Just some fun for Doctor Who fans
(That's David Tennant asking the question and Capt. Jack from a previous season of Doctor Who - gosh he's handsome!)
Uncommon Threads - History of Missouri Brides
Someone posted this link on The Fedora Lounge, and it looked very interesting, so I thought I'd pass on the link info here. The Missouri History Museum is running a special exhibit from June to September 9th called 'Uncommon Threads - History of Missouri Brides'. It looks like a great exhibit featuring wedding gowns dating back to 1834 with histories of the brides who wore them. Even if you aren't in the Missouri area, you can check out some of the photos and brief histories on their website - http://web.mohistory.org/cakePHP/unCommonThreadsSite/index
Vintage preview
Here is a preview of dresses that will be added to the website on Sunday (but you can email now if you want details on any of them)
Deathly Hallows
Geek & Spoiler Warning! If you don't like Harry Potter, then you might as well skip this post (yes, I know it's supposed to be a vintage blog) If you do like HP and haven't read the book yet, then you should skip reading for now too, because I will be talking about things that happen in the book.
Deathly Hallows - up early Saturday morning to drive to SIC gift/book/shop Dalrymples, which I fancy being the perfect store to buy a Harry Potter book, because it sounds like it could be a shop in Diagon Alley. Anyway, I sit down to read, even read a few hours laying in the sun (working on a tan this year) And after being interupted by sleep, the need to eat and go to the bathroom and 4 hours at the part time job on Sunday, I finshed up the book Sunday night. Overall, I liked the book very much and thought it was as good as the others. OOTP is probably my fav in the series. I thought it was suspenseful, surprising and sad.
What I liked - we all knew who RAB was, but I liked the story about what really happened to him in the cave, and read that part over again several times. That was sad (Sirius was so wrong about him) and I even felt bad for Kreacher. During the end battle when Kreacher was yelling to fight for master Regulus was kind of corny, but hit me as very sentimental too.
I liked learning about Dumbledore's family, and wondering about their secret throughout the book, and I was happy with the outcome of the family's secret, and glad to formally meet Aberforth (but what exactly did he do with that goat that got him in such trouble?)
Snape, I knew it! (so did everyone else) but I was so glad to hear the whole story and see those moments in his life. His death was kind of a let down though. I thought he would die, but it wasn't a very big deal in the book, no fight to the death, just a quick surprise attack. But do you really think you could put aside the horrible way that some treated you the whole time you knew him, and knowing that he hated your father and his actions caused the death of your parents - could you forgive all that and name your kid after that person? (We'll get to the rest of the cornyness of the epilogue later) I liked that he wanted to see Harry's green eyes before he died to remind him of Lily (Is that what JK meant when she said Harry's eye color was important? I don't see any other green eyed importance in the book)
I was glad to see Percy come back to the Weasley family in the end, but I thought he'd be the one to die, not Fred. I guess that puts and end to any dreams of JK writing The Adventures of Fred & George in the future.
Neville the leader of the underground movement at Hogwarts - I loved that, I wanted him to turn out to be heroic. I liked that Harry trusted him to kill Nagini. But I wish he had been the one to kill Bellatrix. Maybe that's too obvious of a thing to do, but it would be the right thing.
Wormtail - glad he's dead, and glad that he kind-of died by his own hand. There should have been more suffering though. But I guess it would be pretty horrific to be killed by your own silver hand.
Why'd she do that?
Remus and Tonks deaths were just body references. We didn't get to actually hear how they died in battle, I guess it was Dolohov who killed them? Their deaths weren't sad at all the way it was written (and to me, Remus had the saddest life of all the HP charactors) Teddy's birth was more sad than their deaths (because I read spoilers and knew Remus would die) so that was very bittersweet. Dobby's funeral was sadder than their deaths. So Harry is the godfather, but he's 17, who will raise the baby, Tonk's mom?
It was kind of cool to see Molly kick some ass, but her going after Bellatrix yelling 'Bitch' was kind of corny, and Neville should have been the one to kill Bellatrix anyway
The whole talk with Dumbledore and Harry in the 'station' was a bit dull and seemed kind of too long, I guess I was anxious to get to the real battle. The whole thing with wands and stealing them or killing their owner and the true ownerships was a bit confusing.
Voldemort's death was good. But he really just killed himself with the spell backfiring onto himself (didn't he learn not to do that the first time he tried to kill Harry?) I guess that was the safe ending because technically you could say that Harry has never killed anyone.
