Why it's warm inside my boots

I love living in a four-season climate, but I don't love being cold. This winter I've been working on making myself warm in ways that don't make me look like a marshmallow. Don't get me wrong, I know there will still be some days I can't avoid looking like this. But I'm determined to look like the Michelin man as few days as possible this winter. As it gets colder I hope to do a post on how I'm layering to keep warm.

One trick I've learned to help keep the cold away from stocking- or tights-clad legs is socks hidden inside boots.

And now, my boots (this pair are Miss L Fire Havanas) hold a warm little secret tucked inside.

Because I knit wool ankle socks. Store bought cotton socks don't cut it when it's cold. Wool wicks moisture and retains heat at the same time.

Since no one can see them, why shouldn't they be pink and black stripes with silver sparkles?

Of course the answer is naturally, they should be.

(the silver sparkles kind of read as white bits in the photos, sorry)

Knitting socks is very satisfying. They're a great project to take on the go (even small enough to stuff in some vintage purses), they work up relatively quick even on tiny needles, and are good projects for confident beginners. There are tons of free basic sock patterns out there for every weight of yarn, and you'll even find sock patterns in many vintage knitting booklets.

The yarn I used was self-striping, so no extra ends to weave in to make all those stripes! Look online and you'll find tons of dyers creating self-striping yarn. For the ribbing, heels and toes I just used plain black, in a nylon/merino/cashmere blend because a) it adds a bit more warmth but mostly because b) that's what I had in my stash.



Remember if you plan to wear socks inside your boots, look for boots a half or full size larger than you'd normally wear so your feet aren't cramped. Maybe even bigger if you want extra thick socks.

Don't knit? Buy washable wool socks. It's hard to find ones that don't have a longer cuff, but they do exist, like these by SmartWool. Or simply fold the cuff down. If they tend to sneak back up, use tiny safety pins. If you can't quite hide them in your boots and are wearing dark opaque tights, try putting them on underneath, it may not be noticeable that way.

Don't suffer cold toes for the sake of vintage fashion! Frostbite isn't attractive in any era.

Stay tuned later this week for a free vintage sock pattern so you can quickly knit up your own!

Winter footwear

I know I'm not the only vintage lover struggling through Winter. It's a miserable season for vintage clothing and style. During the week I'm commuting in ugly but necessary winter boots. Half the time on the weekends I haven't been able to avoid them much, either. They aren't cute. They aren't stylish. They are winter boots. They keep me warm and dry, that's about all I can say for them.

I've been determined lately to step up my game a notch and break out of my trousers-and-overalls-only wardrobe. Bad time of the year to decide that, huh? I've seen a lot of dresses with tights and boots out there in the vintage blogging world, and thought I'd give it a whirl myself.  The only thing stopping me was the boots. Or lack thereof. I needed something new, something that could moderately work well with vintage clothes, and something not so expensive that if I stepped into a puddle I wouldn't want to sit on the curb and cry.

I don't even want to think about how many hours I spent on sites like Zappos and Endless in the last couple of weeks. I was looking for something with little to no heel, that maybe had a bit of a 30s or early 40s feel. Little black ankle boots. Nothing fancy. Hours and hours I looked through atrociously ugly black ankle boots, getting more and more frustrated and starting to curse why I didn't live closer to the Equator. And then I found them!

They even had an extra plus that I hadn't been expecting: a faux fur cuff that folds over. It reminded me a lot of the 1940s fur-lined boots that Fleur of Diary of a Vintage Girl posted back in December. She also showed a few pair of repro styles that were similar, but no way would they work in my climate. This pair is much more sensible. They have a rubber sole and the sides can be worn up, for a little extra warmth. They are synthetic, so I imagine they'll be fairly easy to clean off. And the inside is lined with a leopard print flannel-like fabric. Cute inside and out.

They were $42 at Endless. They also sell them in olive and brown, though sadly the brown ("Chestnut") is out of stock in my size 6 otherwise I'd snap them up too (I did look for them on other sites with no luck). I'll be giving them a test run tonight. We're meeting friends to play board games at a pub. If they work out I may very well order another black pair to keep stored for when I wear these out, so I don't have to go through this entire ordeal again anytime soon.

I'm all set in my outfit for tonight. I'm wearing a vintage shirtwaist dress I've never worn before, in pale gray, green and pink plaid, with a bit of darker machine embroidery as one of the plaid stripes.

The sweater is one a friend recently knit me. I adore it. It's a longer length, like some of the cardigans I've seen pop up occasionally in my stash of knitting pattern booklets from the 1940s. It was knit from yarn in my stash that I sent her. I initially spent forever trying to decide on a color, and finally just picked this to get it over with. I regretted it for awhile, thinking it wasn't a color that would fit into my wardrobe well, but when I got the finished sweater I was totally wrong. It goes with so much!

Here's what my hair looks like from the back. I really need a few more wide barrettes as I've been wearing my hair like this a lot. That's a handmade wooden one I got on Etsy.

It might look a little odd that I'm carrying a yellow purse, but I think it works. Especially because of the ridiculous buttons on the dress.

That's the only thing about the dress that needs work. I'm not sure if you can tell from the photo but the buttons are just downright bizarre! I'm assume at some point in the history of this pretty little dress, a previous owner lost one or more of the buttons, so they replaced them with these strange yellow, blue, white and red plastic ones that look like they're supposed to mimic millefiori. I don't have any buttons the right size right now, and really wanted to wear the dress anyway, so I just ran with it.

 And now I'm ready to win at Pictionary tonight. I'll let you know how it goes!

More sewing with pets

Okay, what are my pets trying to tell me this week?! First it was Pia and the muslin, now it's Dinah and the sewing machine.

Apparently she, too, is eager to find out how the collar will work out on my muslin (see previous post). I just sat down to work on it and suddenly there she was.

You can just get a little glimpse of one of my prized possessions in the background, which I hope to photograph in detail sometime when the sun comes back (I'm thinking that'll be about April). It's a vintage hutch that we got last Fall from one of my favorite antique malls in Chicago. In the meantime it'll have to remain a bit of a mystery, but you can just make out some of my collections... jadite plates, my snappy snail Enesco teapot, salt and pepper shakers and sugar bowl, my primrose Fire King and several pieces of green depression glass that I've inherited from my step-grandmother. (Can you inherit something when someone is still alive? That sounded awkward. She gave them to me. There, that's better!)

I can't wait until it's the season when it's daylight when I get home from work again. I sure hate never being able to take any decent photos! Okay, the Artic weather isn't so great, either...