Vintage Pattern Overload

A local church had a rummage sale in their basement last weekend and I spotted a box of patterns as soon as I walked in the door. I asked, "How much for the patterns?" The lady at the card table replied, "Oh, 5 cents each."

There were 20 patterns total. As you can see, most are a size 34, just a little too big. Several were a 36. Two of them were from the '80s and so ugly that I couldn't bear to photograph them.

I've put the ones close to my size in my pattern bin and the rest have been stored for later.

Lucky, lucky me. I'm not ready to deal with any of these yet but they are nice to have and dream about.

Getting organized!

I have really been working hard on getting the office/studio in shape. On a whim and in a fit of impulse buying fury, I snatched up the last two Liberty of London bins from Target a few months ago and promptly filled them with important stuff. One holds my patterns (see disaster above) and the other (a different size and shape) is filled (well, actually overfilled) with clothes I plan to repurpose.

After not being able to find any of the patterns I was looking for, I tore the whole thing apart and took care of business. Here is the newly organized bin. I took out all of the photocopies and pages I printed from the internet and pdfs and they now live sleeved in brand new binders sorted by type. I bought two "natural" cardboard-like ones from Office Depot and two shiny brown ones with cool covers from Target. I'll hot glue some ribbon down the spine of the shiny ones because they are too shiny and, well, I found that ribbon I mentioned before and I think it will look so cool.

I'll show you the whole space as soon as it's finished. I picked up some more of that cardboard looking stuff in the form of photo file boxes from Michael's to replace my plastic lidded tubs. Mr. Lemon is now using the tubs and they are perfect for him. The best thing is that even after a trip to Ikea during which I found NOTHING that will work for the space we have, I stumbled upon a little gem at our local Lowe's that is precisely the dimensions I need to be both a coffee/side table and a storage solution. But it's out of stock so stay tuned. I did find it online but shipping, wow. Patience, grasshopper.

The only problem for me is that I have these fabric cubes that fit in the square spaces and the green ones are so ugly to me and I hate them. I bought them on clearance but I want to get rid of them and that is just not something I can do if I can't use them somewhere else in the house. So maybe I'll cover them up or something. We'll see.

Summer NYC: M & J Trimmings

So this is the last of the haul from our trip to New York City: all from M & J Trimmings. I first heard of this awesome shop from a cute little book called The Curious Shopper's Guide to New York City that I bought for my mom before one of our visits. The book is full of lovely little tidbits and I'm hoping to steal it from my mom next time I'm home but the store itself is full of so many more lovely tidbits that I was a bit overwhelmed.

As you can see, the wild child loved it too. She loves helping me sew so she actually wasn't even that wild in there. She was super good and chose well.

I picked up some beautiful grosgrain ribbon for the dress (still can't decide but I think that one at the top is getting 86'ed) and that cool raspberry trim because I couldn't resist it. The salespeople were super nice and very helpful. They were also great with the kid being in the store. It was getting late and we were all hungry so I didn't get to check out the entire room of buttons but that was probably a good thing.

NYC Summer: Garment District

I finally got the perfect fabric (I hope!) for my vintage shirtwaist dress pattern. I thought I had written a post about buying the pattern but I guess I only put the photo up on the Project: Project Facebook page. I even neglected flickr, apparently.

I've been wanting to make a shirtwaist dress for a long time. I love how they are dressy but casual all at the same time and you can just do so much with them. I spent hours on Etsy finding the perfect pattern and was thrilled with it when it arrived.

I knew I would go to Beckenstein Men's fabrics in the Garment District. I stumbled upon the store a few years ago when searching for the perfect seamonster fabric for the yeti loves seamonster dolls that never surfaced (ha ha, elusive beasts). I knew I would find the most amazing men's shirt fabric in the perfect color. I mapped out the spot (along with the other places we checked out) and made it the first stop in the plan. And it was closed. (Homer slap to forehead, doh!). I read the hours but I didn't pay attention to Saturday. So anyway, lesson learned (I should change the name of this blog).

