My grandmother's portrait

In 1949 when my grandmother Greta was 36, she and my grandfather rented a cottage for vacation. The cottage next door was rented by an artist who, at the time, was quite in when it comes to portrait painting. He is quite forgotten now and I have plain forgotten his name, I'm sorry to say. The families became quite friendly and my grandmother asked him if he could paint my Mum. Being sensible he declined- my Mum was three at the time and only an insane person would do that, I think. Instead he offered to paint my grandmother, free of charge, because he loved her colouring. The only thing he wanted was to paint a second portrait that he could sell. That never happened, but this lovely portrait of my grandmother was completed.

Favourite shoes

You may remember that I bought a pair of Ars Allen shoes from Dance Store . They are quickly becoming my favourite everyday shoes. The heel isn't too high for walking and the net makes them cool in the summer heat, which makes them a good alternative to sandals. Perfect, in other words, for the hot and muggy day last Sunday when we visited Svindersvik, an 18th century house outside Stockholm.

A review on Rockalily lipsticks

This was how long I could keep away! Well, I did say I would post, they will just be a bit irregular. Besides, insomnia can strike even during vacation- a perfect opportunity to write a post.

A little while ago Lottie Loves wrote lyrically about the lipsticks from Rockalily. Ever in search of the perfect red I got quite interested. I'm terribly unimpressed by MAC in general, but bought Ruby Woo anyway, as it is such a classic lipstick, and found that even if I quite like the colour, the formula is awful and that alone make it a lipstick that rarely get worn. The reviews I could find on the Rockalily lipsticks were all very good and I liked the colours, so I ordered the two cool-toned red lipsticks they have. They also have a pink one and a warm-toned red.

This blog is on vacation

For the next four weeks I'm going to enjoy spending a lot of time in my family's summer house in the archipelagio outside Stockholm, sewing, reading and generally relax and do things I like. I will also limit my computer time, so even if I'm sure there will be a few posts, they will be irregular.

Have fun in the meantime!

A good book or two

I have two days left at work, and then my vacation starts. Though I read a lot all year round, I usually read a little more during the summer. So here are a few books that I like and that I think you may find interesting, as they are written and/or about the 1920’s-40’s. You may notice, when reading this post, that I LOVE to talk about books.

A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine (1986) is about a middle age woman, Faith, who thinks back to her youth during the forties when she was sent to live with her two aunts in the countryside. The outset of the whole book is that one of the aunts, Vera, was committed and hanged for murder. The rest of the book is how Faith’s memories slowly reveal the events that have led up to the murder as well as what has happened to the main characters since. You also get a lot on how life in England during the war could be- for example Vera is once described to wearing a dress made of two worn out old ones.

Back to the laundry dress

I got several excellent suggestions to my mysterious laundry dress. Thank you! From it I think that my translation probably isn’t the best. I think washable dress would be better. This may refer to a housedress as they would be pretty useless if there weren’t washable, but I don’t think the washable white dress that I have on my wardrobe list are meant to be a housedress. First because there are several housedresses there too, already specified as such and second because it is to be white. White, even if it’s easy to wash, is a very unpractical colour to do household chores in. There’s a third reason, one that I had plain forgotten about when I wrote the previous post. For the spring/summer wardrobe in year four, the washable dress springs up again, but this time in light blue silk noil. That’s a silk that you can wash yourself- you can even machine wash it, if you don’t mind that it will fade a bit in colour, but it’s definitely not a fabric you use for housedresses. So it seems very likely that a laundry dress, or rather a washable dress, are meant to be an easy care summer dress.



That it is pointed out in decades before the forties that a dress is washable isn’t perhaps so odd when you think about it. We are so used that everything can be washed, if not by yourself, the by dry cleaning. Dry cleaning have been around since the 19th century, but up until the 1920’s that involved highly flammable and smelly substances, like petroleum, that you probably wouldn’t trust your precious clothes with. In the 1940’s dry cleaning was an option, but only a few decades earlier you didn’t wash your clothes much. They were brushed, spots removed and aired. What you did was laundry was your underclothes, linen and cotton things that could withstand boiling and scrubbing. So to call a simple summer dress that could withstand such vigorous washing as just washable was probably quite a practical pointer to its care. A pointer with its use in the 1940’s too. Silk and wool may seem obvious that they need dry cleaning, but one of the problems with many of the man-made fibers that was invented during the 30’s and 40’s was that they become brittle when they become wet and could not be laundered at home.

( Johanna kindly provided me with this picture of “cotton wash-up” dresses from Sears.)

Striped dress

When I get around to do a striped dress, which I will eventually in red and white, I think I will do it in this style.



(Picture found at New Vintage Lady)

Puttin' on the Ritz, Vintage Reproduction clothing

I have been eyeing the clothes from Puttin’ on the Ritz for a while. I think they look lovely and the little I have found about their clothes has been positive. As I understand it they are quite new. They have a selection of women’s clothes from the 30’s and 40’s and a small selection for men as well. You don’t order clothes in size but provide your measurements instead. I really like that as I always have problems with fit in the upper area of my body- if it fits over my chest; it sags over my narrow back. So I’m very tempted to order the Waiting at the Station Coat.