Estate Sale Find

A bunch of vintage hand made necklaces that will be re-purposed for use in my bead projects.  The big blackish beads are a type of nut native to Hawaii.

The green bits is some sort of Lucite type material

I was thrilled to find these vintage cake decorations for fifty cents!

Today's Haul

Today's haul from JB Knacker in Gilbert, Iowa.

Five inch brass numbers, need the "3" and the "0" still.

Vintage jello cup to experiment with.

Some millinery bits.

Thimbles: one metal one silver.

Wasbi tape from Pixi's in Gilbert, Iowa.  She has every color and pattern imaginable, plus several sizes, in stock.

Pearl white wasbi tape.

Auditioning Fabrics

Found some folded points, etc., in a box of vintage fabrics I picked up along the way and am now auditioning them to use in an upcoming body of work. I think I may rust dye some of the red and white gingham as it's too clean and too cheerful.  

The netting and metallic mesh was in a box on my shelf. 

Weekend Finds

Now that I'm feeling slightly better, I picked these yummies up at JB Knacker this past weekend, my favorite vintage shop ever!!!  The tureen will hold my vintage bead and bauble collection.  The calligraphy and fountain pen tips, well for lettering of course.

French Pearl Cotton - Yummy!

Stopped by my favorite haunt today, JB Knacker in Gilbert, Iowa, and found five beautiful skeins of vintage french pearl cotton!

Some of the thread has some foxing but should come out with a gentle washing. 

The Studio Waits!

I have mono at the present, so my studio sits idle waiting, waiting for me to come paint, dye, and stitch!  All simply because I'm just too tired to do anything, but the diagnosis sure does explain a lot.

John moved the plastic drawer units into my studio two weeks ago, it's so nice to have all of my vintage yummies within arms distance now.

Vintage pink trim, there's a few things left in the office that need to be moved into the studio otherwise it's all in there now and it's a matter of just getting busy producing some new work.

I love black and white zippers, somewhere in one of those plastic drawers there's a black and white houndstooth zipper that's just wanting to be stitched onto a beautiful surface!

Eye Glasses Strap

I started with a cartoon of what I hoped the beaded strap would look like and then started going through my collection of vintage beads, not bad for a first attempt!

Wedding Dress

I had been visiting this dress for some time, see pics in previous posts, and it finally came home to live with me a few weeks ago!  John is planning to hang a rod in the stairwell so that I can hang my vintage dress collection, three dress to date, there.

On my desk

Vintage pearl cotton thread I picked up today for a project.

Button Button

Button Button whose got the buttons???

Majorie

A picture of my mother in law taken back in 1936 somewhere in California.

Studio

My retro vintage oranged crushed velvet wing back chair.

I finally got the chair into the studio, I'm not sure but I think I may have used a few muscles I haven't used in years! The view from the doorway - my studio isn't really that large something like 10 x 13 feet, less actually because the doorway is on the corner which has been lopped off, old victorians are a lot of fun. My head hurts today I wacked it and pretty good last night on the drafting table, bent over to pick something up which was all the encouragement I needed to move the table out of the room permanently.

Madder Root Dyed Crochet Lace

I posted information at the Natural Surfaces Zine on this process.

I love how the fabric buttons look being back lit like this.

Wedding Dress

Vintage Bling

A peak of some goodies to come!

An overwhelming knot of trims!

Somewhat sortred!

Vintage type writer ribbon tin that held sewing pins.

Life is strange sometimes. I picked up a box of vintage bling yesterday at one of the shops I frequent. Typically I do not use gold anything in my work because I simply do not purchase anything gold, so I don't have enough to complete any one project - well until now that is.

As I went through the box I discovered that the box of trims once belonged to woman that once lived in my house! Just like the piano that keeps coming back to live here, after being sold multiple times, so has this box of trims! In the box I also found crystals from my chandelier that is missing and has been since dh moved here in 1991.

Yes life is strange sometimes.

Heart No. 3

Chocolate Ric Rac

Available in my etsy store wildhyacinth

New Heart In Progress

Heart No. 3 In Progress

My Sewing Table

I've been cleaning my studio again so my sewing tabel is a mess, hopefully I'll have a better handle on things tomorrow - mess wise.