:: moments ::

Rain, rain, go away...

After three straight days of rainy weather (which we sorely needed here!), it cleared up yesterday morning to become a gloriously sunny and crisp October day. Between the previously dreary weather, and my being cooped up in the house so long, I was feeling quiet twitchy yesterday. Mom was kind enough to suggest taking me to one of our favorite haunts: the local “old town”, filled with antique shops, interesting boutiques and a couple tea rooms. So I donned my new, red beret and we spent a few hours just wandering in and out of shops, mostly window shopping (but I did spend some money; I rarely go into an antique store and come out empty handed!). Stopping halfway through for afternoon tea and yummy muffins at a bakery. Came home to find the inaugural issue of Victoria peeking out of the mailbox! (Review and thoughts coming later this week...) A lovely ending to a beautiful day indeed.

Today I wore my “new” vintage dress I picked up yesterday at my favorite dealer’s store. I’ve blogged about her before, but she always has the most beautiful selection of affordable (and wearable) vintage garments. I hadn’t been to her shop since mid summer, and all the inventory had changed to autumn-appropriate wear. Loads of lovely, fall hued dresses, hats and lots of coats (which I have to keep away from; I did a count recently of my coats/jackets and found I have upwards of a dozen! Yikes!). I fell in love with this 1950s, dead-stock (it still had the original tags attached!) jumper, was delighted when it fit and promptly bought it.


I love how vintage clothes fit! Nothing is better, in my opinion. Speaking of garments fitting nicely, one of the ladies at church lent me a whole stack of pattern cutting and fashion drawing books today! She had spent time in England years ago and had taken a course on fashion design, and had a whole bunch of books and class notes from then. We flipped through them a bit after church (hurriedly... lol!), and they look really good; nothing like the American-published books I have in my bookcase. I can’t wait to spend a bit more timing poring over them; I’ll share pictures and titles once I do.




I also fit a little sewing in this afternoon. Working on putting together the mock-up of my 1820’s corset for my dress I’m making. I made a similar corset several years ago, using the pattern from Period Costumes for Stage and Screen, which is dated a bit earlier in the century. This time around, I decided I really would rather have a corset that is appropriate for the 1820’s and 1830’s, so I’m using the scaled pattern from Corsets and Crinolines, which is a slightly different shape. Its more of a shape that mimics me, anyway, which always makes fitting easier. I need to make a fabric store run this week and pick up the cotton for the outer layer, as well as the cording. I’ve already got the linen on hand for the interlining (the corset consists of four layers; two cotton outer-layers and the linen inside), and I think I can probably scavenge spiral boning from my previous corsets. So hopefully I won’t go broke on this project! lol.


I have so many more things to share with you all, but to keep this post length reasonable, I’ll save it for tomorrow. I hope you all are having a lovely, happy weekend!

Cheers & Creativity,
♥ Casey [ email me ]

p.s. The time is drawing near: I'm going to be permanently moving my postings to my new blog as of Monday! Please adjust your subscriptions and links accordingly! Thanks!

:: ze loot... ::

Finally! Pictures of some of my finds from the rummage sale this past Friday. I bought some clothing too, but part of it has already been sent to be cleaned (namely the most gorgeous 1960s, black wool sheath!), so I’ll share pictures of those pieces later on.

1. rummage sale loot . 07, 2. rummage sale loot . 05, 3. rummage sale loot . 11, 4. rummage sale loot . 06
Shall we begin? First, let me set the mood... I got to the sale an hour and a half before the public was admitted, and with good reason too. Housed mainly in a large equestrian center (and a few of the out buildings), this thing is huge. Lines begin forming early, and I decided that getting there the earlier, the better (especially so I could get a good parking spot!). I was the second person in line, and parked myself on the ground with my knitting (and latte... must have caffeine for these things you know!). I chatted with people who had come from Maryland, West Virginia and even Massachusetts to attend this!

The closer it gets to admission time, the more you can feel people getting twitchy! Its tough to wait when you just know there are piles of goodies just lying there waiting for you! When the doors open, people tend to rush through, and yes, even I have been known to sprint to the antiques and fabric tables in an effort to pick over the best stuff first! lol.


This year my first stop was the antiques, especially since I had found a lovely typewriter last year and knew that I had to check in first. I didn’t find a lot, which made me wish I had hit the fabric first. (Especially after running into my friend S. who had already looted three bags of scraps!! That explains why the fabric seemed so picked over... lol!!!)


The craft tables weren’t that picked over, although there were a handful of women hovering around the boxes of knitting needles and such, so it was a bit hard to get in there. Never-the-less I managed to snag a couple of vintage needlework goodies:




My favorite find, however, was this box:


It looks like a box of junk, doesn’t it? It was taped shut, so I couldn’t look inside, but a little voice kept telling me to buy it. Marked at only $3, I figured if it was full of notions that I didn’t care for, I could probably find a new home for it! But look what spilled out when I opened it up:


Buttons! Gobs of them! Most of the buttons range from about the 1940’s/1950’s to the 1980’s, so it is a pretty good range of styles and materials. I’m still going through them, but there are some real gems!


