Verity Vintage Studio

Item of the Week - Infinity Necklace

This lovely purple ribbon-yarn crocheted infinity necklace is Item of the Week in my Etsy shop, half price for 1 week only - slashed from $9.

Free Pattern for 1940s Style Crochet Double-Ruffle Brooch

As promised, here is the pattern for the 1940s style brooch I designed to wear with the Traveling Dress. Easy and quick, not only did it add the right touch of cream to tie together the look, it also filled in the V neckline for me. 

I used a seashell button to match the dress, but so many options are available with a variety of buttons to get your own special look or matching touch - ideal to showcase a fragile heirloom or vintage button you don't want to launder. 

Besides, crochet was very popular in the 1940s for accessories and garments, so it is perfectly authentic for costume wear. And cute to wear everyday.

 

1940s Style Double-Ruffle Brooch

(c) 2014 Kristen Stoltzfus

 

Materials:

approx. 10 yds size 10 cotton thread in cream color

size 7/1.65mm steel crochet hook, or size needed to obtain gauge

tapestry needle

vintage button

1 in. pin back

spray starch

rust-proof pins

 

Gauge:

first 2 rnds= 1 ½ in. across

Skill Level:

easy

 

Finished Size:

3 in. across

 

Pattern Notes:

All rnds are worked RS facing.

 

Brooch:

Bottom Layer:

Ch 6, join with sl st in first ch to form ring.

Rnd 1: ch 3 (does not count as first tr), (tr, ch 1) 23 times in ring; join with sl st to first tr. 23 tr, 23 ch sps

Rnd 2: sl st into first ch 1 sp, (ch 1, sc) in same sp, (ch 7, sc in next ch sp) around, ch 3, dc in first sc to form last lp. 23 ch lps 

Rnd 3: (ch 1, sc) in same st, (ch 6, sc in next ch lp) around, ch 3, dc in first sc to form last lp.

Rnd 4: rep Rnd 3

Rnd 5: (ch 1, sc) in same st, (ch 5, sl st in 2^nd ch from hook, ch 3, sc in next ch lp) around; join with sl st in first sc and fasten off.

 

Top Layer:

Leaving long end for sewing, rep Rnds 1-3 of Bottom Layer

Rnd 4: rep Rnd 5 of Bottom Layer.

  

Finishing:

With needle threaded on long sewing end, center and sew top layer to bottom layer, sewing button to the top and pin back to the underside. Covering button, spray starch thoroughly and pin bottom layer to dry, lifting top layer and scrunching it so it ruffles a little and doesn't lie flat against the bottom layer. Let dry.

   

Item of the Week - Black and White Ascot Lace Scarf

Item of the Week in my Etsy shop is this lacy black and white ascot length lace scarf, crocheted from cotton thread, with a silver sparkly border - half price for one week only - slashed from $11.

September Tutorial - How to Paint Your Own 1930s & 1940s Spectator Pumps

When I saw Sachiko's amazing post on painting leather shoes at Tea Rose Home, I knew I had to try it. So I bought some Angelus Paints and used her tutorial as a guide to experiment. After painting my first pair, I was hooked. And with my vintage interests, I instantly thought it would be a great way to turn ordinary shoes into 2 tone spectator pumps - my favorite style of shoe, that is both hard to find and expensive.

 

So I found these Sofft shoes on Ebay for a good price and saw that the leather details and stitching would make them great potentential spectator heels for my 1930s and '40s outfits. The heel isn't quite right for the 1940s, but there were a variety of shapes of heels in that era and I thought that for experimentation, these were close enough. (In the 1930s the heels still had that French shape leftover from the Roaring '20s, which is what these shoes have.)

 

Of course you can paint modern leather shoes 2-tone as well, but for costume wear look for shoes that already have a similar silhouette to those in the era you want to copy.

 

You will need...

1 pair shoes - real leather - preferably with wingtip detail or other details to make an outline for the 2 tones of paint

washi tape

Angelus leather prepare and deglazer

2 colors of Angelus Paint

Angelus acrylic finisher (I used the satin kind, rather than matte or high gloss)

paint brush (optional because some of these paints have paintbrushes built-in in the lid)

T-shirt rags

 

There are a nice selection of colors of these paints. I chose French Blue and White for my shoes, and had to put some thought into them to decide which parts to make which color. These didn't have leather-covered heels, so I had to let them as is although my preference would have been to paint them as well.

 

But the first step is to tape off the heel and sole all the way around. This can be tedious because you don't want even a corner of tape on the leather part of the shoe, while if you don't get the tape exactly against the edge, the paint will look untidy. And if you care about keeping the inside paint-free, you should tape around the inside as well.

However, don't worry too much because while fresh the paint can still usually be rubbed off if it gets somewhere you don't want it to go.

 

First use one of your rags and the leather preparer-deglazer, following the directions on the bottle. This is to remove the factory finish so the paint will adhere better. On my first pair of shoes, it worked really well and made the shoe feel like tanned but unfinished leather - perfect. These didn't work quite so well, but I went ahead.

There may be light or "worn" spots on the shoe when you're done rubbing them with deglazer. That's just fine.

 

Let it dry. I put mine in front of a fan to speed it up, and in a very short time the shoe felt perfectly dry.

So it was time to paint. Always do the light colors first! Light colors on dark shoes are harder to get right; as you can see the first coat is terribly streaked.

 

But the second coat already looks better.

 

I painted the white part with about 6 coats of paint before I was satisfied with the even color. Finished!

 

After each coat I would let it dry a few minutes, but it does dry very fast. If you are doing 2 shoes at once, sometimes one will dry while you paint the other.

Anyway, this one was ready for the blue part. The French Blue is a gorgeous color and paints and adheres better than the white, for some reason. It only took 2 coats to get an even color that covered all the brown. Here is the tricky part, because you can't put tape on the fresh white paint, so all those little edges have to be done very carefully.

But I couldn't decide if I wanted the accent vertical stripe to be blue or white, so I did one of each to see how they looked.

I liked the white but decided the blue looked a little more authentic, so I painted over the white accent stripe on the left shoe. All done painting! 

All that was left was to let them dry completely before applying the acrylic finisher with another rag. I left it dry overnight, but still am not quite satisfied with it since it still feels the tiniest bit tacky. However, when worn for the first time, these shoes worked well and there was no cracking of the paint. And the best part is if you scuff them, all you have to do is touch them up!

 

I used this same method to paint just the heels on my brown 1940s shoes featured in my Traveling Dress post, to cover up stains.

Here they are before:

 

and after:

 

They looked just beautiful on the post!

 

So I am finding the paints very useful and enjoyable and have bought a variety of colors (I will say the darker shades and the pastels are the best and turn out the nicest - the brighter colors just look like they came out of a child's paint box even with the finisher on them).

And I love my new spectator heels.

 

Till next month,

~Kristen - Verity Vintage Studio

 

Look for my new tutorials posted sometime during the first full week of every month. Hairstyles, crafts, repurposing, vintage themed, etc.

 

Item of the Week - Vintage 1930s Blue Leather Gauntlets

Item of the Week in my Etsy shop are these gorgeous leather/suede 1920s-30s navy blue gauntlets, on sale for half price for one week only - slashed from $14.