.


I set my bangs in two rollers, rolling back (away from my face). The rollers I usually use for my bangs are the largest ones I used, and just a hair over 1" in diameter. An absolute requirement at this point is a good setting lotion, so I use either Lottabody in a spray bottle mixed with a little water (about 2/3 Lottabody to 1/3 water is what I use), or Motions Foaming Wrap Lotion. I actually used Motions for the first time in this tutorial after reading the review awhile back by Ashley of LisaFreemontStreet's YouTube Channel. (I've used it since and like it well enough, though have to use it several more times to really get an idea if it works for me.)


I start by pumping a blob of foam about the size of a U.S. quarter (for non-Americans, about the size of hmm... a Hershey's kiss!) into my hand and run it along the entire section of my bangs thoroughly, like you'd use mousse. If you use a spray setting lotion, spritz this section of hair a couple of times until it's a little damp. I run my hands along the section of hair to make sure it's well covered.

I should point out that I do not apply setting lotion over my whole head first, I only apply it to each individual section of hair that I'm working on. That way it doesn't dry before I get to roll it.


(Holy crap, look at my roots and my grays, egads I better fix that!)

I section off the back half of my bangs to roll first. I used a comb in this tutorial but really I just use my fingers. Doesn't have to be precise. The reason I usually use two rollers instead of one is that my bangs are a year's length of growth from Bettie Page style bangs, so there's a lot of hair in my bangs section. One roller usually doesn't seem to work as well for me. Your mileage may vary.


Roll this section back all the way to your head.


Then I take the front half of the bangs and roll them back, too. The reason I roll my bangs back is to get a gentle wave when they fall to the side. My hair is really finicky and if I roll this section of my hair to the side, it just droops. Sometimes I want a tighter curl so if that's the case, I use smaller rollers. Standing pin curls work, too, and you can use a mascara or lipstick tube to form the curl. I learned that trick from Lisa of Snoodlebug's tutorial for a pageboy with a side wave! I sleep on my side a lot so I sometimes crush standing pin curls and the result is hilariously bad, so I tend to roll around a roller.


When done, it looks like this.


I move on to the heavy side of my part, i.e. the side with the most hair. For most of the rest of my head, I use the next size down roller.


I use relatively small sections of hair, no wider than the width of the roller itself. I use small sections partially because my hair will never dry if I don't! I probably end up using about 20 rollers total on most days. That's a lot more than most tutorials I've seen, but it's what works for me. With my hair, less rollers means both increased drying time and decreased curl. Over time you'll learn what your hair needs and you'll fall into a routine.


I start at the top, and coat the hair with setting lotion like I did for my bangs. I roll each section at about a 90 degree angle from my head, i.e. straight out (or slightly lower if my arms are getting tired, ha ha).


I use 3 rollers for the heavy side of my part, the rollers closest to my face above my ear. I roll them all the way to my head. While you can't really tell, the green and yellow rollers are about the same size and I just use them interchangeably... basically whatever I grab first in the bag.


The next row of rollers I do just back from the first row, starting again at the top. You'll notice I don't section off each with a comb, because frankly it just doesn't matter. It's something that slows the process down and I've never noticed a discernible difference. So I don't bother!


I don't roll this all the way to my head because I want a flat crown. So I roll it to a few inches away from the top of my head. I do the same thing for all the topmost rollers. This is considered 'off base'.


For anyone out there who has trouble starting a roller, this is how I do it. I start it a couple of inches up the section of hair, manually wrapping the ends around, then tucking the very ends and rolling up the rest of the section. I find that so much easier than trying to wrap the very ends of your hair around a roller.



Back to this row of rollers. In this row, I use as many rollers as it takes to get to the spot under my ear. Usually it's 4.


Then, and this is just the way I do it, I go over to the other side of my hair and do the lighter side of my part. (Why? No reason in particular, just habit.) Notice I don't roll the top roller here all the way to my head, but leave it hanging a few inches. This is the side I either tuck behind my ear or pin back, so I don't want the curls there, I want it to be flat. If you want this section curly, roll it all the way to your head. I use 2 rollers on this side. You could use 3 for more curl.


Then I move to the row behind this row. And just the same as on the other side of my head, I use as many rollers as it takes to get me to the spot under my ear. In this case it was 4, although I took the photo before I put in the 4th roller under my ear. Again, the topmost roller is not rolled all the way to my head but the ones below it are.


Now I do the rest of my hair in the back. There's really not that much left, enough for two more vertical rows of rollers. (You can see the insane cowlick I have on the back right side of my head, ugh.)

This photo really shows you how the topmost rollers on either side are off base (i.e. not rolled all the way to my head). Plus you can see my horrible cowlick/whorl.


I do 3 or 4 rows of rollers going from top to bottom but leave the very bottom section of my hair free.


On this section I use a slightly smaller roller. Honestly I'm not really sure if it matters that much, but it was a habit I got into when I had really short hair and didn't have enough length at the nape of my neck for larger rollers.


And ta da, all the rollers are in. At this point if any are flopping around too much or don't seem tight enough, I'll adjust them.


Now this next part is how I prevent the dreaded dents that sponge rollers are famous for! It's so easy, too.

All you need is a handful of duckbill hair clips.


There are different kinds, so be sure to use the ones that are smooth and don't have grippy teeth. For American readers, you can get a box of 12 (more than you'll need for this tutorial) for under $4 at Sally Beauty.


On the top layer of rollers (all the ones off base) and any rollers used in my bangs, I grasp the roller lightly.


I rotate the little bar that closes the roller from the top down to the bottom. It moves freely.


I take a duckbill clip in my other hand and open it slightly, then insert it into my hair at the bottom of the roller, keeping the closure bar of the roller between the prongs of the clip.


And this is what it looks like once inserted. (Note: you can see here I already have a little dent at the top of this roller. That's because my hair was already drying with the rollers in due to the time it took to take all the photos. Usually that does not happen. But if it takes you a long time to put your rollers in, I'd suggest inserting the clip as soon as you put each roller in.)


I repeat the procedure for the topmost row of rollers, i.e. the rollers closest to my crown (the ones that are off base). It's not necessary to do this for any rows of rollers underneath as the top curls will fall on top of them, preventing any dents from showing. I use a clip on the 2 rollers in my bangs, the top roller on each side, and the top row of rollers across the back. 8 total for me.

(You can see in the photo below behind my ear got a little wonky, which I later straightened out.)


It only adds a minute to my routine and produces a much smoother set! And because the clips are inserted into the setting pattern I don't even notice them in my hair while sleeping. However if you find them uncomfortable, you can try this method with double prong clips or bobby pins. Just know it's a lot more difficult to keep the roller in place due to the shorter length of the clip/pin and lack of hair to really attach them to (since it's all up in the rollers). I love the duckbill clips because they are long enough to just slide right in with no effort whatsoever.

If you're doing a different type of setting pattern, say where the rollers are placed lower on your head for less curl, you can of course still use the clips. It also works with the little elastic on perm rods, if you find those dent, too.

As a last step, I push down slightly with both hands on the top layer of rollers across my crown, which helps contribute to the flat crown that you want with this kind of vintage set.


That's it! Then all I do is wrap my rollers loosely in a scarf, taking care to tie it behind the rollers in my bangs. I don't tie the scarf over all the rollers because I think it adds to the drying time, personally. (Half the time I don't even bother with a scarf.)



Then I go about my day or night. I usually set my hair in the early evening and sleep on it, taking the rollers out the next morning. It looks something like this after the rollers are out.


But the curls are not usually this tight! I ended up letting my hair dry much longer than normal so it resulted in really tight curls. I set it one morning, then took the rollers out the next morning, which is unusual for me. Normally I set it overnight.

You can also see I don't have any noticeable deep dents from the sponge rollers.


I start with my bangs. I brush them with a few passes of a hairbrush, brushing away from my face.


I grab the hair near the base of my head at the point where I want the hair to make a slight wave down to the rest of my face, and brush the curl forwards (towards my face).


