LOOONG Time coming!

 

It’s kind of funny how long it takes to do things sometimes, you know? That’s the case with the latest me-made outfit.

When I worked at Hollywood Regency, Heidi, my boss lady and mentor, came in one day with a load of mixed clothing and other stuff. I spotted this fabric from a mile away and begged and begged to buy it, but she wouldn’t give in! It was red and white and since Heidi didn’t do red, I figured she’d let me buy it, right? Well, it was beautiful vintage 1940s rayon and she wasn’t going to let it go. Ok, fine, she was the boss and I loved her, so I regretfully let it go. Fast forward about 3 years, Heidi passed away from cancer on June 6th, 2010, and I am helping to clean out her house and sheds for an estate sale. (that is another story for another post!) In a box full of all kinds of stuff, there is that precious fabric peeking out, so I finally got to have it after all. I’d give it back if I could have Heidi back for any amount of time, but I was really happy to have it. I hope she would be pleased with what I have done with it!

The fabric is this lovely, light and gorgeous red and white rayon from the 40s, 39” wide and 4 yards long. It just drapes and flows like water! There is just so substitute for it as far as I am concerned! This is what I made:

I used the skirt pattern on the left and the top pattern on the right. I have made that skirt 4 times now, and it is probably my favorite skirt pattern ever! It goes together so fast-I can make it in about 3 hours. The top is super easy too; I was done with both pieces in about 5 hours the day before I wanted to wear the outfit. I wore it to JD McPherson’s show this past Monday night, and I got a lot of nice compliments on it! It was fun to dance in it, and I felt really good! Not bad for an old gal of 41, I hope!

And just because I can, here are some more shots of the night:

Me and my two best girls, CC and Maria

And me with Jimmy Sutton and JD McPherson….thump thump….I love my fella to pieces but these boys were sure cute!

Heidi, I hope you are happy to see this fabric FINALLY made up into something period-correct!!! <3

Miss Red

Back from the dead….again!

 

Yep, time to do this blog thing right, FINALLY. SO, let’s start off with something I have never felt totally comfortable with…an outfit post! Heck, everyone else does it, why not me?

I found this fabulous 40s rayon sarong dress last year at a church sale for a ridiculously small amount of money. It is on the wee side, so I had intentions of selling it right away. And then I tried it on….I shouldn’t do that sometimes, because as you can see, it never left my closet! I wore it once to a party last year and I could BARELY squeeze into it, and then a good friend of mine wore it to a Tiki event and looked darling in it! Then I gained about 15 pounds after I turned 41 last October, and there was NO way I was going to get back into it.

About 2 months ago I got really fed up with this extra around my middle (did I mention I am also going through perimenopause? That is a whole ‘nother post there.) and decided to do something about it. I went on the South Beach diet and worked hard, and lost those pesky 15 pounds. I now eat SO better and feel LOTS better, too! Last night a friend of mine was having a birthday get together and I decided I was going to try to get back into it, and lo and behold…I DID and I managed to be very comfortable in it. I paired it up with orange 50s pumps and matching purse, and a pretty blue and green vintage rhinestone set that was a recent gift from a very dear friend. I felt pretty good, and my sweet fella thought I looked nice too.

I haven’t done many outfit posts on my blog, mostly because my 12 year old son is not a photographer and I just can’t get the hang of self-photography! Hopefully over the next few months that will change, as I do believe this redhead is going to be shackin’ up soon with a certain fella who’s been hangin’ around the last couple years. He is willing to indulge my silly female vanity by taking outfit shots for me!

So till next time, darlings…..love!

Miss Jenny

Happy Thanksgiving, and a new event!!

 

I hope everyone had a lovely day today….me, my fella, and my son went over to a friend’s house to celebrate with her family. We had a wonderful time, ate amazing food (my friend Dori can cook like you wouldn’t believe) and hung out, just being together. As my fella is a musician and happened to have his git-tar with him, he was called upon to play some music, which he did with no hesitation. It’s funny-he is rather shy in person but get him on stage and he is Front Man Extraordinaire! He made a blueberry pie, I made a pecan pie and sweet potatoes with marshmallows….mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

I am so thankful for many things in my life…it has been a wackadoo year, with major ups and major downs. I have grown IMMENSLY as a person, woman and mom. I have let so many old beliefs and habits go, which has made room for new ideas and things that have helped me to move on. Life is funny, really. I am doing things now I never thought I would do. Even when things have been bad and scary, I have still gotten through it okay, which is a new idea for me to believe in. Thank you, Universe, for therapy and new friends, family and old friends. Love, luck and daring. Patience, serenity and faith that things will be ok. Happiness, smiles and rainy days (but I could use a few more of those, please!)

