I worked on these brooches fairly recently, but I feel compelled to add that when I blogged about my new year’s eve, I saw the dates between today and the last time I published a blog which was February of Last Year (insert The Killers lyric, it’s not consequential, I got potential, I digress).

I enjoyed making these brooches. It was the first time I set out to make brooches in any medium and it made me very satisfied. I have been thinking about embroidery and how I want to embroider all of my wardrobe, but now I see that I can just have acccessories. I do not have a habit of accessorizing my outfits, partially because I don’t have a jewelry wearing habit and I think that affects the way I shop etc. So it has been pretty neat to make brooches. In my experimentation of styling the brooches, I really enjoy the effect of putting the brooch in that sweet gap where the collar meets the button strip, akin to a bolo tie’s clip’s location.

I often think about “where am I wearing this outfit to?” and especially now, in pandemic land, I imagine that there’s a party I’m preparing for when the “new roaring twenties” comes around. I like to distinguish audience member versus performer. The idea that there are some things in my wardrobe that are very punchy and could be worn as someone on stage, but off stage it might be overly peacocky for my taste. I think a bit about fashion as a language for showing others you know where you are and what you should be wearing.

What I especially like about brooches is their compactness. In comparison to other things I’ve embroidered, it has a great hand-feel, like a token or a ticket. There’s something really neat about something you can put in your pocket, perhaps like a handwritten note passed in class. You can keep it for later, forget about it and then remember.

Something to note: as brooches, the objects are a bit unfinished. I couldn’t commit to a type of fastener. In these shots, I have used a variety of methods to pin them, but I would love to talk to a craftsperson about their favorite ways to attach cloth to brooch clips, etc. Perhaps, I enjoy the non-committal versatility of their current state. They could be attached to all sorts of clips/pins, depending on the customer.