Matching Monday – 20s Child

Another series of weekly posts!

According to Porcelain Sundays there will be Matching Mondays, too, to show some coordinates or outfit pieces to fit the source of inspiration I’ve shown the day before.

This times we’ve got The Lost Doll and with it the style of a child from the 1920s. And we’ve got my first time with polyvore as well, so please be easy on me. :)

I tried to show what for me are the essentials of this style:

• Cloche hats. They instantly shout out a loud “TWENTIES!” whenever you see them. But soft, sewn caps like the one on the left are great too, especially to capture the flair of a child’s outfit.
• Mary Janes. These shoes were quite popular in the 1920s, even though they appeared earlier. I myself own a pair of the Duckfeet strap shoes like the ones in the lower left corner, only in a dark red colour way. They give a very dollish air to any outfit, being as chunky and flat as they are, but not without any elegance. But as you can see in the upper right corner, even higher heeled T-straps have that feeling to them, and nearly any strap shoes will do the job.
• Pearls. Necklaces, bracelets, hair clips, everything that decorates, especially with satin ribbon bows that match the colour of your clothes. In 20s Girl there’s even a whole story centered around the pearl strap necklace of the eponymous character! Plus, the reflection of light from pearls is said to be the most flattering and pearl jewelery from fake pearls is really fast and easy to make for a decent 20s style.
• Pastel colours. I don’t know why, but to me, 20s children’s style is a very classic one. And maybe it’s due to the afterwards coloured photographs of the time that I instantly think of taupe and beige and rosé and light yellow and the like.
• Soft-shaped pouches. Think of kindergarten style bags with long straps and half-circle shapes that you carry your bottle of milk and your sandwich in.
• Solid knee socks. In only one colour, maybe with some knitted ajour pattern.
• Low waist lines. A this is kind of difficult with Lolita I went with a tiered skirt to at least somehow mock the lower line. But as there are enough essentials to the style there is no desperate need for the exact silhouette of the skirt. But I think ones without any pattern or print will work best, though.
• Peter Pan collars. One of the key pieces to a vintage, children-like look, if you ask me. One of the greatest things about them is that you can make detachable ones!

This is mine. No, it’s not going to stay like this, I’m going to do some embroidery, maybe whitework…

I used a mix of these three tutorials:

• Colette Patterns
• Transient Expression
• Passion for Fashion

As for books I’d like to recommend Winnie-The-Pooh by A.A. Milne, the aforementioned Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella and Flapper by Joshua Zeitz to learn more about quite inappropriate role models. ;)

Musically, there’s the Charleston and the arrangements of Max Raabe that I love the most. Oh, and there’s ragtime (here, too).

That’s it for the first Matching Monday. I hope you somehow liked it and will return for the next one!

Porcelain Sunday – The Lost Doll

When I first read Victoria Suzanne’s advice on how to be a better blogger I though about a weekly post I could make. After thinking about alliterations with Steampunk and fashion (which may come too, anyway) and a dozen other things, I decided to go Porcelain Sunday. If you can’t think of what this should be – and I can’t blame you for that -, please let me explain. When I first encountered Lolita, I was stunned by the look that resembled not only the attire of my childhood heroines – Sara Crewe and Mary Lennox amongst them – but also delicate, pretty-to-beautiful porcelain dolls, and ever since this was the look for me to achieve. So, Porcelain Sunday will be about where I take my inspirations from for this wonderful style, be it music, a movie, books or an animated series. I hope you’ll like it and maybe share my inspirations.

Inner cover art.

 

I thought I’d start with something more uncommon. Books in general provide such masses of inspiration, and children’s books, especially illustrated ones, are the most extreme. The book I draw my inspiration from today is one that I got a long time ago, it basically was there all through my childhood. It’s The Lost Doll by Jean Richardson with illustrations by Mike Dodd.

