Category: Ornament

Une Femme has put out a call for the showing of the brooches. Oddly enough, I have been wearing a few brooches lately and it seemed fitting that I should comply.

I don't have many vintage brooches.  This one is an exception in many ways, not in the least of which is that it was given to me by G over a decade ago, and it is not the kind of strongly modern piece that usually attracted his attention. I have also worn it rather regularly since he gave it to me even though I went through a long period where I otherwise did not wear brooches.

When I was in my 20's I was enthralled by brooches and pins of all sorts.  I wore them all the time, on jackets, on belts, on my collars and my cuffs.  Mostly they were cheap things; they often broke.  Few of them remain in my collection.  Later, I drifted away from brooch wearing although I never quite gave up on them. 

The coral and gold cameo is the only brooch that I packed in the immediately accessible "will wear" box when we moved.  Everything else went into a vault, where it still languishes, or carefully wrapped up in a box to be sorted through later.  Most of the contents of that box remained under wraps until lately when I have begun fishing out a few things.  It seems I made a few major miscalculations as to which pieces I would want to wear, and as soon as I finish a few other projects that I have been obsessing over lately, I will turn my attentions to sorting through the jewelry box  as somewhere hidden in that box is a tiny silver Llama pin from South America that my grandparents gave me when I was quite young, and which I have been longing to wear again.

While I was searching for that llama, I happend across this much larger (and therefore more easily found) silver pin which I have since been wearing a great deal. I am not, for the most part, attracted to really geometric pins but I find this one fascinating because all the little square pieces in the center move around so you can rearrange their alignment.  If you click on the photo to bring up the enlarged version you might see the single open space in the upper left hand corner (with a bit of scarf peeking through) and that the pieces are not fixed together.  

The last piece I want to share is the only piece that remains from my 20's. I haven't really worn it much in recent years and yet I can't bring myself to let it go either.  It was the first piece of "real" jewelry I ever purchased for myself and it continues to have strong sentimental value.  The last few times I wore it, in fact, I wore it as a pendant on a fine gold chain, layered with another necklace under a simple shirt.  I haven't given up on it as a brooch, just expanded the options.

Last week was our 26th wedding anniversary.   We celebrated by going out to the symphony and hearing a lovely performance of Candide.

A few days before our anniversary G and his caregiver went shopping at.  Luckily I had found a shop that had some suitable options, and on our anniversary he presented me with a small box containing these lovely bronze and baroque pearl earrings by Margaret Ellis.   

I hadn't really known anything about Margaret Ellis before I moved here, but I really like her work.  Over the summer I had been wishing for something long and light, modern and a bit edgy all at once, preferably with pearls, and when I found this long necklace I snapped it up.   Luckily, it goes beautifully with my new earrings and I wore both pieces to the symphony.

Generally I would be more attracted to the silver jewelry, which is what you predominantly see on the website, but the warmer color of these pieces really struck me.  I had in fact wanted a gold necklace with pearls but hadn't found anything that wasn't too serious or too pretty, and this hit just the right note. Perfect for my life right now, and probably well into the future.

Sorry, no Friday post (yet again) and no YSL (yet).  

I've been distracted.  Although my trip away to Denver was a success for me and even went well for G, there were still a few problems. I came home to a really dirty house (what only 4 days?) and I am now fighting an ant invasion. I am dealing with it, and working on new routines and procedures for the caregivers as well. 

In the meantime, inspired by Duchesse's post on Thursday about the exceptions to her "Wear Real" mantra, I thought I would do a quick post on the few pieces of plastic and acryllic jewelry that survived the pre-move purge, all of which I wear frequently.

I am often drawn to the colors of lucite jewelry in the summer.  I am particularly attracted to the work of Alexis Bittar although I haven't actually purchased any.  That doesn't mean I don't own a piece however.  G gave me this bracelet 3 years ago for my 51st birthday, and although I actually had mixed feelings at the time, I can also admit that it has been heavily worn every summer since.  In fact this bracelet started a new fascination with white and soft pastels in jewelry and I have slowly added to this collection in the time since.  As you can see, the gold-tone metal is already scratched and does not have the kind of patina that real gold would acquire, but the bracelet is still lovely and I Iove wearing it, although I am not convinced it is going to be a piece for the long haul.

But you never really know what will survive the ravages of time and what will not.  I purchased these little plastic disk earrings in the mid-80's.  I think they were the first pair of earrings I purchased for myself after I had my ears pierced and I still wear them today.  They are light and fun and make me happy.  They also obviously need a good cleaning…

Last, but far from least is this bracelet which is made up of old plastic and bakelinte buttons from the early half of the 20th century, sewn on wide black elastic.  Of my three plastic pieces, this is the one I have worn the most.  However it is too dark and too hot to wear in the summer here, and it may become a seasonal piece, no less loved, but somewhat less frequently worn.