On another note, I decided I didn’t have enough to do, and created a Winter Frolic Vintage Market for me and a few of my friends!!! We will be vending on December 3rd from noon to 5 at 5626 N. 20th Drive in Phoenix, near Bethany Home Road and 19th Avenue. Lots of fun pretty things, both old and new, perfect for holiday gifts or a treat for your own self! Yes, there will be wine and other goodies, festive vintage holiday music, and friends, friends, friends! Shop Local Businesses, darlings!!

And so I jump back in…

 

Once again, it’s been awhile since I blogged. I do this a lot-fade out and come back around. I put this pressure on myself to blog regularly, but then real life steps in and takes over, and I find myself without time to do it. How do others do it almost every day, and add pictures and buttons and all the fancy stuff, and still have time to have their lives? I read so many other lovely, pretty and interesting blogs, it makes me feel like what I do is nothing compared to others. Yeah, I need to get over it, and I’m working on it. I want my blog to be memorable and fun, but I really just don’t know how to do it. Tutorials are hard for me to follow-I need to be shown. It’s having the time to ask someone to help me….what I want is to use my blog in a few different ways. First, to just talk about random pretty stuff and people, and also to promote the fact that I sell vintage (and hopefully to start making vintage-style clothing). Also just to have fun with it.

I feel like I am on the verge of Something….for the last year I have been in therapy and am just about to end it. I turned 40 last year and am just about ready to turn 41, and I am actually quite pleased with how far I have come. I have figured out so many things about myself and the world, both good and disappointing. Now I feel like I have to take some kind of next step, and it has to do with my work that I have chosen. I have been talking about sewing (and selling) vintage style things for years, and I have to say, this is the closest I have come to actually doing it. I have been sewing for over 20 years, off and on, but I find my skill level is not where I think it should be in order to sew for others. I’ve done a few random things here and there for others and also a ton for myself, and I obviously understand vintage style pretty well. I’m pretty confident about that part! I have so many wonderful ideas that pop into my head; I can look at a piece of vintage fabric and instantly see what it could be. I’ve been collecting (some say hoarding, haha!) vintage sewing notions and materials for years. I’ve got a ton of patterns and know how to put stuff together. I have the resources.

So what’s stopping me?

Fear. Fear that people will laugh at me, fear that I am so insignificant that nobody will care, fear that it will be a resounding success and I will get overwhelmed! I am doing what I hope will be a large rockabilly show here in Phoenix the end of October and I want to make a few pieces, put them out for sale along with the vintage stuff and see what happens. My market is not the local rockabilly crowd, I already know this, with a very few exceptions. I’m honestly not sure who my market is! People like me and a few of my close friends who love true vintage style are fewer and far between anymore. Most people seem to want the cheap re-pops nowadays, which is fine, but the quality is just not there. If I had money to really spend and I didn’t sew, I would spring for better quality. I love handmade stuff, made well and built to last. So many people don’t care about that anymore.

I have a month and a half or so, and I want to make about four pieces, I think-two dresses at least, and a couple boleros. I have this darling vintage darkish pink cotton velvet that I would line with pink satin and put old pearl beads on the edge; I can see it in my mind’s eye and it won’t go away! It’s like these things are asking to be made manifest and won’t go away until I make them happen. I have been reading so many books on finding your true purpose and being authentic-the sewing/pretty dresses/vintage fashion thing has been cropping up in my life ever since I was a little girl. (I used to draw constantly as a child, page after page of ladies in fancy dresses and hats.) I like to make women feel pretty; when I worked at the vintage shop one of my favorite things was helping people find things that would work for them. I miss that aspect of that job so much.

I find myself wanting to sew for me and my friends all the time! As a single parent, though, I have to spend most of my time making money to take care of things, so my sewing time is very small. I envy people who have time to not only host online sew-alongs, linky parties and other things, but to actually DO the sewing!! But oh…if I could just have a week to do nothing but sew…..how amazing that would be!!

