Eielson Jet Sweater

 

I’m very proud of this particular project representing my current home in Alaska! Alaskan-dyed wool, fighter jets, and snowflakes--what more could I need?!

Controversial Post: Wearing Military Garments?

Military uniforms have influenced civilian fashion since uniforms have existed! There's something about the design and meaning of military uniforms that continues to inspire people all over the world. But who can wear them, and when is it appropriate?

Women's Equality Day & The Skirted Soldier

In the U.S., today is Women's Equality Day! I'm celebrating by looking back at women who paved the way and trying out some new tea flavors from The Skirted Soldier, a female veteran-owned business named for women of the past that stood up and proved themselves when their country needed them.

Home Sweet Mountain Home Air Force Base

In this post I've linked to my Spoonflower shop. I'm not officially partnering with Spoonflower, but if you buy any of my fabric designs I do receive a percentage of the profits as a designer. This money helps me buy coffee, fabric, hats and supports my blogging habit; you all know how it goes!

I've long complained about the uninspired quality of modern military-themed fabrics. Particularly compared to the creative and beautiful patriotic prints of the 1940s, they're pretty icky and there aren't a lot of options.

It was finally time to stop complaining and DO something about it!

1940s Air Force Shirt

I'm pausing the #vintagedecemberstyle to share this Air Force themed shirt I made and wore on my birthday. As I said in a previous post, my measurements are changing. It's been a good catalyst to delve into sewing knits! This is my second project with a knit (the first will be posted later), and I'm pretty pleased with it.  This outfit is also a good example of a casual, vintage-inspired look that I wear often. I love vintage, but I also really love skinny jeans!

Veterans Day & Eagle Sweater

Happy Veterans Day!  In the US we're honoring the men and women that have served and who are currently serving in our armed forces.  If that is any of you, thank you.  You're an asset to our country. 

1940s Victory Suit

This past Veterans Day was the best one I've ever had!  It was my first time spending the day with other military community members, and it was extra meaningful and fun.  My husband is an Air Force officer currently in a military chaplaincy program at a seminary, and we spent the morning in a chapel service.  We sang old hymns, recognized veterans and current service members, and heard a message from a high-ranking general.  It was full of beautiful music, meaningful content, and symbolic tradition.  All of the program members were dressed in their finest uniforms and looking spiffy!

A V-J Day Blouse

In case you didn't know, V-J day (the day marking Allied victory in Japan in WWII) was yesterday!  I happened to have made one of my most 'Merican shirts ever, so I took the opportunity to wear it, of course!  (And you saw it on the day I debuted my Smooth Sailing trousers, too!)

I used a 40s shirt pattern I have now made up several times (you can see my first version and pattern details here), but it turned out a bit blousier than I thought it would.  My first version doesn't seem to have this much ease, but it's also made by a thin, drapey cotton, which may explain it.  The fabric I used here is thicker, and I can't remember for the life of me exactly what it is content-wise. Obviously, I bought it for the print!

I saw this fabric at Joann a while ago and liked the Air Force theme and WWII symbols included.  I paired it with some gold US seal buttons with the classic eagles for a completely and utterly 'MERICA look.  My husband laughed when he saw it, but he knows I'm very patriotic.  I especially like to wear my patriotism as a fashionable garment.

However, the pattern is really busy.  I had the idea to do a contrast collar, but since the lower section of the collar and the blouse are cut in one piece, I figured it would be more work than I wanted to do. When I laid out the pieces on my fabric, though… I was short. Barely. (Isn't that how it ALWAYS works?!) To fix this, I made the blouse front facings into separate pieces cut of solid navy cotton. Although I wish I could say I was totally intentional about the contrast collar, it wasn't until I had sewn the facings on and flipped the collar section down that I realized it looked like a contrast collar with the fashion fabric "binding" the edge. I decided to run with it and cut a new navy collar which I edged in the 'Merica fabric.  It took some finagling to get things to fit and line up perfectly, but I'm pleased with the result!

Just as I couldn't tame the patriotism on this shirt, I couldn't tame the "more is more" that I usually try to suppress in favor of classiness. When I saw I had miniature gold eagle buttons in my stash that matched… I felt a sleeve accent coming on.  I added the buttons and navy triangles to each sleeve, and oilá! The shirt was done!

Not everything on the fabric is accurate as far as the art goes, but I've found it difficult to find a 100% accurate military fabric that isn't fleece or a straight up armed forces seal.  Not that I don't like the seals… but they aren't very artistic. (In fact, the one Air Force fleece that Joann carries right now… We already have in a blanket. NEW FABRICS, PLEASE.)  In fact, most of the Air Force fabric options available right now are aesthetically icky. Go ahead, google it now and see.

