Outfits for going out on the town

Happy Thursday!

I thought I'd share a couple of my outfits from the long 4th of July holiday weekend. We ran lots of errands and ate yummy food out all weekend. These were my outfits on Sunday.

Now, you've already seen my new restyled shorts, but I took them out on the town for another spin!

Outfit details: Clarks sandals, a style that I still regret not buying in every single color (and a spare pair to boot!) when they were being sold a couple of years ago, Bakelite bangles in red and navy, a wicker basket purse Mel got me for our anniversary earlier this year, and my hand sewn feedsack blouse. It was one of my first projects when I started to get into sewing last summer. It was from a late 50s or early 60s pattern for a sleeveless shell that was a size too small, so it was my first go at resizing a sewing pattern. The shoulders are too wide on me, so I have to pin my bra straps in. Plus for some reason I inserted a side seam invisible zipper with a hook and eye closure under my armpit. Who can reach a hook and eye under their armpit? Certainly not me, so I always need help getting into and out of it. But despite the minor flaws I'm still pretty proud of it, and the fabric (chickens and flowers!) is fantastic. This is the fabric that made me fall head over heels over feedsacks.

My second outfit was from later that evening, when we went out to one of our favorite restaurants, Mon Ami Gabi. We had only been to the location in Las Vegas, but the one in Chicago proved to be just as good if not better. Just divine!

Outfit details: my hand knit Briar Rose sweater from my knit-along, skirt from Knee Deep Vintage in Chicago (the skirt that I actually based my color yarn selection for Briar Rose on, even though this was the first time I wore them together!), black wedges, wide plastic bangle and (not that you can really tell) What Katie Did seamed stockings. I love them but was sad to find their nude is darker than, well, my nude. Any suggestions for more pale seamed stockings? I don't think of myself as super pale but in the daylight you can definitely tell these are too dark on me.

Hope you have been enjoying your week!

Birthday weekend round-up Part 2, Instagram style

Part two of my weekend round-up, this time in Instagram photos. There's no narration for these, you already got the main round-up so you can fill in the blanks. I just love the old feel this app gives photos (when it works right). It's so much fun to tinker with!

 I hope to have a mini tutorial on making vintage-inspired earrings up a bit later this week, stay tuned!

Birthday weekend round-up Part 1

After work on Friday, we picked up two of our close friends and hit the road, heading to southwestern Wisconsin to spend a couple of nights in Dodgeville.

Saturday morning we headed "downtown" (since I live in Chicago, quotation marks are definitely needed when talking about the downtown of a town of 4,000) in search of coffee, tea and breakfast goodies. I wore my Freddie's overalls (they were my weekend staple), a vintage cowboy shirt, some Bakelite bangles and a wicker purse, which is the reason I'm no longer fretting about a brown purse for VLV right now. See? Brown lucite handle and accents on the front. Suitably brown enough for now.

First day of spring

Happy spring, to those of you up here in the Northern Hemisphere!

Yesterday morning we decided it was the first weekend day that was nice enough to kick off the outdoor season for us. We love going to state parks and forest preserves for day trips and start doing that before it's really warm enough to go camping. I looked for a park close to the Wisconsin border since we also had an ulterior motive: drive to Kenosha, get lunch at a favorite Italian grocery store, Tenuta's, and pick up some New Glarus beer and lambic (only sold in the state of Wisconsin, something many Illinois neighbors lament).

We decided on the Raven Glen Forest Preserve. There were only a few other cars in the parking lot when we arrived which is just our speed. Partially because we're sticks in the mud and like to commune with nature on our own, and partially because Pia acts like a turd whenever she sees other dogs, so taking her on a hike where we're constantly passing other people walking dogs is not exactly relaxing.

It was delightful! It was a chilly and clear day, and you could really see the potential for spring everywhere you walked. I love that time between the end of winter and the beginning of spring, when nothing is really green yet except a few buds, it's still kind of drab out, but you just know what's coming.

It also marked the beginning of Cowichan season. Yay!

I absolutely love Cowichan sweaters. With a Pendleton underneath, a scarf, and knee high wool socks in my wellies, it was just the right outfit for the day.