I know what I WANT to do, I want to deal with the fear and just jump in and DO it. It just takes time away from what NEEDS to happen-making money so we can live decently. eBay supplies a lot of that, as do my other two jobs: working for an estate sale company part time and cleaning 3 houses a week. Add having ADD into that and things just can be so interesting…I have to be so scheduled with my time, but I am getting so much better at it; I am proud of myself for all the work I have done so far. I am actually excited to see what I can do. Sometimes I forget that I have more choices. It’s just that damned FEAR…..

So, if you like, come along with me while I work this out. I think I need to be accountable somewhere, so my goal is to blog once a week, and sit down at the sewing machine once a week, to begin with.

Thanks for listening!

Jenny

A new dress! Butterick Retro B5209

After the gigantic fabric score, I got a major jones to sew again. I go through these stages where I want to sit for like a week and just be left alone to sew, and then other times I get all over something else. I’ve sewing for over 20 years, and I grew up with my mom sewing. My great-grandmother, who was named Sadie, was a dressmaker/alterations lady for dress shops for years and years. It’s in my blood. I know that if I had the time, I could get really good and make some great stuff! Just takes time…sigh!

Anyway, I found two precious yards of this darling 40s cotton:

I knew I wouldn’t have enough for a whole dress, so I decided to make the top of the Butterick pattern out of it. There was some staining in the middle that just would not come out, so I had to cut around the icky parts.

I cut the bodice lining out of the skirt fabric to save the vintage fabric. I used a black broadcloth for the skirt. I had about 3/4 yard of the vintage fabric left over, so back in the stash it went.

Here is the pattern:

I made the version on the right, and it went together so fast! VERY easy and fun. If I had had the time, I could have made this in a day, from start to finish. (I will get a shot of the dress soon.) I need some more simple cotton or rayon dresses that will be cool for our horrible Phoenix summer, that cover the annoying bit of fat under my arms and also I can swing dance freely in. This dress runs true to size and fits pretty well. I have found that the retro Butterick patterns run large most of the time, but I love this one. I want to make it a few more times!

I might make the skirt more “swingy” next time because when I am dancing, I love having my skirt swish around. But for a nice basic summery dress that is easy to make, I highly recommend this one!

Happy sewing!

Jenny

Vintage Fabric on eBay!

This is the first of what will probably be hundreds of listings of vintage fabric from my big score! I started out with novelty prints, and there are some great ones I've never seen!

http://shop.ebay.com/bettys-vintage-house/m.html?_dmd=1&_ipg=50&_sop=12&_rdc=1

Vintage Fabric Score of the Century!

 

So last Friday morning I was driving home from a friend’s house, and I stumbled across a beat up old yard sale sign…I quickly figured out that it was a place I had been to about 5 years ago when I lived in that area of town. The woman who lived there had been 85 when I first went, and her name was Lula Mae. She was a lifetime sewer and crafter; plus being a hoarder, she kept a few things over the years.

Turns out that Lula is now 90 and sadly blind with dementia, and her daughter who was running the sale remembered me buying a ton of vintage fabric and patterns from her five years ago, and was very happy to see me. We arranged for me to come the next day, Saturday, and shop. So I did…..for 4 hours. There was a shed full of nothing BUT FABRIC. I shopped as long as I could, but I had to stop because my 11 year old could only take so much, and we needed to go! So here is what’s for sale:

All 40s-70s cottons! Novelty prints, florals, geometrics, border prints….all in lovely untouched stacks. I usually have a pretty good poker face but I lost my mind! Here is what I am keeping so far:

Goodness, I love vintage cotton. Almost as much as I love vintage rayon!

Here are some other goodies, and keep in mind that it is just a fraction of what I came home with. I have a thing for vintage rickrack, especially with Lurex in it! I am just showing an example of the colors-there are multiples! Hooray! I always buy ONLY 100% cotton rickrack because I like the colors and how it lays much better than polyester. And vintage sewing tools! Love them! They are fabulous! And sometimes I even use them! LOL

Yup, that whole box is nothing but rickrack. We won’t even talk about the seam binding and bias tape. The Gutterman thread was a nice score-that stuff is expensive!

