1934 Bellas Hess catalog

Shopping in time again. These are some faves from a vintage 1934 Bellas Hess catalog.

Some recent vintage purchases for me!

I've been shopping on ebay again! Below are a few cute dresses that I picked up for myself. Actually, the striped dress is a little snug in the bodice, so it might end up for sale on the website.

One of my favorite 1940s dresses - I guess it's time to stop wearing it

I've had this cute 1940s cotton day dress for about 8 or so years. It had some slight fade and a few tiny wear holes when I got it. But it's been a great dress to wear around the house in the Summer. Sadlly, I think that it's now time to fold it up and give it a nice resting place in one of my drawers. I've squeezed all of the life that I can out of it.

The small holes have all gradually gotten bigger and are about 1-2 inches in size now, on the front of the skirt and on the center of the fanny - plus it has some new holes from wash-n-wear. Laying on the floor next to Harlow while she chewed her chewy, she snagged her toe on the bust of the dress and made a 2 inch rip. The waist is ripped out, some holes started on the top of one sleeve, and last night when I took it off, the under arm entirely tore out. The fabric is just all tired out and tearing easily now.

Thank you cute old dress, you've had a good long life and I've enjoyed wearing you.

Estate sale buys!

This morning we went to a nearby estate sale, see the listing here - http://www.estatesales.net/estate-sales/131541.aspx

It was the estate of a family that owned a store in Sea Isle City for many years. The sale was a mix of old store items, personal items and farm equipment. The old store stuff was very cool - old tin beach toys, toy guns, tin wind-up toys, blow-up water tubes in great 1950-60s graphics, bathing caps etc. many items still in their original packages. Unfortunately there were no racks of 1950s swimsuits like I was dreaming of finding!
But there was a rack of some personal clothing which was a great surprise. I bought 14 clothing items, mostly dresses, 1940-50s, including the 3 1950s tulle dresses  shown above. There was also a cool 1930s costume of some sort which was a jumper with halter top and wide legs, made of cotton fabric that had the names of colleges on it. That's soaking right now.
Since there ended up being clothing at the sale, now I'm wondering where all the old Summer/beach clothing ended up, since they had that shop near the beach for so many years. They had to have sold some beach clothing items in the store and they definately had to wear some themselves.
I also bought 2 boxes with a total of 190 patterns! Most are 1940-50s, but there are a few 1920-30s and maybe a dozen early 60s. One box was in very good condition, the other box of patterns are kind of beat, just from years of storage. Most look to be 34 bust. These were personal patterns, they weren't sold in the shop.




Here are some favorites that I pulled out of the lot -

The only item that I bought from the old store stock was this pair of old rubber beach shoes. I love old beach shoes and I've always wanted a pair. Not to wear, just to have, even though this pair is my size! They were only $1. This is the only item that I'll be keeping for myself, everything else will make it's way onto the website.

Some recent vintage dress purchases for me!

Here are 5 dresses that I recently added to my Summer wardrobe, all bought on ebay - there are still good buys to be had on ebay.
If you follow me on Facebook, you've already seen a few of these.
*First, the plaid, awesome! Chartruese, red, grey and orange. I've already worn that dress and I loved wearing it! Lots of fun.
*Next is a very bright yellow dress with pleated bust and buttons all the way down the front. It's very fitted through the waist so I'm waiting for a skinny day to wear it, so that it doesn't feel snug. It's a really bright color for me to get used to wearing.
*Next is a gingham dress that is very similar to a dress that I listed for sale on the website. It's exactly the same actually, except this one has tiny pink flowers in the gingham.
*The blue striped one just came in the mail Wednesday and I'll probably wear it on Sunday. Very cool dress.
*The red sundress came in the mail on Monday, I washed it and hung it out to dry that night. Tuesday morning I hemmed it and wore it to my part time job at 9AM! That was another fun dress to wear and another different color for me, I don't wear much red.

These dresses make it look like it's going to be a great Summer!

Happy Mother's Day - Hydrangeas and Victorian Boots

Happy Mother's Day. I bought my Mom a huge hydrangea plant (which, to be honest, will end up in my garden, but she will be enjoying them inside for awhile) and a pair of Brocade Victorian Boots that I just picked up this week. I've never seen a pair like this in person.
Both pieces are setting on the little table in the livingroom just like this. The boots are just about doggie level and Harlow keeps sniffing at them and putting her paw up on the table. No! Bad Dog! Those are not shoes that you can chew on.







Gratuitous sleepy puppy photo -

Cool Vintage Hawaiian Wedding Dress

I bought a load of about 100 vintage dresses on Monday and this one was in the lot. I love it. As soon as it came out of the wash I had to try it on my mannequin. It's a cotton print, great bold flowers, by Watumull's.
So I've got the dress, I just need the man and a warm beach! Do you think I could get away with wearing this to the foodstore? It has a loop to hold the train up, so it's not like I'll be walking through the foodstore trailing a train like some wacko, right?



I've already washed 2 loads of the dresses, and I have some out for cleaning. You'll start to see a few of the dresses on the website next week. Not this one though, I think I might just look at it for awhile.

Some vintage dresses for me!

You may have noticed a lot of dresses being added for sale at the website over the past month or so. Of course I kept a few for myself (10 actually! That's more than I usually get to keep) Here are some quick shots of a few of the dresses that are now mine. The first two are Nelly Dons, they came with the other Nelly Dons that were listed on the site. These two are still kind of iffy on me keeping them though, because they are a bit snug at the waist. I'm sucking it in hardcore in the blue dress, so you may end up seeing that one up for sale if I can't shake the 10 pounds that I'm trying to get rid of. Usually I go for dresses with fuller skirts but I just loved the fitted look of these two. The third dress I really love and it makes me want Summer to come quickly! I even have a cheap pair of flip-flops from Old Navy that match perfectly!

I've been goofing off at Polyvore again

Such a fun time waster! I used some dresses and a nightgown from my website to create these, with accessories chosen from polyvore's items.

Nelly Don and her fabulous dresses

I recently bought a load of vintage stock that had 8 1950s nelly Don Day dresses. I did a little research on the gal behind Nelly Don and found out that she had a very interesting life.
Born Ellen Howard Quinlan to Irish immagrant parents in Kansas, she was the 12th of 13 children. Nicknamed Nell, she learned how to sew and repair her hand-me-down clothing at an early age. After getting married, she began to make dresses for herself and family and friends. In 1916, a local dry goods store began ordering her dresses and this was how her business began. Her business was very successful and in the 1930s her factory was making 5000 dresses a day!
Nell was married but had a relationship with James A. Reed, a U.S. Senator from Missouri, who was also married. At one point, she went to Europe to 'adopt' a baby, but in reality she was pregnant with Reed's baby and went there to hide out and give birth to the baby.
In the 1930s Nell was kidnapped and held for ransom. James Reed enlisted the help of gangsters to find her! He threatened to expose the mob boss if they didn't help find her.
Nelly Don was one of the most successful dress manufacturers in the world. She lived to be 102 years old!


Check out A Stitch in Time - a documentray about Nelly Don.

The Kansas City Library has some great old photos of the factory workers at Nelly Don -like this one on the left






Here are a few of the Nelly Dons currently (but going quickly) for sale at Dandelion Vintage