SISTERLESS AS I AM, all my original lessons on sisterhood came from my sweet, sweet Mama. Here she is in 1981 with baby Brother T. Of course, I still catch her gazing at him with that exact same adoration now 30 years later. Happy Mother’s Day to all the mamas (and mama’s boys)!

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WHAT IS IT ABOUT BRAIDS and sisterhood that makes them such divine companions? The fantastic how-to book Beautiful Braids was a longtime staple in my childhood, but somehow I never really mastered the tricky task of braiding my own hair in the mirror. (When I’m home sometimes my mom still does it!) Maybe the secret of sisters with fabulous braids is that they do it for each other? After getting a tip on the braid-heavy photo above from Pam at Retro Renovation, I started thinking about my favorite plaited ladies from The Sister Project. Here’s what I found:

TSP founder and veteran braid-rocker, Margaret Roach, looks adorable with ribbons in her hair in this vintage gem (that’s baby Marion with her).

Plaits were the standard style for Poppy and Daisy de Villeneuve while they were growing up in England. (For the full scoop on their style and sisterhood, have a look at their profile in the TSP galleries.)

These impressively long braids were the headliners for our We Match photo gallery. Aren’t they perfect for a first communion?

And our favorite painter Amanda Blake looks positively whimsical with her hair in classic braids.

She even paints them on her subjects! (Find more of Amanda’s beautiful work here.)

Did braids play a prominent role in your childhood? As always, we’d love to see your wacky and/or whimsical photos of braids and sisters! Send them to thesisterproject [at] gmail [dot] com.

(Thanks, Roz, for the great top photo.)

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SINCE MUCH OF WHAT I share with you on TSP is about Big Brother T (and I mean big, what with his muscles and height and deafening voice), I’ve been feeling it was time to put his more diminutive side on display. Above is a favorite photo of the two of us (plus adopted brother Fievel), and when I look at it I simply cannot believe how big T is these days.

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DARE I SAY IT: THE KOOKIER THE BETTER! This wild photo of a 1982 sisterly Halloween moment was sent to us by reader Kristen Ryan (she’s under the orange mop on the right) as an addition to the Claiming Sisterhood ‘We Match!’ photo gallery. Our gallery has grown with all of our recent reader contributions. Send your matching family photos to claimingsisterhood [at] gmail [dot] com. Thanks Kristen!

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I CONFESS, I’M A LITTLE envious of the five sisters who are behind the website Five Blondes. Yes, they’re all blonde (in varying shades), and yes, they have a little Canadian je ne sais quoi spirit, but the icing on the whole blonde cake is their serious sister camaraderie. And while they’re scattered in various corners of Canada (Erica actually lives in London), they remain connected through so much more than common hair color.

Visiting Five Blondes is a bit like a consolation prize for us, the sisterless, since we can go there and peruse some cutesy family pics, read about wedding plans, and delight in the things that they love, all the while checking out the sweet comments they leave to one another.

Last week baby blonde, Lauren, sent me the photo (top) for an addition to our “We Match!” photo gallery. It’s pretty amazing to see their grinning faces and floral frocks all in a row. Thanks Lauren!

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MY DEAR FRIENDS (who happen to be sisters), Annie and Alex Ensign, contributed this Easter gem to our “We Match” photo gallery. Apparently all these matching frocks and jumpers were made by their mother, and as the story goes, there are a lot more Ensign children than the ones pictured here–I think 12 in total. That’s a lot of sewing. Send your Easter photos to claimingsisterhood [at] gmail [dot] com.

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THIS INCREDIBLE PHOTO was kindly sent to us by reader Elizabeth Edwardsen as an addition to our recent “We Match” photo gallery. The young lady in the floral jumper to the right is her mother. I love seeing the family resemblance in these siblings’ faces; it’s almost enchanting. Send your matching photos to claimingsisterhood [at] gmail [dot] com.

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I RECENTLY WROTE a post about siblings who match (you can catch up on it here), inspired by the mysterious photos of sisters Noreene and Maurine that thousands of people pored over on our homepage. Writing about that topic was too much fun to let go, so I’m featuring some of my favorite “We Match” photos in a slide show below. Some are of people I know, and some are of compelling strangers from Flickr.

This, of course, is just the beginning. Send your “We Match” photos (just in time for Easter!) to claimingsisterhood [at] gmail [dot] com.