Uncommon it is because it’s not set in the Victorian era or even earlier, no, the story takes place in London of the 1920s. Harriet, a little girl, looses her dearest doll Lottie that has somehow “run off” in the park. During the book Harriet receives letters from Lottie who is travelling around the world with an American girl named Beth and another doll, Little Star.

From left to right: Little Star, Beth, Lottie and a poodle.

 

So much for the story line, but now for the inspiration!

The pictures – as you can clearly see – are in muted, elegant colours and I simply love the look of 20s children’s clothing! Some wonderful Lolita artist have already tried to mix it with Lolita, actually, and I surely do love the results:

By Carnet-atelier via deviantArt

By Seitou via deviantArt

Please click on the pictures to visit the artist’s deviantArt galleries! They are definitely worth it!

Seitou has a great deal more of designs like this, I think I’ll have to make a Porcelain Sunday entirely about her some day – and I just discovered her today!

The inbetween-wars era is highly underestimated for Lolita, I think. And yet, it’s so easy to give a flair of the “golden twenties”! But that shall be the matter of my post tomorrow, also starting a new weekly updated series, the Matching Monday.

And I think that The Lost Doll made a great start for Porcelain Sunday, too, even though not intended. Because: Isn’t Lolita all about to look like a doll come to life in one way or the other?

This will be the thought I’ll leave you with for now, but not without my best regards.

Yours truly,

The Hedgefairy

 

Two Years

Can it be that time flew so quickly and that my blog is already two years old?

Instead of boring you with statistics I only want to say how glad I am that each and every one of you is reading this little space in the aethernet of mine.

THANK YOU.

And if you have any ideas, any questions or anything else to make this blog better for you, just tell me and I’ll try to be at service.

 

Yours truly,

The Hedgefairy

On Crafty Affairs

You may have not noticed, but I fell in love with Lolita again after neglecting it due to the Steampunk con and the trouble afterwards! And now I’m re-gathering all the fabrics I already have and planning on getting new ones (hello IKEA, here I come… in April, that is) and dusting my old sewing machine (which was broken, too, but now is fixed and as faithful as always) to get myself a decent wardrobe.

Some of you may remember this fabric:

First, I wanted it to become a sailor dress, then I switched to the idea of a classic tea dress and now I’ve come to the point that I want it alterable enough to be worn as sweet, country, classic and sailor. Now, that’s a challenge I like! And as my room and amoire are not that big, multifunctional dresses are quite the right thing for me.

Then there are plans for one or two Alice in Wonderland themed outfits, first the March Hare that I mentioned earlier, in deep blue and with a bowler hat and maybe something Mad Hatter inspired, too, completely with top hat and chequerboard pattern.

Speaking of a Mad Hatter and top hats! I bet you thought I forgot about my give-away, but I didn’t. Lilibeth already knows what the problem with her hat is, but I hereby promise that I’ll have it ready for Estella Mortimer’s (that’s her Steampunk diva character) next appearance. Jules’ hat also requires some time, especially as I don’t dare to work with polymer clay as long as my hands are not completely healed (always remember, crafting is dangerous, just like fighting dragons) – mostly when they are I manage to get bruised again.

But! Wolfskind, your hat is making progress, even though I kind of have to wait for the little scrap metal pieces to come to me – I don’t want to really search for them, it would spoil the feeling, at least for me – and here’s a teaser:

Now, back to my new-found love for Lolita and my plans attached. The most difficult thing I guess will be the building of a Kodona outfit. I’m a little afraid that it won’t look good on my figure, but I should certainly try.

And at last there are some basics like finishing the re-shaping of a white man’s shirt to a blouse, a completely black set, a chequered skirt, some cut sews and aprons and finally another petticoat, this time in burgundy red! And maybe, but only maybe, I’ll try Steampunk Lolita, too.

You see, there’s much to do, but first I’ll have to finish the birthday present for the Satyr.

Bye, then!

