Best of the 80's-More Black

One of the better things 80's fashion had to offer was polyester crepe. 
 Wash and wear-are there more beautiful words in the English language? Well, okay, "Free money", but how often does that come up? I can do without the oversized jumpers with leggings, and the linebacker shoulder-pads, but give me a polyester crepe dress with an elastic waist, and I'm all over it. As they're underappreciated items, I frequently find them for a dollar or so.
I think this dress probably would have had shoulder pads originally as it is large in shoulders, but no matter. I love the (washable) lace detail, and the nice pleat down the centre. My first impulse was to wear it with my black and white cameo, but I'm breaking out of my tendency to wear black with silver, opting instead for gold accessories. I'm still not convinced, but sometimes it is worth trying something different. I also really wanted to wear my new brooch!
 Gosh, I wore a lot of black when I was young. I look back at photos of myself in the 80's and I'm always wearing a black suit to work-I swear, I wasn't working as an undertaker even if I looked the part. I'm fortunate that I look good in black, but once I moved to Nebraska from Boston in 2001, I noticed almost no one wears black. It was one of many culture shocks. That's not to say we don't have stylish people here-we do! They just don't tend to wear as much black as people back East. Over the course of sixteen years my wardrobe shifted from mostly black (or grey) to only a few items. I jumped at this dress when I saw it as finding a nice black, non-formal dress in Omaha is no easy task. The fact it cost .99 cents made me even happier.
 Outfit Particulars:
1980's polyester crepe dress-Goodwill
Shoes-Goodwill
Vintage tapestry handbag-Goodwill
Belt-Hand-Me-Ups
Brooch-New Life Thrift
Bracelet-New Life Thrift
Jacket-Goodwill

Granny Hands!


I'm going to pack these shoes away so I wear something else! What can I say? They're comfortable, and they go with (almost) everything. Still, if I'm going to own as many shoes as I do, I should wear them once in a while.

Bake-a-thon rolls on today with oatmeal raisin biscuits, ginger nuts, and coconut washboards. Next week the breads and rolls start-that will be busy, ending with cakes. We perfected a chocolate/raspberry icing that can sit at room temperature without going off, or becoming too soft. That had me losing sleep, if I'm honest. Only three of the cakes require icing, and we'd already decided on the spice cake/maple combination, and the yellow cake with penuche icing-but the Devil's Food cake was worrying us. The fresh raspberry puree in the frosting we developed will avoid any concerns about cream at room temperature for a few days. I was pleased with how easy it is to spread-even a twelve year old can do it!

Finally, I won the auction! Here's this year's State Fair hat (unless something goes wrong) I bought from 1860-1960. It should arrive Tuesday. This is my fourth purchase from this seller and I can enthusiastically say, "She's one of the very best on the web." I'm not being compensated in any way to say that-she's just one of my favourite places to buy great vintage.
I still have time to glue some mini-tractor toys and dollhouse pies to it before the fair. Fingers crossed it arrives in good condition.

That's about it for now. Busy week ahead, but I managed to get in a quick 10 miles today to save my mind (and my back). I'm going to go drag Danny outside in a bit to look at the meteor shower. Hopefully, we won't go blind or hear any tapping plants in the garden??

Have a great weekend.



















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