VTT 12 - Enamel Brooches

This week I want to share with you some of my favourite vintage jewelry inherited from the family.  I have heard that three items make a collection, so this is the enamel collection!

The first brooch is a blue butterfly from my already famous Great Auntie Saima. I have had this since my school days, and already then a bit of the blue was missing. Later I must have dropped the brooch on the floor, causing a more severe chipping.

I don't know if it is possible to have the enamel repaired, I must find out. The metal is silver.

The next item is a romantic set of a brooch and three buttons. I'm still only dreaming of sewing a white blouse for the buttons.

   

The last brooch is a large one. My mother had received it as a gift from her parents when she was only 17, and she gave it to me 26 years ago, when my daughter Kaija was born.

There is still space for her name. Mother wants me to pass the brooch on to my daughter when she has a daughter.

This was all from my jewelry box this week. Maybe we will look at old sewing patterns again next time. More vintage treasures at Coloradolady's blog here. Happy VTT!

VTT 10 - Very old pattern sheets and ivory rose

Just this week I was digging in my basement sewing room for some perlé thread for tying the string quilt I'm working on, and at the bottom of that box I found a treasure. Many many years ago my mother gave me a bunch of old pattern sheets and folders from 1895 to 1921. They are not all in very good condition:

The sewing instructions are very short compared to modern day sewing magazines. I noticed this, when I actually used one of these patterns. Why on earth? The schools have a big ball for the "new oldest class" when the graduating class leaves school to make their final exams. The students learn old ballroom dances and dress accordingly. My daughter Kaija was invited to this ball one year early as a dancing partner because the older yearclass had exeptionally a minority of girls. Kaija naturally asked me if I could make her that dress in only six weeks - usually the girls start planning what to wear months if not years before, rent the finest dresses or spend hundreds of euros to have a dress tailor made. Some girls make their own dresses, and some mothers sew dresses too. This is a picture of their dance. It is more like a performance for the other students, for the parents in the evening and for smaller pupils in other schools the next day.

    

 Sorry about to poor quality of the picture. I don't have a scanner so I had to take a picture of the picture.

I believe this was the pattern we mainly used, but ended up making many alterations.

Aren't these "the puffiest sleeves ever" in the picture below? (I'm watching Anne of Green Gables when I'm ironing.)

Here are some of our patterns, the sleeve in two parts:

We had to leave out the puffy part because the fabric was so heavy and this was difficult enough!

The skirts were usually very very wide, but I think our (we really did it together) pattern was in eight segments.

Do you want to see the result? Here she is, with a crocheted vintage evening pouch in her hand and wearing my ivory rose necklace. The skirt has a little tail and it looked great when she was spinning round dancing.

 

 I just happen to have a picture of the rose here:

 

The original ivory chain has broken so I have a golden chain instead. It belnged to Great Auntie Saima, like the lace handkerchiefs under it.

This was all for Vintage Thingies Thursday. Coloradolady Suzanne is hosting a long list of links to other vintage thingies. Thank you for coming!