OK, the epiloque. I'm reading that alot of people have mixed feelings about it or don't like it at all. Yeah, it was kind of corny especially 'Albus Severus' and where did the names Rose & Hugo come from? But what's Harry doing for a living now, living off his parents gold? That's what I want to know. I'd rather read what all the characters are doing in their lives in the past 19 years, not just the trio. What about Hagrid and hid gal pal and Gwarp? How many other grandchildren do Molly & Arthur have and what are the other Weasley's doing, especially George? And Neville, Luna, etc. I'd rather have read a paragraph on each of them instead of the trio sending their own children off to Hogwarts.
***Updated - JK did give some info in her Today Show interview - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19959323/ - why didn't she put that stuff in the book?
I'm re-reading the book now, so I'll pick up on things that I breezed over the first time. But did I miss something? Did it turn out with an extra Horcrux? Was Nagini a Horcrux or not because she would make 7 - diary, ring, locket, urn, diadem, Harry and Nagini. I thought their were 6 Horcruxeseses and the 7th piece of the soul was still in Voldemort?
All in all I did love it! OK, back to the vintage.
Deathly Hallows - up early Saturday morning to drive to SIC gift/book/shop Dalrymples, which I fancy being the perfect store to buy a Harry Potter book, because it sounds like it could be a shop in Diagon Alley. Anyway, I sit down to read, even read a few hours laying in the sun (working on a tan this year) And after being interupted by sleep, the need to eat and go to the bathroom and 4 hours at the part time job on Sunday, I finshed up the book Sunday night. Overall, I liked the book very much and thought it was as good as the others. OOTP is probably my fav in the series. I thought it was suspenseful, surprising and sad.
What I liked - we all knew who RAB was, but I liked the story about what really happened to him in the cave, and read that part over again several times. That was sad (Sirius was so wrong about him) and I even felt bad for Kreacher. During the end battle when Kreacher was yelling to fight for master Regulus was kind of corny, but hit me as very sentimental too.
I liked learning about Dumbledore's family, and wondering about their secret throughout the book, and I was happy with the outcome of the family's secret, and glad to formally meet Aberforth (but what exactly did he do with that goat that got him in such trouble?)
Snape, I knew it! (so did everyone else) but I was so glad to hear the whole story and see those moments in his life. His death was kind of a let down though. I thought he would die, but it wasn't a very big deal in the book, no fight to the death, just a quick surprise attack. But do you really think you could put aside the horrible way that some treated you the whole time you knew him, and knowing that he hated your father and his actions caused the death of your parents - could you forgive all that and name your kid after that person? (We'll get to the rest of the cornyness of the epilogue later) I liked that he wanted to see Harry's green eyes before he died to remind him of Lily (Is that what JK meant when she said Harry's eye color was important? I don't see any other green eyed importance in the book)
I was glad to see Percy come back to the Weasley family in the end, but I thought he'd be the one to die, not Fred. I guess that puts and end to any dreams of JK writing The Adventures of Fred & George in the future.
Neville the leader of the underground movement at Hogwarts - I loved that, I wanted him to turn out to be heroic. I liked that Harry trusted him to kill Nagini. But I wish he had been the one to kill Bellatrix. Maybe that's too obvious of a thing to do, but it would be the right thing.
Wormtail - glad he's dead, and glad that he kind-of died by his own hand. There should have been more suffering though. But I guess it would be pretty horrific to be killed by your own silver hand.
Why'd she do that?
Remus and Tonks deaths were just body references. We didn't get to actually hear how they died in battle, I guess it was Dolohov who killed them? Their deaths weren't sad at all the way it was written (and to me, Remus had the saddest life of all the HP charactors) Teddy's birth was more sad than their deaths (because I read spoilers and knew Remus would die) so that was very bittersweet. Dobby's funeral was sadder than their deaths. So Harry is the godfather, but he's 17, who will raise the baby, Tonk's mom?
It was kind of cool to see Molly kick some ass, but her going after Bellatrix yelling 'Bitch' was kind of corny, and Neville should have been the one to kill Bellatrix anyway
The whole talk with Dumbledore and Harry in the 'station' was a bit dull and seemed kind of too long, I guess I was anxious to get to the real battle. The whole thing with wands and stealing them or killing their owner and the true ownerships was a bit confusing.
