Just have to share the best op shop find I’ve had in a while.  In the rough old hat basket with caps and beanies tossed in, I saw with amazement four beautiful vintage hats in apparently perfect condition!  When I took a closer look I found they were stuffed with sheet music – oh my god!  I know, what’s that all about?

Anyhow, I have a big head, and most often the loveliest old hats just don’t fit.  So, I was pretty happy that one fitted, this one, it’s navy blue with a ribbon of twisted or woven nylon around.

So I took them to the counter, and tried to pretend that I wasn’t that excited, and she sold them to me for $5 each, one is a pretty blue paisley style print that is a great little (though oversized) sun hat for Luna, a brown faux fur hat and another really lovely aqua cap style hat that I gave a friend.

She offered to take the paper out, but I thought they needed to be together, turns out they came from a theatre company, the sheet music seems to be all church songs.  How about that?

It’s hard to find groovy tartan purses…  until now!  Look what I’ve been busy making for you.  These are really fun, and would make a cool gift, keep planning for xmas, it’s not far off!  I make coin purses as well as sunglass purses, so quite tall they are perfect for your glasses or pencils and pens.

I have had this single small piece of fabric for ages and I finally have cut it up to make some cool purses.  I really love it, so soft and I love the space theme print (of course).

And the vintage rose print shows up again, remember you can find these up for grabs on Felt.co.nz…

These I love too, I already have one of my own in my handbag.

Well, have you been over to Sew Retro yet??  Clever sewers share their vintage and retro sewing projects (yes HEAPS of photos and vintage patterns to drool over… ) share their tips, fabric finds and do giveaways of goodies and treats.

It’s my new favourite place… and I’m inspired to make some dresses I have patterns for, so this week, I sorted through my stashes and discovered that in a new haul of notions from my mum were zips, exactly the colour and length I need for these little numbers!

So here they are…

So the centre dress, close up on the fabric…

This fabric, and the one above were great finds on trademe….  here’s a better photo of the top fabric.

This fabric is very black brocade (but light weight) I think maybe the top pale blue version.

See, roses.

If I have enough fabric (might be a tiny bit short..) I’ll make the long sleeve version, or no sleeve.  I love this fabric and have had it for ages.

Can’t wait to make a start on them, and hopefully I’ll have at least one new dress for summer!

Take a look at this fabric!  One was an old cushion cover and the other was a square of curtain fabric I picked up ages ago.

These babies are lined with gingham.

Nice finishing huh, holds the zips in well, and is all neat and tidy, just how I like them!

These are a couple of glasses cases, or tall pencil cases I suppose.  I have BIG  sunglasses and they fit well, with room to spare.

Nicely lined too of course…

Good colours in those retro fabrics, just love them.

This fabric is weird, I just hope to have enough for a skirt…

because the more I see it the more it gets to me!

This one is mine!  When starting a new project I always have a few to giveaway to friends and of course something for myself.

I rally enjoyed working these out, a raided my fabric stash, which includes some beautiful vintage and retro fabrics, especially some sweet soft gingham.

Nice huh?

This gingham was from my nana’s stash, she made clothes for some ragdolls I still have out of it.

These are extra special, I have used some vintage duotone embroidery thread, also from a family stash…  Do you remember this post about raiding some of my tins?  There is only a limited range using this good stuff, can’t bear to use it all up…

This is my vintage rose fabric, soft and SO lovely.  Perfect for spring, and more embroidery.

I’ll be at Kraftbomb at the end of the month, come and grab yourself one there!

I’ve been working on these vintage fabric cuffs, all new and pressed for spring and summer markets.  I’ve been dying to get into more accessories and apparel for some time now, and with things settling down for us I have been getting a little more space to try out some ideas.

I have some fabric which is just too small to sew into clothing, but just too lovely not be worn, you may have seen a seahorse in this…  Just sussing out some sizing thoughts and using some of the fancy embroidery stitches on my machine and using some of my beautiful multi colour vintage thread stash.

Plush vintage rose fabric, so soft and summery!

Oooh and here are some of my other colour combinations, ready and waiting for a quiet moment while the kids sleep.

I have been cracking into the gingham stash.

Nice golds, oranges and browns in this one…

Picked up this pretty little number at the Auckland Vintage Textile Fair at the weekend.

And this pattern, unused and very sweet.  I have been looking out for some simple vintage dress patterns lately, I have plans to make one this year.  I also found a dress, it’s pretty stylish and home made by the looks, photo to come it does need a wash!

It was a fun morning out, very hot, so many beautiful things to look at and dream about taking home.  It was much more than textiles too, with costume vintage jewelry, heaps of hat boxes and haberdashery.  Patterns and other random antique and vintage articles like traveling cases, lasts for shoes, hat blocks, bags and accessories for every occasion and books.  Hanging out for the next one!

So this is finally finished!  I’m so pleased, it has been one of those projects which I’ve wanted to just make up over a weekend, but has taken me a month or so half and hour here and there.  The kids love it too.

We needed a comfy cushion to sit by the radio listening to audio books and reading books by the ‘home library’ a small bookshelf in the living room which attempts to contain the downstairs kids books.

Also you might remember Luna’s Letters, a stuffed alphabet made out of felt I made Luna a while back which also took ages, but is still a favourite toy to play with or just throw around heh.

So it was really quite a simple project, I spent awhile hand cutting the letters, I’m making an alphabet blanket too, and probably another set of letters.  I had this old orange wool blanket that was one of the picnic beach blankets, though a bit small for us all now.  So I just visually laid out the letters on one half of the blanket, hand stitched then on (this took all the time) over about a month.

The blanket is old and wearing a little thin in places, it also stretched a bit as I was working with it, so it was lucky I backed it with a piece of cotton.

I went with warm coloured letters, red, pinks, yellow, etc.

The back, I like to see the backs of work like this, maybe you do too?

So, the next bit was the speedy and much easier bit, sewing the cushion up, again as I had found the blanket was becoming thin, I backed it with an unused cot sheet, kind of quilty, (I momentarily considered getting much more quilty with it but reconsidered how much more time that would take!).  I spent some time ensuring the layers would not move while sewing together by pin basting the pieces together.

Phew!  Then to the machine, great to get it going in the new sewing room.

All ready to fill!  Though I allowed the hem space around the sides and base, it was not quite enough, I needed more edge at the bottom so there is a bit too much space at the top of the cushion…

But it still looks cool when it’s full, see!

See the kids love it!  Luna listening to The Witches.

Blake chilling out.

I am really so excited!  That’s all I’m saying.  Besides the deets of course.

It’s from 10 am – 5 pm, Alexandra Park Raceway, corner Greenlane & Manukau Roads, Epsom.  Genuine vintage
* Fabrics
* Clothing
* Hats
* Linen
* Accessories
* Trims
* Buttons
* Lace
* Books
etc
General admission: $5.00, door sales only.

Wohoo.

If only I’d had a chance to whip up this blue number…

I managed a brief bit of shopping-on-my-own the other day, so relaxing without my little darlings, no need to rush in and out!  The first thing to catch my eye was this table cloth covered in flowers, daffodils are only my favourite flowers so I immediately looked on to it.  And it’s big.  See?

Pretty!  It had seen some parties, and had some red wax drips and a small burnt hole, about one millimeter wide, so I’ll need to take some time to tidy it up.

More flowers…

I also scored these beautiful sheets..

(Definitely a bit of a flower theme going on for me on that day..)