[Show as slideshow]

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Thank you to all the Flickr users who provided the photos:

•    ‘Nieces and Aunt’ from spygrandson
•    ‘Christmas Jammies” from Erin Claassen Photography
•    ‘1947 Swimsuits’ from mcbriartyt
•    ‘Mary Janes’ is from CarlaCarlaCarlaCarla
•    ‘Mom and Daughter’ is from Delta Niner (aka Paul McRae)
•    ‘First Communion’ from  Missis Jones (she’s Barbara)
•    ‘3 Sisters’ from Darshy (her blog, here)
•    ‘Watermelons’ from Leedav
•    ‘Vintage Postcard’ from chicks57
(And there’s lots more in a “We Match” Flickr group)

Becky (who provided the ‘Miss America’ and ‘Ghost Town’ photos) runs a delightful blog about sisters and knitting called ‘Needles of Iron,’ TSP’s Marion has written about her before on the site.

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ALL OF US AT TSP were quite enamored with the initial story (or lack thereof) of mysterious twin sisters Maurine and Noreene, found on Flickr but unidentified beyond their first names and spunky sense of fashion. The photos belong to Roz Lebowitz, a New York City artist and collector who purchased the series of found images, depicting twin sisters clad in matching outfits throughout the ages (from the 1940s to the 90s). The Sister Project wanted to do our part to chase down the mystery of who these women were. And after Margaret Roach’s initial post on The Sister Project homepage, “Whose Twin Sisters are These?” we were delighted to receive a response from an amateur genealogist, Kevin, who had dug up a high school yearbook photo of Maurine and Noreene, along with other tidbits about their life and deaths. Even though the mystery was “solved,” we still couldn’t stop mulling those sisters over in our minds. The story sent TSP’s Marion Roach recalling a winding path she’d been down, pondering her own genealogy and redhead roots. For me, it’s all about the clothes: I can’t seem to push those matching outfits out of my own thoughts.

Me and T wearing whatever we want

While T and I have always liked to dress up, we never were ones for matching (although I understand that there’s less allure when you don’t have a twin, let alone a twin sister). Our mother is of the firm belief that children should have the freedom to pick out their own clothes—a reverse reaction from the days when she was forced to wear exclusively red, white and blue garb sewn by her own mother. The results of that belief are comical and somewhat embarrassing (see left). Left to our own devices, T and I wanted to look as little like each other as possible, using capes and colors, hats and snow boots to set ourselves apart.

My mother’s older sister, Gerry, somehow didn’t stray the course. She followed in my grandmother’s footsteps and sewed many-a-matching dress for her two daughters. Being much older than I am, I don’t have any memories of my cousins Heather and Jennifer in those dresses (or in their fabled Little House on the Prairie matching caps), but I was aware that they existed from a very young age.

Whenever I’d start to complain about how bad I had it at home (inevitably about something like the lack of Jif peanut butter in my life), my mother would come back at me with: “You don’t know how good you have it! At least I don’t pick out your clothes for you. Your cousins wore what their mom picked out for them until they were in HIGH SCHOOL! How would you like that?” At this point I’m sure I tuned her out.

My cousins, Jennifer and Heather, in identical frocks and caps

But the drone of those conversations came flooding back to me when I looked at the photos of Maurine and Noreene, embracing each other in identical gingham yellow. Since their mother was a seamstress, I’m sure they wore what she made for them while they were young. But the sisters clearly took an enormous amount of pride in their look-alike game (seeing as they bought the same clothes—at least sometimes—for more than half a century). Their separate identities run into each other and overlap like the very satin ivory of their gowns. It’s an intimacy that’s enviable in its simplicity.

Yet Kevin’s research revealed that the twin sisters’ lives weren’t necessarily as simple as they looked at first glance—they lost their brother and a husband, and possibly their father at a young age (it looks as though their mother remarried when the girls where still children). I tend to think that the childhood ritual of dressing alike became the center of Maurine and Noreene’s identities as adults, as they struggled to cope with tragedy and even growing pains. There is an element of make-believe in their attire (and that, I can certainly identify with), a sort of Never Never Land that comes playing dress-up—whether you’re in a cape and hat or go-go boots, whether you’re 8 or 85.

See the full set of photos here, on Flickr.

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HOW TO RECREATE this photo with your own brother:

1. Raid medicine cabinet for cotton balls.

2. Ignore Mom’s calls not to take too many.

3. Unroll each ball into a long fluffy strip.

4. Apply cotton to brother’s face with Scotch tape.

5. Adorn brother with Santa hat (he should be wearing red for maximum effect).

6. Sit on him (even if you are 2/3 his size) for photo op.

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The Sister Project hopes you’ll share a holiday photo with a sister twist with us. We’ll post them all in a special gallery show as they arrive, to showcase all the facets of sisterhood at the holidays, from Halloween to New Year’s. Sisters with sisters, sisters with brothers, sisters with sister-friends…your call. All we need: your jpg and a caption (naughty like Anastasia’s or nice as you please) in an email to thesisterproject at gmail dot com. Ho, ho, ho.

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