Curiosities & Artifacts

Working on a new project, photos coming soon.

Moodboard Smood Bored

I've just completed a repeat pattern class over at Skillshare and one of the assignments was to create a moodboard.  So I did, and well while I did put some effort into the board using some of my original sketches and bunch of photos I had taken of vintage goodies from my studio...

For some reason when I just take the elements and lay them out onto my table... well they are more exciting.

I don't know about you but my grandmother's sewing basket contained all sorts of wonderful goodies, not just mending or traditional quilting.

Her sewing basket contained a mass of antique lace, sequins, beads, buttons, reclaimed strips of fabrics that were wound into large balls, impossibly tiny scissors that looked like birds, and so much more!

Yeah, my original mood board while well intentioned is just plain boring!

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!

Oh Christmas Tree!!!

Now some wool batting around the base to protect my vintage fabrics and lace.

A vintage slip (pettifore) that I found in the first wifes stash of yummy fabrics that I split up one side and draped over the wool batting.

Very pretty, and delicate!

Some crochet vintage panels draped over the vintage slip, I may rework this tomorrow but right now my raging head cold is saying "go take a nap"!

Yes the tree is in my studio, aka formerly known as the living room!

We will put the ornaments on the tree this Sunday, which will give the cats time to adjust to the tree.

Red Hearts

Base heart is started using silk dupioni, dyed with cochineal, wool quilt batting and cochineal dyed cotton backing fabric.  I machine stitched the edging and am now set to start embellishing the heart with natural dyed vintage trims, lace, yoyo's etc.  I enjoy the hand stitching portion of heart making it's a very nice respite between projects.

Vintage Rayon Seam Binding

Vintage Green Beads

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!

Vintage Beaded Bliss

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???

The Haircut

I bought a vintage Oster barber set at a local shop this week, for a whopping ten dollars.  Sooooo tonight I gave John a much needed haircut, no easy task I might add.  Above is the box and some of the accessories most of which I have no what idea any of them are for~!

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.