A lovely gift I received in the mail from Petits Details. Thank you my dear! Some wonderfully vintage goodies all the way from France! I'm especially in love with the tape with my initials on it. C'est genial! ^_^ She has such good taste and I'm inspired by her every time she posts to her blog. I wish I could live in those photos! Be sure to pop by her Etsy shop as she actually sells these type of pretties there from time to time.
The thread and needles in my package made me think of my dear Grandpa
who just passed. He was a tailor back in the Caribbean. He used to make his own clothes and would fashion them after Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. He said he would go the the movies to see what they were wearing. I wonder if he had items like this in his sewing arsenal back in the day. I remember that I would show him things that I made and he would
inspect every single stitch and seam making sure that it was up to his
standards. He liked to see all of my sewing 'perfect' and would make me get the seam ripper if something didn't look right to him. I'd secretly be really upset and I'm sure grumbled to myself, but I'm grateful for his instruction as I suppose he influenced me more than I know.
Grandpa grew up in the Dominican Republic in La Romana, but was born on the island of St. Kitts in the Caribbean. He spoke Spanish fluently, which he had learned from his time in the DR. He always wanted me to learn Spanish, but I was never very interested in the language. Japanese and French always managed to take my attention to his disappointment. I'm thinking it may be worth looking into now though. Between Mel and me there's a huge melting pot of cultures that make up our lineage. Dominican, Puerto Rican, Portuguese, French, even Irish! It seems fitting to explore our Latin roots I suppose.
My Grandma let me take some of his belongings to keep and I thought I'd share a few with you.
His mother never got rid of anything and was almost a pack rat, he found some of his school books in her home some years back in St. Kitts.
This book is titled "Libro Segundo De Lectura" published in 1944. I'm not sure what part of her house he found this book, but the outside is terribly damaged. The pages are still legible though, and some of the illustrations even have color!
The second is a Royal Star Reader from 1948 with lot's of stories, poems, English grammar, general information about money, cleanliness, and air. Air? Yes, air. :P
And finally his pipe. But I remember wanting to play with it when I was a little girl. It reminded me of one of those pipes you used for blowing bubbles and thought, how cool would it be if I could blow bubbles with this too! I would always get caught trying to pick it up. I guess it's a good thing I never got a hold of it! ^_^
It's funny, he never smoked this pipe. At least not to my knowledge. It sort of just sat there on display all the time. Every now and then he'd pick it up and dust it off and right back it would go to it's little spot on the shelf. *sigh* Those were the days. Miss you Grandpa. ^_^