But at a shop close by, I was greeted by incredibly helpful salesmen (yes, they were all men) who put up with wild child (brought in by Mr. Lemon from Starbucks because I needed help deciding what color worked best on me in the tragically flourescent lighting). The shop had a great selection and the quality and color I was looking for. I'm really happy with it. The grosgrain ribbon from last post will be used as the belt. I'll post some pics of the colors together after I decide which way to go. I am not sure you can really get the fabric from this photo. It's kinda coral and kinda pink and surprisingly like the dress on the pattern cover which was not my intention at all. I had wanted to go blue but threw that out at the last minute. The warp and the weft are two different colors which adds some dimension and enhances the texture.It's very good quality and probably cost less than I would have spent elsewhere. I have to say I will check this store out again. Happy accident.

NYC Summer: Tinsel Trading

During my lunch hour at work, I read blogs and follow links and just get lost in it all sometimes. Back in April I read this post over at the Colette blog about Tinsel Trading and I just had to go there. Unfortunately, I don't have any good photos of the shop but Mr. Lemon kept the wild child occupied while I shopped around. She had a blast looking at all the bins full of bits. We bought her a sparkly letter Z for the alphabet in her room. I could have spent a million dollars.

Luckily, I didn't. But I did pick up some gorgeous ribbon. The striped grosgrain is to go with what I'll show you tomorrow. The yellow velvet on the far left is to spruce up some binders in my office. The wide brown velvet was just too gorgeous to pass up, the yellow striped velvety ribbon was really cheap, and who can see super wide orange ric rack and not buy it? Panda is in the shot because my little helper thought it was important. But can you see my yellow theme? How weird, huh? I've never really been into that color much before but I picked up a good bit of it on the trip.

Overall, I just loved this shop and will try to pop in every time I'm in Manhattan.

Carolina Fair Designs Pattern Giveaway Winners

For the first post on the Wraparound Dress, comment #19:
Nicole from Louisiana.

For the second post on the Pretty Pinafore, comment #1:
Carrie, the Non-practicing Librarian

Congrats!

If I can find your email, I will send it on to Caroline so that she can send you the pattern of your choice. We decided not to hold you to your original decision. You can change your mind and choose either one.

I used the Random Number Generator found here but how weird is it that for the first post it picked the last comment and for the second post it picked the first? I'm not sure it could get more random than that.

Here is a link to all the info on the giveaway. Thanks again to Carolina Fair Designs for being so awesome!

NYC Summer: Purl Soho

We took a weekend trip to New York recently to gather some supplies. Every time we hit the city, I make a point to stop into Purl. It was my first time in the new location and I thought it was great. Very roomy. They had a really nice selection of embroidery flosses, what seemed like the same amount of fabric, and a nice spot to look at patterns. Of course, there was the usual gorgeous crafty inspiration hanging out on every shelf and every corner.

The first thing to catch my eye were these little wool felt dolls by Mimi Kirchner. I didn't take any notes or photos of them while I was at the store but I couldn't stop thinking about them. When I got home, I did some snooping and found this awesome free pattern. I'm going to try to make one. I've had an idea brewing for a long time and I think this is what I needed to make it work.

I started my collection of Heather Ross' Far Far Away II with these lovelies. My color palette has been leaning toward this yellow and I bought several different versions of it on the trip (more on that later this week). The only embroidery floss available here is DMC and its generic counterparts so I decided to try some Trebizond silk (teal) and Londonderry spun linen (jonquil). They are both really lovely.

Of course, some Alexander Henry. I'd seen the larger print before but never the smaller one. I think they'll look lovely together and I have a pattern in mind. The polka dot trim caught my eye and I think it will look good with some fabric I picked up at Ikea. You never know...

Finally, I bought a teeny tiny bit of this Liberty of London gorgeousness to match the storage boxes from Target. I'm going to recover some pillows we have on the pullout in the office and I thought it would be nice to throw in a bit of this as an accent. It's not the same pattern but I didn't want to be too matchy matchy.