So, the daughter of Lula, Pam, let me come back this past Saturday and I spent 6 1/2 hours there routing out what I think is the rest of the fabric, and then I started in on the craft stuff. It’s going to take a few more times before I am done, I think. I found this insanely huge box of nothing but vintage bump chenille, yards and yards of it. It’s going to be sold because I just can’t keep it all! The colors are wonderful, and it’s just so much better than what you can buy today. I’ll show the box in another post. It is truly a crafter’s dream!! I walked out of there with 7 huge boxes and so now instead of my poor old minivan being the traveling vintage clothing store, it is now the traveling vintage sewing shop. But, that’s ok, I can still see out the back, and I keep it organized pretty well.

I want to sew SOOOOOOOOOO bad right now, but I have to work, darn it! I can’t keep it all, even though I want to. This fabric needs to be out there and get used! It is too fabulous to be kept hidden away!

To end, here are shots of two fabrics I can NOT let go of. I am sure you can understand….they will be skirts for me, and the blue and pink is dated 1956. Sigh….

Shopping for Viva?

Ok, I’ll be honest here-I’ve never been to Viva Las Vegas. I’m a single mother and I’ve just never been able to afford it, plus I am just too damned old and cranky to room with a million other (drunk) people! I would love to go, though. Maybe someday. If any of you are going, though, I wanted to let you know that I will be listing on eBay some PLUS SIZE vintage bathing/play suits that will be SO cute for the pool party! Here are a few:

Plus those lovely 40s rayon Hawaiian dresses will be going up too.

This is my eBay ID: My eBay listings

Got lots more to come!

Jenny

Fun Things I Have Found Recently!

I have been going to estate sales for almost 20 years, and I don’t think I will ever get tired of it! There are always new things to find, new stories to uncover and new people to become friends with! This is a very large part of what I do for a living, so I am always looking for the stuff I can resell, but there are also things that I just have to rescue. It doesn’t matter if they get sold later or never, I like to think I have saved a piece of history. (Of course, looking at my house and storage unit, if I save anymore history, I am going to be history myself!)

Anyway, here are some pictures of things I have made a part of my life this past weekend….some to keep, some to find new homes for. Sometimes, it is enough that they pass through my hands to their true home.

That is the very first true vintage hat stand I have ever been able to afford for myself! I collect those old tins, apparently-I now have quite a few. The silvertone box is Chase.

Can’t go wrong with kitty cat books! I LOVE the glove stand with the butterflies! And another damn tin….

Love me some vintage Lustro Ware Plastics…and the prettiest crocheted purse!

Jewels! I’ve been pretty lucky with jewelry lately. The red celluloid set was stupid cheap and just needed a little repair. MINE! Check out the Sarah Coventry convertible earring set:

190 rolls of vintage tatting thread-going on eBay this week!

Bunnies! Snowmen!

And this old needlework catalog….there’s an order form inside…can I have one of everything please? And a few hundred of those western jackets?!!

Ok, now that I have overwhelmed you, I think that’s enough….there is a church sale next weekend I go to every year that is always good, wish me luck!

Jenny

Rayon Dreams

One of my weekly jobs is working for an estate sale company, so sometimes I am lucky enough to get first crack at things! The sale this week is really neat-the lady is 96 and just went into a home, but she and her husband had a long happy marriage and did TONS of traveling. The house was built in the mid 60s and some of the furniture is really cool. Total “grandma” house! Today I found four gorgeous vintage 40s Hawaiian long dresses that I snatched up right quick! Three of them are that lovely 40s era spongy gummy rayon and the other one is cotton. I am keeping one but the other three that are pictured will be for sale next week!

I have always been in love with rayon from that era….I’ve got a tidy little stash of yardage I want to use someday. I love the saturated colors and the way it feels, so soft and slinky. Polyester just doesn’t do it, no matter how they fake it. I love sewing with it because it is just a breeze to work with. Every time I find a piece I just get such a thrill! When I measure it before I buy it and I get that magical 35” width, I am so happy!

Watch for more posts like this-stuff I find and may be for sale. Sometimes I’m just going to share pretty things. But you never know….I might be convinced to sell….

Redhead Sadie’s FIRST-EVER Trunk Show!

This has been a very long time coming!

When I was a very little girl, I started playing dress-up, just like most little girls. I always wanted to be the heroine who happened to be pretty and fashionable-like saving the world and looking wonderful doing it. I was always saving someone, dressed in a lovely, full skirted dress, preferably wearing gloves and tons of jewelry! I used to spend hours drawing pictures of pretty ladies in dresses, complete with accessories and back stories that were very tragic and/ or dramatic. Of course, they always overcame their problems and triumphed, got the fellow, and went on to live beautiful lives.

