Vintage fabric and a resolution

I don't normally make New Year's resolutions because if you want to do something you may as well just do it. That said, I went on a bit of a fabric spree after the New Year and have made a resolution not to buy any more fabric for at least six months. These are the last pieces of fabric I'm going to buy for a while. 

All of the fabric pieces are vintage from the Last Chintz. This cotton is probably going to be turned into a wiggle dress. 

 I love the mod pattern on this one. It will be perfect for a 1960's style mini dress.

There's only about a metre of this one. I can probably squeeze a wee blouse out of it. Maybe a back button one because, even though they are a pain to get done up, I love them. 

I wasn't 100% sure about this one. At first I thought it was kind of 40's, but then I thought it might be a bit too 80's. I'm still not really sold on it but it was only $5 for 3 metres. It will probably be turned into a dress because I really only sew and wear dresses.

The Last Chintz

Yesterday, I went out to Tai Tapu (a little village close to Christchurch) to visit Last Chintz. It's a new shop that sells "upcycled furniture" (quotes because I think the word 'upcycled' is stupid) and vintage fabrics. The furniture was gorgeous, but I was far more interested in the fabric, obviously. There was floor to ceiling shelving filled with lots of lovely, old material. I was pretty restrained and only bought two pieces.

This lovely, soft rayon is going to be turned into a 1940's style dress. It's nice and drape-y so something with gathers would be nice. The whole piece was $18 and there's about 4 metres there.

This one's a rayon too, but I think it's a crepe so it has a completely different texture. I'm not that great at dating fabrics, but it's probably quite old because it's not very wide. Fabric these days tends to be 45 inches or wider. Before the 1960's fabric usually came in widths of between 36 and 39 inches. This one's 39 inches.  

The print looks like the sort of novelty prints that were popular in the 1940's too. It has medieval-type coins on it. There's about 4 metres of it, and it was $6/metre. 

I'm probably going to make another dress with this because, let's face it, I pretty much only make dresses. That is, if I ever get around to sewing. I'm still getting used to fitting sewing in with working full time. I used to sew pretty much every day when I was at uni, but I'm lucky if I manage to sew once a week since I started working. 

Recent Acquisitions

And by recent I mean between yesterday and months ago.

I got this vintage dress a couple of months ago on Trademe. The photo on the auction was of the dress lying on the floor so I wasn't sure what it would look like on but I took a chance and I love it. It's way nicer than I was expecting. The colours are a lot more vibrant in person than they look here.

My Mum got me the cocktail hat when she was out op shopping yesterday (I definitely got the op shopping gene from her). 

  

I love the bow on the back. It has little crocheted loops on the inside to stick bobby pins through to keep it on your head. 

 

I also recently got a couple of new (old) bakelite bangles from Dear Valentine on etsy. The new ones are the carved green one on the left and the carved red one fourth from the left. I rationalise buying bakelite because I wear them every day.

On Saturday I went to the Two Squirrels winter sale with Helga, Ayesha and Ayesha's friend Raea. There were lots of people there and lots of goodies.

I managed to nab the floral and a novelty border print fabrics (above), the 60s pattern below and some other things I didn't manage to photograph.

 

 

Two Lovely Squirrels

Today, Mum and I went to Rangiora to the Two Squirrels pop-up vintage shop, the Nest. The Nest is closing in a couple of weeks and the squirrels are going to open an online shop. They have lots of amazing stuff and the squirrels, Vanessa and Warren, are two of the nicest people you'll ever meet.



I bought this lovely shirtdress. The pattern is so pretty.



I didn't notice until I got it home that it has an unusual triangle shaped armscye. You can see it in the photo above. I've never seen ones like it. One of the things I love about vintage is the cute details like that.



I also got this lovely seersucker which I plan to make into a playsuit, maybe like this gorgeous vintage one but I will probably make a two-piece. I got some buttons too but I didn't get a picture of them (oops).