Voldemort's death was good. But he really just killed himself with the spell backfiring onto himself (didn't he learn not to do that the first time he tried to kill Harry?) I guess that was the safe ending because technically you could say that Harry has never killed anyone.
OK, the epiloque. I'm reading that alot of people have mixed feelings about it or don't like it at all. Yeah, it was kind of corny especially 'Albus Severus' and where did the names Rose & Hugo come from? But what's Harry doing for a living now, living off his parents gold? That's what I want to know. I'd rather read what all the characters are doing in their lives in the past 19 years, not just the trio. What about Hagrid and hid gal pal and Gwarp? How many other grandchildren do Molly & Arthur have and what are the other Weasley's doing, especially George? And Neville, Luna, etc. I'd rather have read a paragraph on each of them instead of the trio sending their own children off to Hogwarts.
***Updated - JK did give some info in her Today Show interview - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19959323/ - why didn't she put that stuff in the book?
I'm re-reading the book now, so I'll pick up on things that I breezed over the first time. But did I miss something? Did it turn out with an extra Horcrux? Was Nagini a Horcrux or not because she would make 7 - diary, ring, locket, urn, diadem, Harry and Nagini. I thought their were 6 Horcruxeseses and the 7th piece of the soul was still in Voldemort?
All in all I did love it! OK, back to the vintage.
ebay finds, Altering Vintage and nerdity
I'm just hanging out at the part time job this afternoon. It's a beautiful day outside, but here I am, inside, wasting time on a computer -
I found these 3 items on ebay - I love 1920-30s loungewear - and wouldn't you love a cabinet like this to put your patterns and other assorted junkies in? I love old cabinets like these with tons of drawers, I love the old wood. Click the pictures to check out the auctions.
This weekend I got around to reading that Threads magazine where my website was mentioned. The stories were good. My favorite was the one where they took 3 1940s gowns and put them on a dress form inside out and described how the draping and sewing details were done. Fascinating. I love the construction of dresses and could probably look at a whole book full of pictures of inside-out dresses.
My only complaint was in a story about whether or not to alter vintage clothing. Their advice started out good, saying that you shouldn't alter rare labeled items and that you shouldn't do alterations unless they can easily be removed without affecting the garment. Good advice.
But then the gal said that altering the style of some vintage clothing can increase the value. No. That's just not true. Sure, you can take a maxi dress and cut it off into a mini dress and sell it on ebay for a great price with the right kind of marketing and a cool looking model. But that selling price is not the true value of that garment, it's only a reflection of the current trend. Once the trend for maxis-cut-down-to-minis ends, the value of that garment is gone and all you are left with is a vintage dress that you paid too much for, that no longer fits a current trend and also no longer fits in with it's original style. I can understand some sellers cutting down dresses to cash-in on a trend, as long as they are honest and have disclosed that the dress has been cut in their listing.
But people shouldn't get the false idea that what trendy items are selling for on ebay is some sort of value guide. It just isn't a true reflection of the vintage market, it's a reflection of good marketing by the sellers of those items. I still believe that their target buying audience isn't really about actual vintage clothing. Those shoppers are buying a 'look' and whether the dress is 1960s or bought at WalMart last year - it doesn't matter to them about the age of the actual garment. It's about the Look and how it is marketed. And I am not knocking those sellers. They know their stuff and I know my stuff. I'm a vintage clothing lover, in business for 9 years, selling to gals who love old school vintage.
Geek Alert, yes, I'm going to talk about Harry Potter here. Today I read some alleged spoilers online. I don't mind spoilers, because they don't really 'spoil' it for me. I like to know what's going to happen ahead of time, but I still enjoy reading, or watching as it really happens. The spoilers that I read today had to be crap though, just rumors. They better be rumors, or I'll be mad if the ending I read was true. I just thought it was kind of sappy. I guess I want a dark ending. Plus some of the spoilers contradicted themselves. No more reading fake spoilers, they're pissing me off!
I found these 3 items on ebay - I love 1920-30s loungewear - and wouldn't you love a cabinet like this to put your patterns and other assorted junkies in? I love old cabinets like these with tons of drawers, I love the old wood. Click the pictures to check out the auctions.
This weekend I got around to reading that Threads magazine where my website was mentioned. The stories were good. My favorite was the one where they took 3 1940s gowns and put them on a dress form inside out and described how the draping and sewing details were done. Fascinating. I love the construction of dresses and could probably look at a whole book full of pictures of inside-out dresses.
