..some Happy Customers of late

1930s bias cut floral nightie:

Early 70s Indian cotton dress with midriff cutouts:

Cotton Crocheted dress, ca 1970s?:


Yummy olive and pink 1960s madras shirt:


1930s chiffon polka dots:



Blue Liederhosen: (he bought a lot of stuff but put these back at the last minute---too small)


1940s rayon suit jacket

Kindred Spirits

This morning I was on the check-out line paying for my groceries when the gentleman behind me took notice of my old tattered wallet (which I blogged about once here, when it turned 30).

"I've had it since 1978", I bragged. "Got it in Woodstock."

Meanwhile, he was pulling out his wallet to pay for his groceries, and totally trumped me.

"Poughkeepsie, 1964".

Thistle Stencil Project

I've had this wonderful old Arts & Crafts era curtain panel hanging in my one dining room window for the last several years, but sunlight had faded it to the point of near invisibility. The design was a stylized vertical leaf and thistle border, and I decided the only way to salvage it was to reprint the entire thing using stencils.

Stencils get a bad rap 'cause they're always designed in queer apples and hearts and teddy bear motifs.   In this case I just traced and cut the existing elements of my panel and then stippled away for two days (and that's mostly drying time in between courses).

It was all just an experiment for the most part---I used cheap craft paint and already had the acetate sheets and stippling brushes lying around.  (The most important thing is having sharp exacto blades for cutting out the design).
Below I am using a tiny stippling brush to color in the thistle flower seeds.

Here is the finished product:

I really love this motif.  I know I did a little bit of a wham-bam-thankyou-mam job on it, but I'm still happy with the results. It had been so faded for so long- that hanging 

it back up felt like seeing an old friend again.

revamped dress form project

You know those crappy vintage adjustable dress forms that turn up at yard sales and flea markets and you just can't stop yourself from buying them even though you know they're basically pieces of rusty wobbly shit that never do any garment justice?

Well I was about to throw one of mine through the window the other day when I had a pretty decent idea.  I took it completely apart, ripped out all the bent rusty guts that never worked anyway, (marking each piece as I did so), ripped off the glued-on knit covering (Big Mess!), and then duct taped the whole thing (14 pieces in all) back together again.

They're made of a paper pulp material, nice and light, so I decided to paper mache' the whole things in 3 layers, to secure it well.  This is the second layer, 

 

done with grocery store circulars, and this is the final layer,

 done in 1926 Albany newspaper (that a friend found under the linoleum he tore up in his old house up the street)

Here it is with a coat of varnish:

It is hollow and can still be modified with a stand, but I like its nice small size, great for counter top display of items like jewelry, scarves, and belts.  It's fun to look at too, since it is also essentially a 3-D collage.

30 Dresses in 30 Days

30 Dresses in 30 Days  is an idea I've been toying with for a long time.

Pick a month, any old month,
and wear a dress or skirt every single day of that month.

So I've made the pledge and it all starts tomorrow.
Feel free to join in. Make it official by visiting the Five and Diamond
Facebook Event Page and clicking on "attend".
(You will need a facebook account...)

Should be fun!

sidetracked

A few weeks ago I promised a "halfway decent" blog post in the near future; I haven't forgotten.

I am working on it.
Slowly but surely.

Step one is finally complete. (But I got sidetracked.)

I had to dig up some images I needed that were on an old disc I'd stored away.
(Uh, but first I had to find that disk...)

Then I had to comb through 2,184 picture files to find the three pics I needed for my story.








Talk about pissing away time.
It ended up being a rather long trip down ebay-memory lane, seeing all those hundreds and hundreds of things I sold on online once upon a time.  Back in the olden days, when the listing fee was 15¢ and people sent you handwritten checks through the United States Postal Service, and you drove to the bank with a deposit list and 20-30 checks and then waited for them to clear your bank account before you packed and shipped.
Oh and let's not forget really early on (1998-2000) when I didn't have a digital camera to photograph my merchandise, so I'd take pictures with my SLR, drive 10 miles into Hudson to have film developed at WalMart, then would scan the photos into my computer.  Oi vey... ebay was like a real job. A real job I don't miss one bit.

Anyway, I couldn't resist I plucking out a few images to share:

1950s Nudist Magazine, about $25-$30.....

Vintage Playtex Rubber girdle in original tubular box, $205.... (wonder if sales are still that strong in the rubber girdle world--)

"Parade of the States" Map scarf $? (want it back!)

Four *rare* bakelite clothes hangers (got $265 for the set!)

My Appalachia Mountain dulcimer I got for my 16th birthday in Greenwich Village...$85  (want it back!)

My baby grand piano I had for over 25 years! ($1200)  (Want it back!)

Oh-- and here's the little "Thank You" jpeg I included at the end of all my ebay listings.  Cute old photo I found in a junk store.

make it work

How to turn a stale $10 sale-rack dress back into a $35 sure- seller: