I am officially out of business...

I am officially out of business...  for a while anyway.  

My sewing machine needs medical attention, my spare is missing the power cord (which led to a scavenger hunt today) and I would really like my serger tuned up so I can get those nice lettuce edges for a couple of knit tops I'm making for the granddaughters.   I'm taking them to the shop this week.  It could be a couple weeks before I see them again :^(   So I guess I should use the time wisely and organize my space, maybe even find the missing power cord?  Sure yeah, that's the ticket!  

So I thought I would take this time to post some of my antique/vintage/just old items I have collected or inherited from friends and family.

I saw this pink sewing basket on Pinterest...
all nicely displayed in a beautiful sewing room.

Here's mine...

This is MY round wicker sewing basket.  

My mom gave this to

me when I was still a teenager.  

It was either hers, or my grandmother's. 

This is circa 1940's I believe.

It has a nifty little thread shelf with wooden pegs, and space below for...
oh wow there's my embroidery hoops ... I've had those since grade school...!

another view

This is the manufacturer... You can still find info about them online.
This sewing baskets came in yellow, pink, blue, green, all with matching cords.
I'm going to have to find a place of honor for this!  :D

My mom is ecstatic that I'm back sewing again.  I "helped" her sew when I was little by standing behind the sewing machine and lifting the presser foot lever when she told me to.  My mom was self-taught.  And she made a lot of my clothes as I was growing up.  Including winter coats.  I don't think there is much my mom couldn't tackle or figure out how to do on her own.   Downstairs in her basement is my grandmother's buffet, drawers filled with old (vintage and probably antique) sewing notions and patterns from her years of sewing, and maybe a few hand-me-downs from my grandmothers as well.  I have a few of them.

I caught the sewing bug from mom.  My parents asked me what I wanted for high school graduation.  I got a brand new Brother sewing machine in a cabinet.  1972.    The fun of sewing was making outfits no one else had.  Funny story though, my friends and I took a bus into downtown Kansas City (I lived in the KC area growing up) and I saw a girl wearing the same culotte outfit I made, and in the same material!!  What are the odds of that?  :D

And at that time a lot of my friends were sewing too.  My mom made my homecoming "Juliet" dress out of green velvet.  She made my little sister's flower girl outfit for my wedding.  My bridesmaids sewed too... so they made their outfits as well. 

Anyway... here are some of the buttons that were in my yellow sewing basket...

Kinda creepy huh?  I have no idea what these were meant for...
my son calls them the Cruel-la DeVille buttons!

And for all of you who have been hearing about when a loaf of bread was a nickel, and gas was 25 cents a gallon....  here are some more items with the prices that will amaze.   I liked that you could buy buttons like you buy screws at the hardware store...  just choose what you want, the clerk put them in an envelope, with the price written on the outside.

I have more... I'll be adding later, especially if my machine is laid up for a while!

Flip-Flop Market Skirt

I promised to post the market skirt I finished over the weekend.  I should put "finished" in quotes... I think I'm going to add another layer of ruffles... somehow this one seems a bit shorter than I imagine my little granddaughter would be wearing now.  Hopefully I'll be able to see her (and her parents) soon...  I miss them oodles.

I'm not sure if I explained before... but I've been using up some pretty ancient stash to make these market skirts.  I love this light blue fabric, and I've been using it up.  However, there was a spot or two on the cuts for this market skirt, and I thought it wouldn't show after I got it together.  Wrong.  So I thought about pockets for a minute, and I remembered seeing some cute outfits with flip flops on the bottom of them, like a border.  I decided to give that a shot.  My son drew a flip flop shape for me, and I proceeded to cut out the shapes with my scallop shears...

I stacked the print and the blue solid, and basted the shapes onto the skirt with a machine basting stitch.  Next was outlining the shape with yellow embroidery thread, using my machine's blanket stitch (it could have been any stitch) to give the flop some shape.


Next was the fun part..  making the toe sling (or whatever you call the part that goes between the toes).


I have an assortment of trims I picked up at a sale..with the g-baby girls in mind, and one was blue sequins.  Normally I "save" this for some undetermined occasion and never use it... hence my stash!  This time I brought out the 'bling'.  I could have just stitched it down, but being playful with it paid off.

This is the length of trim I was working with.
I centered the trim across the foot, where I thought the toe-piece should go.

I used the button stitch on my machine (a zig-zag stitch set a zero length works too) and
 placed a straight pin over the top of my presser foot to sort of create
a 'shank' where the toe piece would be.

Here is a closer view of what I mean.

another view

After that, I removed the basting stitch and added another row of blanket stitches (this time in blue) to give the flip-flop
a little more ump and secure the outside ends of the sequin trim.

I AM seriously considering adding another ruffle to the bottom of this skirt.  I'm out of the cute yellow and blue fabric, I may have enough of the blue for another ruffle for the bottom... maybe I'll add some more bling... (or should I save the trim for something else???)  heh heh

UPDATE:  I did.. I did add another ruffle in co-coordinating fabric.