I also loved to play dress up at my maternal grandmother’s house because I had three wonderful aunties who saved all their pretty clothes and things. They were very generous with letting me play with their stuff, but the best part of all was my grandmother letting me play with her collection of rhinestones. I have a picture of me dressed up, and I have every single one on! They averaged about 4-5 inches across each!  Many happy hours were spent in glamorous imaginings wearing them….

I’ve been into vintage most of my life, and starting in 2007 I was lucky enough to be able to work for a wonderful lady in her vintage shop. I spent 3 amazing years as Heidi Owens’ “Gal Friday”, managing Hollywood Regency Vintage here in Phoenix, which is sadly no more. (If you want to read more about how it was, go a few entries back in my blog to read the story.) Heidi passed away last June, and things changed, and the shop is now a different place. It was such a great time of my life, and I learned so much from Heidi. I will never forget her, ever.

My trunk show is simply the next step in this journey….and what a fun trip it has been!  It is a huge leap for me, because this has nothing to do with the shop; it is all ME. I don’t have Hollywood Regency as a backup, and Heidi isn’t here to advise me. I am putting myself out there all alone, and even though I am slightly terrified, and I am also so excited. In figuring it out, I asked myself if I would regret not doing it…and the loud and clear answer was YES. So, it’s time to put up or shut up and see what I can do.

I LOVE selling vintage, and I love helping people figure out what they like in this vein. I have some really fun things to offer at my sale, And if you are a plus size girl (bust 38-42 average) and you like vintage, have I got some pretty dresses for you….the estate I just bought has oodles of  lovely things for what I like to call “real-size” girls! Plus jewelry, accessories, swimsuits, purses, sexy  foundation garments, peignoirs and MANY MANY SLIPS-all VINTAGE! It will be a fun day for all!

So that’s a very condensed version of my story, and I hope to see you at my sale…..or on eBay, or on Etsy. Stay tuned, because I have many plans in the works!!

Stay beautiful!

Jenny

Under RE-Construction!

I am currently working on re-doing my blog with lots of fun new things to come…stay tuned!

Been awhile

Goodness, it has been a long time since I felt like sharing on here. I'm going to get this blog thing going again soon, I think. SO much has changed since the last time I posted. Some for the better, some not. People have come and gone. One very amazing, special person died. The dream job is no more. BUT-I am still here, still trying to look pretty and be happy as much as possible. Many doors have closed, but many are inching their way open too.

Time to move on, and talk about other things. Soon.

Hollywood Regency, The Shop

This is where I work, and it is the best place on earth. Hands down.

Hollywood Regency was started in April 2007 by my boss lady and a friend, mostly to sell furniture and household things with a small emphasis on vintage clothes and accessories. Then the economy tanked and nobody was buying furniture anymore. So, my boss realized that the clothing etc. was paying the rent, and we switched to that over time. Her friend moved and sold his interest to her, and somewhere around October of 2007 I started working there. It has evolved into many TV appearances, numerous awards from local media for Best Vintage Clothing, quite a few mentions in magazines, most recently a brief blurb in Sunset Magazine! People come in and love us! Lately I have been hearing that we are unique; that there is nothing in Phoenix like us. It's pretty and happy, and sparkly and shiny. It is also very clean, as we wash/dry clean our garments before they are put on the floor. I spend the majority of my time there ironing and steaming, mending and organizing.

This is the BEST JOB EVER and I know I am damned lucky to have ANY job right now, much less one that rocks. I KNOW how good I have it here. I thank my lucky stars every day that things have worked out the way they have for me with this place, because I have had some crap jobs, let me tell you. I have come a long way from the teenage welfare mom I was 21 years ago. That I get to dress up every day and go to a magical, beautiful place like this to work is an everyday miracle for me. I get paid conventionally but also in so many other ways-I think I have finally acquired something that looks suspiciously like self-confidence. I've never been given this level of responsibility and it feels pretty damned nice. I've never been the best employee at my former jobs but this one I strive to be as good as I can. I want to live up, every day, to the expectations that are put on me. I think I manage to achieve that most of the time.

The pictures I have shown were taken about a month ago, just a sample of what we are all about. I want to try and show more clothing in future posts. (We are re-setting the shop this week.) But I had to include one of our shop kitties, Lamar, asleep in his suitcase-we can't sell it now because he would be very annoyed with us! He is about 12 years old, so he is a cranky old man in a cat suit most of the time, but people love him. I will get a picture of our other fella, Basil, soon. We love our cat boys-we even have people who come in just to see them!

So, that's my job. My fabulous, wonderful, beloved job. Come see me and we'll play dress up! :-D

Emma's Stuff Part 2

Oh my GOODNESS.

That was my first reaction when I saw what was there, but those weren't my exact words I said to myself....heehee. I do try to keep the blog clean, y'know.

I've been doing vintage this and that for almost 16 years, and I've NEVER seen this much clothing in one place. At least, not one single person's. Emma, gods love her, saved it ALL. Every dress, every hat, every girdle, every slip.

I felt, after awhile, like I was raiding Joan Holloway's (Mad Men) closet. I giggled with glee everytime I thought of that. I almost expected her to come flying through the door to ask me just what I thought I was doing!

Four boxes of nothing but white blouses from the 50s. One box of nothing but white pedal pushers and high-waisted shorts of the era. Two boxes of nothing but sky-blue wool, orlon and cashmere sweaters. The two boxes of white sweaters. Red sweaters. Colored sweaters. The one box of just navy blue rayon 40s 50s suits. Pencil skirts in twill and wool, never worn. A stack of countless pillowcases with crinolines and slips. The boxes of black 50s bras and girdles. Same with white. RED circular stitched bras and matching garter belts.

Dresses. Cocktail dresses. Matching jackets. Lace dresses. Chiffon, Silk twill. Summertime halter dresses. Spring pastel linen dresses with matched sweaters, in multiple colors if she liked the style. Black rayon dresses. Box after box of dresses, folded neatly 40 years ago and waiting patiently for me to come, unfold them and bring them back to life. I think she wore things a couple times and then bought more because the condition of it all is AMAZING. Those old lace-over-taffeta dresses that are almost always rotted out under the arms? Nope. Near mint. The only thing about alot of them is that Emma had a lot of weight fluctuation in her life and let the darts out of MANY of her things. (I cannot tell you how many dresses I have already re-darted. That has been an interesting experience!)

And then the boxes of purses. She loved reptile, so there were tons of those. The 40s purses were pretty cool-Corde' ones with lucite pulls were plentiful. Many of them were dried out, unfortunately, having been stored in the garage for 40 years. Every single purse was full of wadded-up hankies and gloves. One real treasure-a GORGEOUS mint condition Llewellyn amber Lucite beehive purse. I drooled over that...... And her SHOES...long, narrow spiked heels in 8, 9, 10. 40s platform shoes in suede. Small, of course!

Hats! Hats! Hats! More old millinery flowers than we will use in a lifetime! And the good ones, too-40s and 50s velvets, European-made. Floral hats, picture hats, toques, juliet caps, bonnets.

I finally ran out of time, and had to stop. I was there for two days, and we hopefully will be going back in the spring when the son comes back from Montana, as there are still boxes in the garage and the dresser drawers to go through. You know those wardrobe boxes from U-Haul, the tall ones? Well, there are four of them in the master closet full of nothing but slips, girdles, gloves, etc. I ran out of time!!!

Do you know why it is hard to find vintage? Because Emma was hoarding it lo these many years. :-)

So, Heidi and I are washing, steaming, mending, taking to the dry cleaner this treasure trove of goodies. I have a good number of dresses at the shop and will have a major influx the end of next week. The bestest, most fabulous part? NOT tiny stuff. Most of the dresses range between a 26 to 36 inch wasit, with the majority being in the 30-34" range. She also had a bust that probably could stop traffic, so there you go. Real vintage for real size girls......it does NOT GET ANY BETTER than this!

We feel very honored to have been lucky enough to make Emma's lovely wardrobe available to the next generation of ladies. Come and see the "new girls" at the shop!

Emma's Stuff

So let me tell you about Emma.

She lived in Chicago with her husband and son back in the 40s and 50s, and Emma loved to shop. From what I can tell, she could have given the rest of us a serious run for our money. I mean, she LOVED TO SHOP. And she never ever threw anything away. EVER. Even after the three of them moved to Phoenix in the late 60s, it all got boxed up, labeled, and put away in the house in Sun Lakes, Arizona.