Also, oddly enough, there was a large stack of vintage clothing labels in the box too. As well as vintage Vogue Designer labels (that they used to give out when you bought a Vogue designer pattern). I can only imagine the rather eccentric woman who must have saved all these labels!


I also picked up a back of vintage snaps and hooks for a quarter. Besides being useful, I love the graphics of vintage notion packaging!


*sigh* It was a good year! Not as spectacular as last year (when, besides the typewriter, I also scrounged a stack of 1920’s needlework magazines), but not shabby at all. I’m already looking forward to next year!!

Cheers & Creativity,
♥ Casey [ email me ]

:: lacy whites & up to my elbows in suds ::

The boxes... no piles of vintage clothing from my grandfather have been begging to begin to be dealt with. I’ve taken a cursory glance through most of it (there is still a box and bag in the basement I need to look through), but what I’ve found is very interesting. Its a hodge-podge of mid century and antique, good condition and bad. Most of the latter is salvageable in some respect, even if its just for a small length of silk, or tiny piece of lace.


But of course, before these plans for reworking (and believe me, I’ve been thinking of some cunning plans!) can commence, I need to clean everything, because like most old clothing it has a bit of a peculiar smell. I decided I’d start with two pieces: an early 20th century petticoat that was an alarming shade of yellow with huge stains (and a rip), but has the most beautiful eyelet trim. And a 1960s I. Magnin white lace mini dress, that I have plans for reworking so it’ll fit me (and make a lovely dress to wear over tights this winter!).


My research on cleaning old whites had said to soak things in OxiClean. Although I have a patent distrust of most detergents, I decided to give it a try, because the stains on the petticoat in particular were so horrendous it was either get them out, or toss the piece. I loosely followed a bunch of instructions I had found online, and filled the bathtub up about 1/4 of the way with really hot water, and dissolved about 3 scoops of OxiClean. I then added cooler water to bring the temperature down. Once the water was lukewarm, I put the garments in to soak, which I did for about 5 hours.


I only moved them around once through the process, just to make sure everything was soaking evenly. After I drained and rinsed them 4 times, I hung them to dry. At that point, I noticed the changes: the 1960s dress was definitely more white (it had the dirty shade of white that happens after improper storage for a lengthy time); but the real change was the petticoat! Except for one, particularly nasty stain (that it quite small), everything else had come out! I was shocked, and quite surprised because now I had a petticoat that I could take apart and use for other purposes.

[A side note: If you happen to try this, please do be sure to wear gloves when handling the OxiClean (just because you’re hands are so much in this process)! I don’t know if it is just my really sensitive skin, but I got a bit of a rash on my arm from where I came in contact with some of the diluted solution and didn’t rinse it properly!]


So, I’ve discovered OxiClean works wonders on restoring the white of old garments. Honestly though, I wouldn’t use it on anything but old cotton/linen because I know it would probably ruin any other fiber. For that, I have my trusty Woolite, which I plan to use for part 2 of the Vintage Cleaning Saga: cleaning 85+ year-old net.

Stay tuned!!

cheers & creativity,
    ♥ casey [ email me ]

p.s. Guess what lovely surprise I had this morning?! I won a set of lovely artwork buttons from the amazingly talented Marjorie!! What a lovely way to start not only a new week, but a new season! Thank you, Marjorie!! :)

p.p.s. I have uploaded loads more photos of both these garments to my Flickr page! Check them out!

:: a show-off post ::

There is only really one reason for this post, and that is to show off my favorite “new” summer frock. Which just happens to be vintage! I purchased it a few weeks back from the loveliest vintage dealer who recently opened up shop. I happened to stop in her new digs the day she opened, and we chatted for about an hour while I looked around her store. She has the most amazing array of vintage garments and accessories. Its really one of those very dangerous places I have to limit myself to visiting only after I’ve been paid. lol. Every time I’ve been in there I’ve bought at least one thing! I’m hoping that next time I see her (we’ve struck up quite a friendship!) she’ll let me take some photos of her store and do a write up about her store for this blog. Stepping into her store is like walking into a Technicolor vintage wonderland and I think you would all enjoy seeing that. ;)


Oh, and excuse the bruises all over my legs. I have a bad habit of banging high chairs into my shins while I’m at work and setting up tables. Ugh. It’s because I’m short and the high chairs are big and I’m usually rushing. lol.

Finally, don’t forget to enter the vintage paper packet giveaway! Deadline for entries is Friday at 1am, so hurry!.

:: button swap ::

Silly me--I’ve had these pictures on my harddrive for a couple weeks waiting to share them with you!! I particpated in Sally’s vintage button swap last month and the my swap partner, the lovely Joanna, surprised me with a beautiful assortment of vintage buttons and a couple other goodies too! Thank you so much, Joanna!! :) I have to admit, with much shame, that I wasn’t quite as prompt with my package... the beginning of finals fell around the same time as this swap (must remember that next time!!) and life got crazy. But I hope she’s recieved it by now. :) I can’t wait to use some of these goodies in a project!!