I’m Sorry

… for the lack of updates at the moment. I’m a little busy and there are so many things to be done, like re-arranging my room, drawing for Splinterworld, starting and finishing DIY projects, writing RPG adventures and even planning a series of posts to be sent into the aethernet every Sunday from next week on – I didn’t make it in time this week. Also, I catched a cold last night, so I’m sitting here with a thick scarf around my neck, a very useful handkerchief and a pot of hot melissa-and-lemon juice tea.

I hope that all of you are well, my dear readers, and are not mad with me for not writing so much at the moment.

Love and best wishes,

Bonnie xxx

Back from the City

I’ve been to Frankfurt again. Originally it was to switch my armoire from the unstable black wire-with-curtains light model to a smaller dark wooden type from the first half of the last century that kept catching dust in my mother’s basement. But as my father decided that if we went to get the closet on Saturday I could as well come with him on Thursday when he drove home from Marburg anyway, I had one and a half day to spend in the big city, too.

One of the worst things about my beloved fairy tale town is the lack of shopping opportunities. Even though I’m not much of a hoarder of clothes and accessoires I love to go window-shopping. Marburg sadly has only one not-so-unique H&M and neither Claire’s nor Accessorize, so I was thrilled to learn that in Frankfurt even a second of the latter had opened during the last months!

And this is (part of) what I brought back:

A cute tea-pot-shaped earring. Actually it’s a pair, but as I seldom wear two of the same pair I decided to use one of this cute tea pots to make a charm or necklace. The only thing I dislike is the harsh contrast of the muted pastel of the charm and the bright red of the ribbon above it, so I think I’m going to change it.

Another pair of earrings. They had a 3-for-the-price-of-2 sale at Claire’s, and I couldn’t resist! And yes, it’s true, I love chocolate! I think these will be great for the attire for my planned pâtissier Steampunk LARP character. When I told Jules I suggested that maybe the matching brooch would be nice for his Dorian Siskins (a character who’s a chocolatier, too). Even though it would be quite weird if two sworn enemies wore matching jewelery…

The last of the tree pairs is shaped like carved roses. Aren’t they beautiful? And they’re matching my wearable rose bouquets! The small spoon is new, too, to always carry it in my bags if I feel the urge to get me some mousse au chocolat or something similar.

My last purchase was a set of paper napkins with this really elaborate print of antique cutlery drawings, just in case I’ve got to hold a tea party some day. :)

Well, it was really nice to visit my old city again and I’m looking forward to April when I’m able to do this more often again due to my new university ticket. Oh, and I got me another something, too, but I think that’s worth a post of its own.

Labelled

Last week, finally my labels arrived. I had ordered them about two or three weeks ago, and now I’m virtually able to “sign” things I’ve sewn!

I keep them in one of the finished pastille boxes, it’s just the right size.

Isn’t the frame around the name beautiful? I love the old-fashioned feel the labels have to them.

And as I guessed some of you might wonder what a Mothmutton exactly is, I made you a drawing of one.