I've found some great WWII patriotic fabrics on Spoonflower though, so I think I'm going to build up my patriotic blouse collection!  One can never have too many of those, in my opinion!

Outfit details:
blouse: made by me, Simplicity 4762
trousers: made by me, Wearing History "Smooth Sailing" trousers
lipstick: F21

Aaaaaand, a side note, we're having a vintage chat this Thursday!  Brittany of Va-Voom Vintage and Lisa of Retro Housewife Goes Green will be hosting it with me, and we'd love to have lots of people join in!  Spread the word, and let's have fun talking vintage!

(If you'd like to follow me on Twitter, you can do that here!)

1940s Sweetheart Jewelry (and a Chronically Vintage Coupon!)

1940s flowered sweetheart bracelet, available here

As the wife of an Air Force veteran and possibly having military aspirations for the future myself, World War II sweetheart jewelry has a very special place in my heart.

Imagine it.  You're a senior in high school when the war breaks out, and the boy you've been going steady with takes you to a quiet place one evening, holds your hand, and tells you that he's enlisted in the military.  He's going to war in just a couple weeks.  Then he pulls out a bracelet.  It's a special bracelet, a locket, and it has his picture in it.  He asks if you'll wait for him.

Back then, there were no computers.  There was no email, no Skype, no easy inter-continental communication.  There were phones on the front line, but they were not used to call your family.  They were carried on the back of a man that had to shout over the whistling of bombs to give and receive orders the men on the front needed to know.

You had mail, sometimes.  It came slow, it came sporadically, it came with huge chunks censored out.  You tried to be brave, upbeat, and positive in your letters to your loved ones, your boyfriend, fiancé, brother, father, uncle, friend.  You were brave for the boys on the front.

You couldn't hear from your man every day, but you prayed and thought of him all the time.  You knitted socks to send to him and his friends, and you opened up the locket he gave you a few times a day just to see his face again.  It was hard, but you stayed true and brave, holding things down at home until he could return.

This is why I love sweetheart jewelry.

It represents strong women- mothers, sisters, wives, and friends- who stood by the men at war.  They supported the war effort at home and equipped the boys at the front.  These women took the worry, anxiety, and fear they had and turned it into hopeful productivity.  They ran their homes and businesses alone until the men came back.  Sweetheart jewelry helped keep them going.  Sweetheart jewelry reminded each of these women that she was loved by a man far away that couldn't wait to get back to her, and that was worth the hardship of the moment.  {Tweet this}

1940s sweetheart locket bracelet, available here

If you, like me, love sweetheart jewelry, the bracelets highlighted above are available at the Chronically Vintage Etsy Shop now!  Jessica's shop is full of fantastic vintage pieces, and you're sure to find one you adore!

She has also made a coupon code just for you, awesome readers!  This coupon will give you 25% off any purchase until November 23rd: Flashback25

Do you have any sweetheart jewelry that has a great story and/or is near and dear to your heart?  Please share it with me; I'd love to hear about it!

Wedding Pictures #2!

Today I have a follow up of my first wedding photo post!  These are from the lovely Ashley Edwards, the second shooter at my wedding (and also a friend from my dorm hall), of Ashley Brooke Edwards Photography.  She got some good experience working with my friend Noor at my wedding, and she's producing fabulous photos!  Here are some of the wonderful pictures she shot:

Some of you may recognize the band in a photo below: Sarah Jane & the Blue Notes!  They were AMAZING!  They look vintagely fabulous, their musicianship is incredible, and they were great to work with, very flexible and very kind.  They even learned "Faithful Forever" by Glen Miller just so Jacob and I could have it played live during our first dance, which was so good of them!  I highly recommend them for any of your upcoming events in the St. Louis area!

My grandparents in their '40 Ford my grandpa has restored, also our getaway car for the day!

Jacob and the bros

Hands off ladies, he's mine! 

Didn't my mom look great?!  She pin curled her hair and wore a real 1940s dress for the occasion, and rocked it!

This was my going away outfit!  I'll have more shots of it for you in the next wedding picture post!

Instead of a father-daughter dance, my father and I did a crane folding ceremony, as in folding Japanese origami cranes.  My dad showed me how to do it when I was very little, and it's been a "thing" of ours ever since.  It was much more meaningful than a dance.

Here was the table at the front of the church for cards, gifts, and signing our wedding poster instead of a guest book! 

Jacob pinning on his mom's corsage

Sarah Jane & the Blue Notes!

We decorated the tables simply with vintage linens, fresh flowers in old jars and vases, candies, paper cranes folded by my father, and pictures of Jacob's and my relatives who had served in the military back in the day.

Wedding Pictures, First Post!

I finally have some wedding photos to share with all of you, taken by my friend Noor!  These are from our nuptials on May 10 this year, and it was fantastic!  It was a wonderful week (besides getting very, very sick) that involved graduating and spending time with family and friends before the big day.