I insert 1 or 2 duckbill clips backwards so the curved part is facing forward, place the curl how I'd like it, then hairspray the dickens out of this section. I leave the clips in as long as I can and usually will hairspray it again before taking them out, for good measure. A few minutes is okay, but longer is better, especially if you have fine hair. (A special note: so far, I find Lottabody leaves my bangs a better texture to perform this little wave trick than Motions.)


And then I brush the rest of my hair. My technique for this particular style results in tighter curls, not that full. To achieve this, I do not brush the curls all the way through like I would for a softer style (which is actually more my daily style).

I only brush until I feel resistance with my hairbrush, a couple of inches before the bottom of my hair. I do the same all the way around my head.



Sometimes when I'm brushing, I'll see a curl that hang a little lower than its neighbors. For pesky curls like that I grab that section of hair towards the bottom and brush the curl under, towards the nape of my neck. Usually that works to tame it.

Now if I have a really droopy curl or a little section that just said "pffffft, I'm not curling no matter what you do to me!", I just pin it to the base of my neck with two crossed bobby pins. No one will ever be the wiser. I try and always have bobby pins on me when I'm out because it never fails that on a day when your hair looks perfect, you pass yourself in a mirror and suddenly see an errant curl. (Little buggers.)


On the light side of my part, I use my hand to smooth down the hair above my ear a bit.


Sometimes, I'll use a bobby pin.


When I think the duckbill clips have been in my hair long enough, I take them out. Now we were actually leaving the house shortly after I did this part of the tutorial so I was only able to let the clips sit in my hair for a few minutes. Thus the wave didn't really hold, as you can see below.


While it looks fine, I know my hair well enough to know that within about an hour, that will droop and bug me. So on days like this, I just use a barrette. A perfectly appropriate addition to this hairstyle, anyway, and actually how I usually wear it during the work week.


Now this particular style doesn't involve a lot of brushing, so sometimes I find that a few of my curls want to cling to one another and revert back to Shirley Temple-style locks. If that's the case, I just use my fingers to break them up a bit, because too much brushing will soften the look of this style more than I want.


The last step? I use a little bit of pomade and a tiny tab of hair serum to tame my frizzies, running my hands over my hair with a bit on my palms. (I'm still working on a routine to tame my frizz, and actually recently realized you're supposed to use the serum when your hair is damp, not dry. I'll be trying that out soon because oh, how my hair loves to frizz.)


That's it! The actual brushing and styling of this look probably takes 5 minutes at the most! Super easy!

Now what do I do when it's time for bed?

Some people are able to sleep on curls and wake up the next day with decent second day hair, but not me. (I do it on occasion when I'm truly feeling lazy, but I'm always sorry the next day and my hair ends up back in a wide barrette at the base of my neck.)

So what I do is brush all my hair out thoroughly, then roll it back up in rollers, just running the slightest bit of water over each section of hair when I put each roller back in (don't forget the duckbill clips). I usually dip my fingertips in a small bowl of water and run them along each section as I roll. If for some reason the day was particularly humid or I was out in the rain and my curls really fell quite a bit, I'll add a bit more setting lotion that night to help the curls along overnight. In this manner this set can last 3 days for me with the curls most relaxed on the 3rd day. That's the longest I can stretch it as my hair gets oily quickly and the crown of my head starts looking bad due to aforementioned cowlick. :)

And just a couple more photos on how it looked before I left the house.



And from a different day, here's the exact same set and styling using Lottabody setting lotion instead of Motions Foaming Wrap Lotion and sleeping on the rollers overnight after setting it that evening. This was taken several hours into the day and is more representative of how this usually looks on me.








If you like the style but want your curls more loose and full or brushing like this doesn't cut it for your hair (everyone's hair plays differently), simply brush through the curls all the way, holding each section of your hair at about earlobe-level when brushing the ends. This helps prevent the style from getting too poofy. I like to do that with either a bamboo or a plastic bristle brush as my boar bristle brush isn't strong enough to work through the curls efficiently (I have fine hair but lots of it). I'm hoping to do a video tutorial on that once I get my video camera and figure out how to use it!

Anyway, there you have it. My version of a late 30s/early 40s sponge roller set and my first hair tutorial. :)

Happy setting!