I find that the older I get the less I am interested in people and things that pretend to be things they are not.  This applies to all kinds of things, "fake" antiques, imitation food, and even costume jewelry.  I am not particularly attracted to gold-tone, or silver-tone metals in jewelry or plastics or glass that pretend to be something else.  It is not that I object to the existence of costume jewelry, just that it does not fit my own interests or my own sense of what is important. That doesn't mean that I don't like inexpensive jewelry.  I have and love pieces that incorporate river rocks, leather, silk, cotton and other inexpensive materials.  But they don't pretend to be something they are not.    I will admit that I wouldn't turn down a honkin-sized emerald or diamond studs the size of headlights, but there are a lot of less expensive options that fit much more seamlessly into my life.  What makes me happy about these plastic pieces is that they are exactly themselves.  They probably have no intrinsic value, but neither are they claiming to be anything more than what they are. 

What are your feelings about jewelry?  Is jewelry just another accessory to be indulged in at whim?  Or is it something to treasure? Something that speaks to your authentic self or just a fun treat?

I resumed unpacking last week and came across one of the boxes containing photo albums.  The particular albums I uncovered dated from a few of the years we traveled extensively and it was nice to go through them and remember all the good times we shared.  At the time I found the box, we were experiencing a particularly rough week at home.  G was not walking, or functioning very well and he required more help and even feeding at the table.  I wasn't really ready for all of this and the gift of the photo albums came at the right time, when I needed to remember how things had been.  Most of our photos were of places and things.  G was the primary photographer, and he was much more interested in scenery or architecture than he was in pictures of people. As I look back on those photos now, I who was never really focused on the pictures when we travelled, still recognize the places, and can recall the associated feelings, memories and conversations.  The albums are just another reminder of the many ways in which we formed such a good partnership.

This week however G is much better, much brighter, with a sparkle in his eye I haven't seen for a long time, much more reminiscent of the way he was here, in this photo taken outside Steiner's Tavern in Sonoma quite a few years ago.

That same summer we made a routine stop into one of my favorite yarn stops, Colorful Stitches, in Lennox Massachusetts. We had been there many times before, and G usually looked forward to wandering through the shop and looking at the yarns.  He was particularly fond of Colorful Stitches, because they had a good selection of high quality yarns and many European fashion yarns, which he would encourage me to buy so he could take them to show his mother, who had been co-founder of Unger Yarns, and who was no longer able to travel or knit, although she still enjoyed looking at yarn and following my knitting projects. G would reminisce about the company employees and the summer(s) he spent worked in the Unger stockroom, and he obviously absorbed quite a bit about fiber and fabric from both his mother and  Mr. Unger, who had been a master tailor before he had been forced to leave Vienna.   I still credit G as the source of most of my knowledge about fiber, hand, and drape, and watching him shop for fabric, talk to salespeople, and compare goods was always fascinating.

But my mind is wandering.  

G spent a fair amount of time with the button vendor that day, poring over the cards and displays, putting a few sheets aside, and sending me off to buy yarn for a sweater or two while negotiated his own purchase.  A couple of months later, he presented me with his purchase, which had been converted into a necklace by our local jeweler.

The  jeweler placed two loops on the back, to which two hooks attach, on either end of an oxidized silver chain.  The pendant can also be worn as a brooch, but I much prefer wearing it as a pendant.  It works well under shirts and open blouses, which is how I prefer to wear it, as one of the hooks, the one that is open in the above photo is a little looser than the other, and occasionally comes disconnected.  Usually when this happens, the pendant just hangs a little askew and I tend to say that I can easily come a little unhinged as well, but we both pull ourselves back together easily enough. If it were tighter it would be difficult to fasten, and it never has actually fallen off.  I suppose console myself with the thought that, should it actually fall, I might feel it if it fell inside a blouse, whereas over a tee, it might bounce away before I even noticed.  

The pendant is a personal memento of better times, times when we explored the world together.  G always wanted to protect me and take care of me.  When I wear his lion, I feel like all the good memories are right there, enveloping me and protecting me.

Amethyst.  Silver.  Gold.

Seems perfect.

I always thought I liked the deep dark amethysts, but I never found one I really wanted, even though I wanted a purple ring in theory.  

Actually G found this one and despite how it looks in the  photo above, it is not deep purple at all but rather a hazy light purple, not too washed out, but not to deep either, which I just love.  Perfect to wear with jeans and a sweater.