The forest preserve was lovely. There was a nice gently rolling gravel trail and an equestrian trail. Since there weren't any horses out, we meandered between the two. This shot below was taken from the equestrian trail, looking at a grassy wetland in the middle of the park.

The trail went alongside a lake. It was still partially frozen, which you can see in the photos below.

It was a little windy out on one of the fishing piers. I like how my hair is blowing one way and Pia's is blowing the other way. (Like her hand knit sweater?)

I like this photo because it looks like I'm on a farm or something. Hee!

The sky was so blue! Eeven though the prairie was still rather desolate, we could tell how beautiful this place would be in the coming months. (Though a controlled burn will come before that stage.)

Look at the little tongue!

Remnants of last year's Queen Anne's lace...

After a hike in the park we headed to Kenosha. This was our sandwich. Yes, ours. We shared. Would you believe this was the SMALL size??

We were a little hungry, so we didn't wait until we got home to dive in. (I'm starting to think I need a category on this blog for novelty sized food and drink. Clearly it's a reoccurring theme.)

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Weekend round-up

This weekend flew by! I didn't even have any time to knit or sew. Yesterday was the first time we were able to see Mel's parents to exchange (obviously belated) Christmas gifts, so we had them over for lunch. Then like entertaining superheros, we turned right around and hosted an impromptu gathering with some of our friends last night.

Our friend Jen made yummy bruschetta. I was going to make our popular roasted garbanzo bean snack and then post the recipe here, but we decided there was already enough food, so you'll have to wait for that another time. ;)

Emma, who's from Wales, brought back a bottle of the Welsh whiskey Penderyn when she was home over Christmas.

Mel was trying to decide what it smelled like before tasting. The whiskey drinkers among our circle of friends (which does not include me) gave it a thumbs up.

This is me in our very plain jane kitchen. I really want to paint it and spruce it up but it's a small galley kitchen, so there's not much to work with. I have a few plans in my head rolling around, though.

I'm crap about doing outfit posts, so all I can really tell you about the above outfit is the overalls are from Jitterbugin made with a vintage wool plaid. I wish I had several more pair in solid colors for winter! The plaid is fun but kind of limiting to just the right blouse, so the scalloped peter pan collared one I'm wearing is literally the only one I have that I can wear with them right now.

After all the flurry of entertaining yesterday, we had a lazy morning and then went thrifting. Sadly we came up completely empty. To add insult to injury, there were two potentially great finds that weren't meant to be!

Great find that wasn't meant to be #1: a boxed set of 78s of Bing Crosby singing cowboy songs. I absolutely adore Bing Crosby and we both love anything cowboy-related, so at first glance this really excited us. Then Mel opened it up... and it wasn't any of the right albums. Curses!

Great find that wasn't meant to be #2: a vintage woman's Pendleton jacket in pastel blue with a light yellow, peach and brown plaid. I love a good Pendleton. Sadly, this wasn't a good Pendleton. Well it was at some point in its life, but those days were long gone. Now it had lots of stains, dozens of small holes and only one button. So disappointing! My only consolation was that someone obviously loved this jacket, and loved it hard, for a long, long time.

After the crummy thrift store experience we had an early Sunday dinner at a favorite haunt, the Lincoln Restaurant. Basically a big diner with several rooms, lots of wood paneling and Abraham Lincoln memorabilia. One neat thing about this place is they host un-diner-like events, like a Monday Banjo night, a Saturday night free speech forum, and comedy nights.

We found out about the free speech forum in 2006 on accident, when we went there with friends prior to a Halloween party. Someone happened to be speaking about gun control laws in the front room. There we were in the back room, dressed like Bonnie and Clyde, fake guns and all. What miscreants!
The Lincoln also has really good food. Oh, and Cokes the size of your head.

I swear I don't make it a habit of consuming odd things like tiki drinks and Coca Cola out of beer steins, though the last two weekends may lead you to believe otherwise.

Now we're just relaxing and watching documentaries.

Hope you had a lovely weekend like we did!