I wore an authentic late 1940s dress, and Jacob, of course, wore his Air Force uniform.  My grandpa kindly lent us his 1940s Ford (which was his first car he ever had) to drive away in and use in photos.

Many thanks to all the other fabulous friends and family members that helped make our day so memorable and wonderful!  We hugely appreciated it!

(And, in case you missed it, here was our engagement video!)

Save the Date Video!

My maid of honor and best friend, Maureen, created the FABULOUS Save-the-Date video below for Jacob and I!  While shooting in frigid, wind-tunnel conditions, she made this amazingness.

And, yes, these are both original, real 1940s outfits!  They are both answers to prayer, too (yes, I do pray for these things), an example of the fact that God answers even our smallest prayers.  I've included the story about them below!

It's long, but here's the story:

I obviously really love the 1940s, and I wanted to incorporate it into our wedding theme and engagement photos/video.  I also wanted to acknowledge Jacob's military service in the Air Force and my goals of joining soon as well.  Thus, I thought a great combo would be to find a World War II Army Air Force uniform.  (The Air Force as a separate branch was not created in the U.S. until after WWII.)  However, as any re-enactor would know, these uniforms are difficult to find.  They are not only WWII uniforms, but the uniform has to be Army, and then it has to from a specialized unit in the Army that was part of the Air Force.  And then it has to be in wearable condition with enough pieces to be historically accurate.  And Jacob's size. And it has to be within my price range.  Dang.

I searched and found pieces here and there in flea markets, but never anything Air Force and never anything Jacob's size.  I was losing hope.  I checked online, and it was frightening how expensive even just the Eisenhower-style jackets are.  Really losing hope.  So I prayed a prayer that sounded something like this, "God, I know this is kind of dumb, and it's not important in the whole giant scheme of things when eternity is taken into consideration, but.... I would really like a WWII uniform for Jacob.  It doesn't even have to be a very nice one, it could just be the shirt and pants and I could make up with the rest.  It would be really cool to use it in our engagement photos and I would basically melt inside with happiness at how historically accurate they are, but I realize it's kind of a vain thing to ask for in comparison to all the issues in the world.... but it would still be really amazing.  I know you can do it, God, and I would really appreciate it.  But if it's not meant to be, it's okay.  It's just something I would like, but it isn't something I need.  You've provided the totally awesome man, and that's quite enough right there."

Then last summer I went to a flea market in Michigan with my grandmother, and as I rummaged through I turned a corner and......... GASPED.  Peeking out from the corner, I saw a clothing rack.  And I saw the outline of little 8 with wings. 

"THAT'S A WWII AIR FORCE PATCH," I thought to myself.

I ran over and nearly fainted.  It was a full WWII.... Army.... Air Force..... OFFICER.... Complete..... Wearable..... uniform.... IN. JACOB'S. SIZE.

And you know what was next to it?  A 1940s HAWAIIAN PRINT DAY DRESS IN EXACTLY MY SIZE (even length)!!!  It belonged to a woman who bought it on her honeymoon to Hawaii in the 1940s.  AAAAAAA!  Provenance!  

I just had to stand there and hug them for a second (quite literally) while my grandma asked what it was, and I elatedly explained my plan for photos and stuff.  Next I looked at the price, and although very reasonable, it was beyond my budget.  My grandma stepped in and offered to buy both pieces as an early engagement gift.  Needless to say..... I was/am very grateful!

I told the shop owner that the uniform was for an Air Force vet (you'll see why in a second), and he took off some money to leave the entire uniform at the price of....

Just guess.

EIGHTY DOLLARS.

It has a tie, two two-point caps, two shirts, pants, and the Eisenhower jacket.  They all belonged to the same man at whose estate sale this flea market owner bought the uniform.  This man's brother's uniform is in a museum.  That's how nice it is.

Now if that weren't amazing enough, keep reading.  Jacob HATES the two-point style caps (which are still worn today, much to Jacob's chagrin), so I set out to look for a "bus driver" style for him.  I found the one in a video in a flea market in Springfield a few weeks later!  Oh, and it's an officer's hat and, from my research, I am 98% sure it is a "crusher cap", a style of cap created for airplane pilots and crews that was made to be "crushed" and put in a pocket or worn under headphones.  These hats can sell for $300 apiece, and this one was $30.  Wow.

Now all this long story to say, isn't God good?  I know there are much more important things in the world that he didn't have to answer my dumb engagement photo prayer, but you know what?  He did.  'Cuz he can, and that's the kind of God he is.  Some people would call it a coincidence, but.... go ahead and look for a complete WWII officer's Army Air Force uniform in a size 32-33, with insignia, of a man who was deployed, in nearly perfect condition with a $30 crusher hat, and find it at exactly the right time in a tiny corner of a random flea market in the boondocks of Michigan near where my family happens to live so you can examine it in person before buying--Oh, and make it $80--and tell me how easy it was to find, how coincidental the whole thing is.  God is good.  'Nuff said.