My only complaint was in a story about whether or not to alter vintage clothing. Their advice started out good, saying that you shouldn't alter rare labeled items and that you shouldn't do alterations unless they can easily be removed without affecting the garment. Good advice.
But then the gal said that altering the style of some vintage clothing can increase the value. No. That's just not true. Sure, you can take a maxi dress and cut it off into a mini dress and sell it on ebay for a great price with the right kind of marketing and a cool looking model. But that selling price is not the true value of that garment, it's only a reflection of the current trend. Once the trend for maxis-cut-down-to-minis ends, the value of that garment is gone and all you are left with is a vintage dress that you paid too much for, that no longer fits a current trend and also no longer fits in with it's original style. I can understand some sellers cutting down dresses to cash-in on a trend, as long as they are honest and have disclosed that the dress has been cut in their listing.
But people shouldn't get the false idea that what trendy items are selling for on ebay is some sort of value guide. It just isn't a true reflection of the vintage market, it's a reflection of good marketing by the sellers of those items. I still believe that their target buying audience isn't really about actual vintage clothing. Those shoppers are buying a 'look' and whether the dress is 1960s or bought at WalMart last year - it doesn't matter to them about the age of the actual garment. It's about the Look and how it is marketed. And I am not knocking those sellers. They know their stuff and I know my stuff. I'm a vintage clothing lover, in business for 9 years, selling to gals who love old school vintage.
Geek Alert, yes, I'm going to talk about Harry Potter here. Today I read some alleged spoilers online. I don't mind spoilers, because they don't really 'spoil' it for me. I like to know what's going to happen ahead of time, but I still enjoy reading, or watching as it really happens. The spoilers that I read today had to be crap though, just rumors. They better be rumors, or I'll be mad if the ending I read was true. I just thought it was kind of sappy. I guess I want a dark ending. Plus some of the spoilers contradicted themselves. No more reading fake spoilers, they're pissing me off!
Post Vacation Post
Back from vacation! I've been busy this week getting back to work on the vintage, so I'm just finding time this morning to post a post-vacation post. So this is a multi-topic post.First, to the left here is a fantastic 10ft sandcastle that was built out on the beach by a sandcastle artist. I was walking out there before sunset one night, and ran home to get my camera before high tide came in and washed it away. Check out the cannonballs blasted into the side of it!
Next, there is daily pandemonium at the little window birdfeeder that I have on my kitchen window at the vacation spot. They squeeze in 3 at a time and line up on the roof waiting to get in to eat. It's like Uncle Bill's Pancake House, which always has a line on the weekends. Thing is, some of those little birds are messy and spill the seeds into my flowerbox which is directly below it. So now the birds stomp around on my flowers eating the seeds out of there. They are cute though - shake your tail feathers!
I can't relax too much while I'm on vacation, I have to have some projects. I took some vintage clothing with me to soak and mend, I recovered a few of my pillows, re-read the Half Blood Prince (how many more days until the last book???) and I painted the bathroom, finally deciding on a color after 3 years. I did it a pale blue-green and painted the wood trim white. It looks nice and crisp. The photos aren't very impressive because the room is small, but it does look nice. I also repainted a wicker table and rearranged the livingroom furniture, yet again.
My hydrangeas (tired of hearing about those yet?) are still looking very pretty and I treated myself with a new bouquet of them every few days. The town's little 4th of July Parade was great as usual. For a quiet little seashore town, we always get a great turnout of rescue and fire vehicles, parade participants and watchers. It goes down one street, over an block and then back up the other street. So when it finishes on the first street, you run over to the other street and watch it again! It's that good. I took 100 photos on that link above, if you'd like to torture yourself and see photos of a parade from a town that you know nothing about!Finally, grab a copy of the September issue of Threads magazine. A new customer Karen L. let me know that my website was mentioned in the sewing magazine (page 39) The mag has several vintage clothing related stories. I just got my copy and haven't read it yet, but some interesting looking stories are about working with vintage patterns, making vintage style aprons, rejuvenating vintage clothing including doing repairs and deciding if you should or should not alter a vintage item, refashioning vintage clothing, an interesting story about the construction of vintage clothing where they turn the dresses inside out a describe the sewing details, using vintage sewing details in modern sewing, and a little story about barkcloth too. Very interesting for those who love vintage and sewing. There are parts of the issue online - http://www.taunton.com/threads/index.asp
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