MY GAL SUBU

I wanted to share the news and excitement about Subu.com and the wonderful blog Subu writes. ( http://suburose.wordpress.com/) Every Monday she posts a crafty giveaway that has been getting a lot of national attention and over a hundred (!) entrants to win. Last week a gorgeous necklace was featured; this week, an adorable wristlet. All the items are handmade by very talented crafters.

Not only does Subu write a terrific blog with posts about crafts, celebs (like Zac Effron!!) and wedding plans, but she also finds time to create some amazing handmade books which you can see here. My favorites are the earth-friendly recycled notebooks that can be customized with your very own colors and stamps. Inside the books are recycled papers with all different kinds of images on them. They are really cool! She recently completed an order for 250 of these great little books! Can you imagine! Here they are all ready to be shipped.

I also love her new folded travel notebooks with side pockets and room for a pencil. They are so new she hasn’t posted them on her Etsy site yet, but I bet she will soon. Actually, you can see some photos of them on her Flickr page.

She is a member of the Pittsburgh Craft Mafia and has been very involved in the Pittsburgh craft scene. Where does she get the energy, you might ask? I don’t know for sure, but maybe from her father. Definitely not me.

The photo above is of some of the buttons and doo-dads she keeps in a glass container to adorn those recycled books. Wouldn’t you know, the buttons are recycled, too. They are part of a collection she inherited from her grandmother (the original Subu) and great aunt. Some of them have also been rescued from old garments about to be thrown away.

Please check out Subu (aka Emily). She is a never-ending inspiration to me. Did I mention she is my daughter?

Content and photos copyright 2007 by Janet Towbin.

MEMORIES OF CLOTHES PAST

I have gotten rid of half of my wardrobe! Most of my clothes no longer fit–or they have gone out of style. Not just a little bit out of style, we are talking way out of style! Some of the outfits are from the 80’s, I kid you not. How stylish these things once were–and how dated they look today!

It was very hard to part with most of these items because of the memories they held. There were the special dresses I wore to our children’s bar and bat mitzvahs, outfits I wore for holiday parties, evening gowns worn for a few of the gala events and fabulous parties we have attended. Ah, the memories are more important than the clothes, but the clothes have managed to help trigger the memories. And such sweet memories they are!

In a few short weeks they will be on their way to adorn someone else’s body and create new memories for someone else thanks to online auctions and resale shops! A sales agent is going to pick up many of the better garments today; everything else will go to a resale store. Meanwhile, I thought it would be a good idea to photograph some of my more memorable garments to ease the pain of giving them away. The photos will serve as a convenient (and less cumbersome) way to hold on to the memory.

Coco Chanel said,

“Fashion should slip out of your hands. The very idea of protecting the seasonal arts is childish. One should not bother to protect that which dies the minute it is born.”

Intellectually, I agree with her. Call me childish, but I am loathe to let go of these garments I have loved, every fiber of which is imprinted with memories.

Etro silk patterned skirt.

Cache black and white suit from 1989(!).

Ungaro Striped Suit–very 90’s

Steve Fabrikant knit dress.

They are all gone from my closet, but thanks to these (and many other) digital images, they will not be forgotten!

I’ll end this post with another quote I love from Coco Chanel:

“Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.”

How true!

Content and photos copyright 2007 by Janet Towbin

MY GRANDPARENTS’ WEDDING PHOTO

Looking through some old photographs the other day, I came across this photograph of my grandparents, Rose (nee D’Aquila) and Joseph Lasita on their wedding day. I am not certain, but I believe the year was 1917. She would have been about 20 years old and he, 26. They possibly married in Columbus, Ohio where she was born and raised, but they lived in Cincinnati for all their adult lives.

I only know 4 other people in the photo, all women. My grandmother, Rose, is in the center flanked on the left by sisters Augusta, known as Gussie (far left) and Mary; on the right is another sister, Genevieve, known as Jenny. I do not know the flower girl or the woman on the far right. I also have no idea who the men are except for my grandfather. It would be wonderful to know who the other people were who shared this day with my grandparents. Sadly, everyone who could have told me is now gone.

As Emily and Mike look at photographers for their special day, I am reminded how important it is to have these keepsakes of a family’s history. And how fleeting memory is. There are people who appear in our wedding photos who I do not remember at all. I think I will begin to write identifying names on the backs of our important family photos so the children of our grandchildren will know our history. As this wonderful Chinese proverb tells us: “The palest ink is is better than the sharpest memory.”

Content and photography copyright 2007 by Janet Towbin