Vintage Handy (Wo)man

Since May, I've been slowly adding to my true-vintage collection, and some of those new-to-me dresses have gotten quite a bit of wear already. But the hunt for true vintage isn't without its challenges. Aside from the inherent difficulty of finding cute, affordable midcentury vintage in larger sizes, when you buy a vintage garment, you're buying something old. And fabric that's been well-loved for 50+ years tends to need mending.

Since I'm the laziest Type-A person on the planet, when things go on my mending/alteration pile, they tend to stay there forever (or until my mom visits and notices them). Usually I'm ok with this. It's not as though I'm running out of things to wear, though I'm sure Jeff wishes I didn't have quite so many spare dresses.

But when you acquire a beautiful vintage piece with a hole in the seam, or a small tear that threatens to open up into a yawning maw of dress-ruining catastrophe, it tends to short-circuit your normal laziness.

This is exactly what happened earlier this week, when I had a spare hour after dinner and realized that this very dress I'm wearing in this post had a hole in the seam and the pocket below it. I had two other dresses that needed some minor repairs, and while I'm quite enamored with both of them, this green floral dress is special. It's magically comfortable, even at almost eight months pregnant, and the colors and print speak directly to my soul. I absolutely love it, to the point that I can hardly bring myself to wear it for fear of anything happening to it.

Hair flower: Daisy Jean Floral Designs

Earrings and strawberry brooch: Atomic Lucite

Dress: vintage

Shoes: Zulily (similar here and here)

Cardigan: Heart of Haute

Once I realized that my lovely early-sixties-curtain-print sundress was in mortal peril, it galvanized me. That spare hour of mine wouldn't be spent scrolling through my Insta feed or reading endless Game of Thrones commentary. No, I was going to fish my little sewing kit out of the drawer it's lived in for the past decade and fix all the things.

And that, dear reader, is exactly what I did. And once I'd mended my three secondhand treasures, I felt like a total badass. I put it on my Insta stories and told Jeff over and over until he expressed an adequate amount of pride. I texted my mom all about it and wound up reminiscing all about how I'd learned to sew in the first place.

(...and you thought you were getting out of this post without a story!)

Some of my fondest memories from childhood visits to Shelter Island are the things father's mother taught me. She taught me a number of card games, from Go Fish to cribbage to bridge, and (attempted to) teach me to speak a few phrases in French and count to ten. And on one particularly memorable occasion when I was about five or so, she taught my cousin Brianna and me to sew by hand.

Grandma Hallock and yours truly. I'm taller now.

Brianna and I each made a tiny little pillow out of a green and white paisley-ish fabric that Grandma Hallock had stashed away, and I remember feeling so proud of myself, and so entranced by that little pillow. When we stopped at my mother's parents' house on the way home, as we usually did, I eagerly showed it off to them. They were suitably impressed by my amazing sewing prowess, particularly my grandma, who absolutely loathed anything resembling traditional domestic labor. (Seriously, my grandpa used to have me ask her to make particular meals, because he knew if I asked, she'd say yes, and if he asked, we'd wind up at the diner for dinner. She loved the New York Mets, driving a little too fast, trips to Vegas, and antique shopping. Cooking, cleaning, and sewing? Not so much.)

The next thing I knew, my grandma had pulled out a pair of pants with a tear in them, and I'd settled down to mend the tear. I think it was while I was sewing that my grandma told me that her grandfather had been a tailor; it's also when I learned what a tailor was.

When I'd finished, my grandma was so pleased and proud. More fulsome praise ensued; I'll never forget how happy it made her. Once we'd put away the sewing gear, my grandma and I sat down and she worked on my poker-playing skills, because that's just how she rolled.

My maternal grandparents in their shop, feat. my uncle in the background.

And reminiscing about that weekend so long ago, I'm really glad I picked up a needle and thread again. In weaving the seams of my vintage treasures back together, I've rediscovered a precious memory that connects my two very different grandmothers and reminds me of how special each was. So while I know that neither of my grandmas were much for dresses, I'll wear this one and think of them.

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