Emma passed away, peacefully, a number of years ago, leaving it all to her only son. He had since moved to Montana and become a very successful eye doctor. One day he realized it was time to come back to Arizona and clean out the house. It did not take long for him to realize what a daunting task it was going to be, because Emma pretty much saved every single piece of clothing she wore from the 40s up until her passing. Not to mention the hats, shoes, purses, etc. So, he tried a few consignment shops in snooty Scottsdale, thinking the good quality would impress them; I mean, she had bought it all at Marshall Field and other fine establishments, so you would think, right? Nope, nobody wanted that old stuff. Too old, nothing older than 5 years for them. Thank goodness. Because one day he found Hollywood Regency on the internet and the rest, they say, is history.

The first time he came in, he brought us about 25 colorful wool knit dresses. Beautiful, late 50s, early 60s. Red, green, purple, black, white, etc. Great condition, we bought almost all of them. About 6 months after that, he walked in with some insane number of hatboxes and I really had to try hard not to drool, they were THAT GOOD. Bought all that. This time he told us about his mother's house and the sheer amount of stuff to get rid of. He had to go back to Montana and promised to bring more. By now we were DYING to see what else he would trot over to us. Almost a year later, he calls the shop and says he has a full carload, can he bring it over. OF COURSE, no problem, bring it!

We bought over 80 pairs of shoes and probably close to a hundred pieces of clothing that time. This time, we set a date for us to come to the house and just get it done. Date set, we're ready to go, Heidi gets sick and can't go. He had told us there were vintage linens there, so I reset the time and just plan to go alone, concentrate on linens for myself (that's my main thing-textiles) and then shop for the shop.

Best laid plans......

continued in next post!

Random Cool Sewing Item

Any of you sewers ever use these? I originally bought some at a sale because they are aluminum, and pretty. I found more recently in a grab bag of sewing stuff at an estate sale Then I used them a few months ago, and I just love them! They are very handy, and they grip really well. I noticed that my hems on the last few things I have made turned out much better. I would highly recommend the little suckers! Plus, they are from the 50s and are colored aluminum, like the tumblers.

Sewing Circle!

So, yesterday I got a wild hair and decided to set a date for the Sewing Circle idea that has been floating around my head for a long time! I have always loved the image of women sitting around, sewing or doing other creative things together, like they did back in the day. I am hoping that it will be fun and we can all learn from each other. I know how Pollyanna that sounds, but in my not-so-secret heart there is a lot of June Cleaver and Betty Crocker dying to manifest!

I can be raunchy and all that, but I truly love the whole 1950s mom ideal. Dancing around the kitchen in heels, pearls and a spotless apron cleaning with Glass Wax and all that. It's funny-I joke around in chagrin that I always end up being the mom or the goody-goody when I really want to be the vamp or glamour girl. I would love to be a mankiller, but I always get back to the 1950s mom-type. Or the 1940s we-have-to-be-strong, woman-on-the-home-front. (I suppose I could just be the very sexy housewife-it's been done!) Maybe it's because I grew up a latch key kid in the 70s and TV in the afternoon was heavy on the 50s sitcoms. My 40s/50s magazine collection is one of my favorite things to read. One of the best ones is Ladies Home Journal-they had a feature called "How Young America Lives", and they profiled young families of the time. Fascinating how things have changed AND stayed the same. People certainly did more with less back then-I admire the hell out of that.

Anyway! Tangent there, sorry.....I am excited about the sewing circle, and I plan to make those days set aside for it strictly sewing days, no matter who shows up. If nobody does, then I'll sew alone! I am so thankful that I have a good place to work in, and notions and such I can share with my friends. I am so curious to see everyone's projects and see them grow! I hope this is a success! I plan to do one weekend day and one weekday so lots of people have a chance to come. The first one is Monday, December 14th and the next one is Saturday, December 19th. 9am both days, but it is a drop in thing. I will space it out better in January.

I hope this works out! :-)

Pink Glider!

I did this about a month ago-it's done! I now own a flamingo-pink metal glider! I love the color so much. I want to make everything pink. Well, not really, but you understand. This took 2 coats of primer and 2 and a half cans of spray paint. If you page down a bit here on the ol' blog, you can see what it used to look like. LOVE IT!