Veteran's Day in the U.S.

Mrs. Eloise J. Ellis

In the U.S. and other countries around the world, men and women have honorably served in the armed forces.  Today in the U.S. it's Veterans' Day, the day that we honor our service members, both past and present.  Formerly known as Armistice Day, or the day that officially ended World War I, it marks the anniversary of the end of the first modern war and also the formation of a new kind of veteran.

Our modern veterans have faced a myriad of challenges that would have been unimaginable to past generations, but they have risen to these challenges.  Take a moment to thank a veteran or current military person today!

Below I've included some ways to thank these people you may have in your lives.  Use your best judgment and knowledge of the person to determine how you thank them because, just like everyone else, veterans are all different and will appreciate some acts of gratitude more than others!

5 Ways to Thank a Veteran:

- Ask to hear his or her story and write it down, film, or record it for future generations.

- Buy him or her a nice steak dinner.  (I find that good food, in general, is a great way to thank someone!)

- Write a heartfelt card thanking her for her service.

- Give medals, ribbons, flags, awards, etc. a proper display case.

- See if he or she has any military buddies they haven't seen in a while, and bring them in for a party or visit.

5 Ways to Thank an Active Duty/ Deployed Serviceperson:

- Send him a box of beef jerky.  (No joke, this is a high-demand item.)

- Offer to do or pay for a family photo shoot for her and her family.

- Hand-write a letter expressing your gratitude.

- Create a video full of personal messages from loved ones that you can email to him to encourage his heart and let him know he is loved, respected, and missed.

- Do or provide something for his or her family while he or she is away.  Help fix the screen door, create a carpool for the kids, give his wife a manicure gift card, get some game tickets for her husband.  Show you support the whole family and take some pressure off the deployed family member.

a WAVE and a soldier, May 1943.

Happy Birthday!

! كل سنة و انت طيب يا يعقوب

Or, in other words... Happy Birthday, Jacob!

Yes, indeed, today is my boyfriend's birthday.  Now, I will attempt not to get too gushy with all of this ("No, you hang up first.  No, you! No, you do it!"  None of that), but I do want to share with you guys a person who is extremely important and influential in my life.

Jacob is the first boyfriend I've ever had (I know, it's pretty crazy), and he'll be the last one!  I think we can agree that it's difficult to find good guys these days, and it's even harder to find good, mature guys that are responsible and integrous.  Jacob is all these things, and I'm really proud of him.  

Top 10 things I like about Jacob:

- He loves football deeply and is willing to teach me about it.  (My dad was a businessman and music composer as I grew up.  Ain't no sports at my house.)

- Even though he loves football and meat and is a very manly man, he's perfectly happy to comb flea markets with me hunting for hats.

- He makes funny gear-shifting car sounds and voices when he's bored on a road trip.

- Some of his favorite things to do are research hot topics in our society and formulate his opinions on them and how to back them up.

- When I brought up the idea that I would like to join the military, too, he was 100% supportive, excited, and encouraging about it.  My dreams are of equal importance to him as his own.

- He loves meat.  Probably one of the top ways we celebrate anything is by going to Texas Roadhouse.  And I love that.

- He has never yelled at or insulted me, even in a disagreement.  He keeps his cool remarkably and is very understanding.

- We have physical and emotional boundaries/guidelines in our dating relationship because we want to live out what the Bible says, have a healthy relationship with each other, and to build a good foundation for a lasting marriage.  He is the first to uphold these guidelines and never pressures me to do anything I'm uncomfortable with.  Literally, never.

- He makes really good sweet tea (as in the American, southern-style, iced tea with lots of sugar).  Pretty sure it's the nectar of the gods.

- He loves Jesus more than anything or anyone else in the world, including me.  At first, that doesn't sound very romantic, but it's actually the best quality a guy could have!  Jacob centers his whole life on interacting with and following God and showing that to others.  What does that look like?  He puts others first, treats everyone with respect, leads with integrity, loves selflessly, and serves me and others to the point of self-sacrifice.  That's a good man, right there.

Well, this post got a little gushy, but it's kind of a requirement when one writes about the love of one's life.  I hope I didn't get too sappy for you guys and you enjoyed getting to know about a very special person in my life!

Eating a giant cookie sundae on one of our dates

On a hiking trip

Sophomore year banquet

Seeing him for the first time in two months at his graduation from Air Force Basic Military Training

The time I took him to Silver Dollar City for "the best Christmas tradition ever"... and it poured all night and was freezing.