To all the mothers out there: wishing you a lovely and happy Mother’s Day tomorrow!!

listening::jazz mix::
reading::a biography of queen victoria::
inspiring::cake plate tutorial::

:: saturday mornings ::

Its been years since I bothered to yard sale. Somehow as a young adult, waking up early Saturday morning just didn’t appeal to me--despite my widely known love of a bargain/“junk” hunt. This morning, despite having worked late the evening before, I dragged myself out of bed and hit the community-wide yard sale. Boy, am I glad I did!! I found a nice selection of what I term “pretty junk” that was calling my name (and quite easy on the wallet...):

I also picked up a small, four-drawer storage unit (for a whopping $5) that needs to be repainted. But once its given a few fresh coats of a soft white semi-gloss, I think it’ll be perfect for stashing my sewing/crafting supplies that are getting out of hand. Well, almost... I think this will call for a trip to Target or the Container Store to get little organizers for all the drawers. ‘Cause a drawer full of tangled supplies kinda defeats the purpose! :)

Have a lovely weekend!
listening::new order::
reading::threads::
inspiration::paper shelves::

happiness

Spring is finally here and although looking out the window today would lead one to believe otherwise (chilly, rainy, overcast...), I can hear birds singing and the cherry tree outside my window is starting to bloom. *sigh* This is the time of year I always feel gloriously alive and ready to take on anything! lol.

As promised, a few (well, okay, more than a few--check them all out at my flickr page!) pictures of some of my latest vintage finds. The crazy print smock has got to be my favorite; scored at a vintage clothing shop that was going out of business for $14. It looks so funky over straight-leg jeans with a tank underneath worn open. Or, for a more prim-and-proper look, buttoned half-way up and cinched with a large belt at the waist. I think it would look cute with a knit pencil skirt as well...


This dress was on the “as-is” rack for $10 and I immediately decided I had to have it because the jacket has a cute little peplum in the back! :)


I’ve been making a ton of bangles lately, as I’m planning on trying to consign a few in the next week or two at a couple of local boutiques. I’ve never done anything like this before, which is a little unnerving. But after wearing one the other day and everyone commented on how cute and ingenious it was (including several of my guy friends!!), I figured I’d just better bite the bullet and go with it. lol! I have a bunch of designs on my flickr page, if anyone is interested. :)


Finally, I finished that little patch inspired by the work of Rebecca Purcell. I love the wackiness/elementary school project quality of it. I think its going to be eventually sewn on a bag or something... :)

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!!

better watch out...

Goodness! This week has totally gotten away from me! As much as I hate to say this, the bangle tutorial will have to wait until next week; I simply cannot get it done this week and still retain any shred of sanity. ;) My apologies if anyone was waiting with baited breath for that... I promise it’ll be up late next week! Anyways, I’ve heard a rumor that Santa is bringing me a new digital camera this Christmas, so maybe the pictures will be crisper and better than my current (old) camera can take!

This week has certainly kept me on my toes. Monday was shopping and then a party at a friend’s house that evening. Which was interesting, as I managed to get through my teenage years without doing one of those “just hang out” parties. Aside from the fact that I knew no one else there besides my friend, I had a nice time. Tuesday was more shopping (will it never end?!), this time with my mom though. Wednesday was a really long day for me. I was up at the crack of dawn to get ready to go to Tyson’s Corner that day. I got my hair cut while I was at the mall (the big one), as it had been looking super-droopy lately. I had it cut much shorter with lots of layers and blown dry straight (I hadn’t seen myself with straight hair in nearly a year!). It turned out very cute: a sort of modern take on the 1960s flip. I just have to get used to using a blow dryer again! lol! We met up with some friends at Nordstrom’s Cafe for lunch and some shopping afterwards. By the time I got home, I was so tired even the grande Americano from Starbucks didn’t revive me. So I just gave up getting anything else done and curled up in a chair with Queen of Fashion and a bowl of popcorn (“dinner”). lol.

I’ve been doing a lot of crafting lately, but alas, they are Christmas gifts for family members who read this blog, so I can’t post pictures yet! But I assure you that I will after Monday. *grin* Speaking of which, as much as I’d like to keep blogging right through the holiday, I think I’m going to take a small break until early next week. If nothing else, the fewer distractions I have, the more likely I’ll get those gifts I’m making done by Christmas morning! hehe! So I bid you all adieu, wishes of a merry and joyful holiday, safe travel, and good times with family and friends!

P.S. The image in this post is my favorite vintage dress. A brocade late 1950s/early 1960s cocktail dress with mink cuffs. I have never worn this, but plan to wear it to services on Christmas Eve. It’s certainly more festive than my usual all-black ensembles! lol! More pictures here.

vintage image wednesday

I can't believe the week is halfway over already... where has the time gone?! I've got a couple projects that need to be photographed (or in some cases finished...), but for now I wanted to share some more vintage images with you all. I love getting ideas and inspiration from these old craft booklets; some are tried and true while others are more novel ideas that seem very fresh now. :) Enjoy!!

Click on each image for a larger view and a description!