10 Things I love in February

1. Wenn Ich tot bin, a song by the german folk rock band Luna Luna. The name of the song translates to “when I’m dead”, but instead of the sad mourning tune you might expect you get an ode to life itself and the challenge to live every day to its fullest so that you won’t regret your death after a live as great as possible.
2. Military Drums. The constant, driving rythm of snares, the humming deep bass drums and the additional tenors of pipe bands from Scotland are a perfect example (you also might listen to the song above), but I’ve always felt drawn to drums. I’d love to incorporate those rythms into my own band, but we’ll see. I’ve got to talk this trough with the Imp.
3. Apples. They might have been involved in a lot of mayhem in several mythologies – the human’s fall from Eden, the Trojan war, the greatest disease northern deities ever suffered from when Iðunn’s (aka Iduna) apples were stolen, thanks to Loki – but they also are a symbol for youth – again, there’s Iðunn, and also Avalon is nicknamed “Isle of Apples” (or a variation of it, to ease possible complaints) – and even wisdom. I love the fact that apples belong to the rose’s family, and they taste good, too.
4. Elfquest. I already mentioned it in my post about what I got for Christmas from the Scoundrel. It’s not that the comics are overly innovative with their stories or characters (at least not today) and I don’t even know if I’d adore them how I do if I got to know them nowadays. But I found the first volume to read in the public library in my very early teens (if I remember correctly) and was stunned by the somewhat wild looks of the elves, the wolves, the big eyes and the characters. Yes, they are epically 80s and reallysome kind of Manowar-like, but what the Care Bears, My Little Pony, Hello Kitty or Lady Lovelylocks are to other girls as a reminder of their childhood (that happened mostly in the 90s but were influenced by the 80s indeed) are the wolfriders to me.
5. Knitting. I just started again with a scarf I began about two years ago and never finished. Defintely not able to do something else than the utmost basics by now, I’m planning to go all megalomaniac while Teli (my knitting goddess) is staying in Norway for her exchange semester to knit Owls (just look at Teli’s blog here, she made the pullover last year).
6. Challenges. When she visited me at the end of January, my mother challenged me to skip all things containing refined sugar for a whole month or more! I think I’m going to be able to do this, even though it’s going to be really hard, but honey is allowed, after all. And if I win, I’ll get a reward, too. ;)
7. Cooking. After I accepted the challenge above and after Lilibeth had told me so much about her cooking projects I thought about it. I really like cooking, and I like to present the results in a nicer way than on a simple plate, all mashed up. And I thought about why and when I stopped doing so and came to the conclusion that I didn’t even know why! So, in future posts you might see some results of my newly-found sense of cooking. At least I hope so.
8. Chokers. Although the word somehow looks awkward, I like the necklaces. Maybe you remember that I once got one in a lucky pack swap last year! At the moment I’m experimenting with styles of chokers for my everyday wardrobe (they’ve got some kind of a Steampunk feel to them), and you can bet that I’ll show you the results.
9. Banners. They’ve got this awfully cool Obey! banner in the PC game Overlord that’s taken from the evil hobbits (yes, indeed) I always wanted to sew for our flat. And then there are the great hall banners in Harry Potter (still a Hufflepuff, by the way) and the whole lot of flying fabric in the Lord of the Rings pictures. I also made a small banner for our crew at the Festival Mediaval 2008 that still has to be somewhere in my bedroom. There’s something great and regal about those flags, as there is about the last point of my February list, too:
10. Speech Scrolls. I love them and use them in my pictures and comics as often as I can. Even the invitations for my Steampunk con had scrolls at the top. And somehow, speech scrolls are a historical kind of speech bubbles, too. Which is pretty cool. I think I need some more clothes with speech scroll motifs…

Year of the Rabbit

Yesterday, according to the Chinese calendar, the year of the rabbit began. And as I live with two rabbits I thought it would be a nice idea to dedicate a post to the matter.

So I want to introduce you to the girls as I haven’t done this before properly. The rabbits dwell in Bambi’s room and officially, they’re his. The “old ones”, Kajal and Abigail, moved to their old home at Bambi’s sister’s again after she returned from Norway where she had been for a year. So, in with the new!

The right one in white with some darker spots is Emma. She’s the shy one, likes lying flat in her corner in the cage and doesn’t go out much.

The other one with a dark head and a white stripe is Feline (a coincidence that is quite funny ’cause it’s the German version of Faline, which is the name of Bambi’s girlfriend in the Disney film), the fierce one. She’s the one to climb out of the cage and explore the world outside.

The girls like each other very much, but I guess sometimes Feline is a little bit bossy. And one of these situations prooved that Emma can be wild, too, as she kicked Feline out of the cage and didn’t let her in again for several hours…

And now even their cage is decorated with a rabbit-shaped charm! I found it on my way to the Christmas days and thought it quite cute for them.

Another topic that is linked to rabbits (no, not really rabbits but hares) is one of the dresses I plan to make since last December: The March Hare outfit.

Maybe this is finally a project to use my “hunt the hare” buttons for!