More loveliness!

I love it when the delivery guy arrives!! Yes, even when it’s early and gets me out of bed, hair everywhere, in my PJs, nothing on my feet, forgot to put my glasses on and cannot string a coherent sentence together… BUT, I did manage to scrawl a signature so that box is MINE!

So what was in it?

The Red Roses Patio dress…

Besides the lovely fabric print – who doesn’t love a red rose?! – the thing that pushed this into a “YES! I must order this for the store!” was the beautiful bodice detailing… in particular the red piping and the cut-outs.

It is a lovely dress and is fully lined in the same soft cotton voile – and what I particularly like is the skirt underlining is not sewn into the hem, so it’s like an entire second skirt for a bit of extra flounce!

Enough for now – more soon though as there was another new style nestled in the box.

Cheers,

Denise

Update on the store

Hi folks,

I thought it was well overdue that I write about what has been happening with the store.

I had a great leap forward in mid-February when my local newspaper interviewed me and took some photographs for a story on my business.

Very exciting!

I’m not in love with the photograph – I have a bit of a weird look on my face – and it certainly wasn’t my favourite one that the photographer took, but hey… it’s a photo!!

And a story!!

I’ve introduced a couple of new styles over the last few months… Pictures? Why sure!

The Honey Baby Roses dress

The Rose dress and the Frenchie dress

I do love these dresses. They are well made, well designed and, importantly, the material is lovely… such a vital part of a garment… if the material is crap, you are going to have a crappy item of clothing.

It won’t hang properly, it may end up with twisted seamlines, it could wrinkle as soon as you look at it, it could be scratchy, it may shed, it may pill… 1001 things that can go wrong with the basic material.

It is one of the reasons why I only ever order a small quantity on initial orders. If something comes in and the material is not great, then I don’t want to sell it in my store.

Of course, that can also turn around and bite me when the material is fabulous but it was only manufactured in small quantities… but I’d rather only have a couple to sell than have many copies of a sub-quality item.

Having bought vintage clothing online, I know how frustrating it is when something arrives and it isn’t as described – be that wrong sizing information, faults not in the description, or photos that don’t give you a realistic view of what you are getting – so I am super careful to try and give my customers as much information as they need to make an informed purchasing decision… but one thing they can’t do online is check the material… so that is my job, and I take it seriously.

Well, it’s been a long day so just a short one from me today.

Enjoy your day, your week, your month, your year!

Cheers,

Denise

MOAR SEWING!!!

So I finally checked out my Google Reader for the first time since cocky was an egg… and oh dear, only 500+ blog posts to read.

I think sometimes I avoid visiting the ol’ Reader because I know it’s at a point where it would take two days of solid reading to catch up on all the posts… and some of them I simply HAVE to figure out how many posts of a particular blog I’ve missed then find the first one and start reading them backwards… I have to read them in the right order, not the most recent first. Argh!

It’s kind of like my Inbox at this point, a metric bazillion tonne of emails in there and whilst I might clean out 40 in a really good, concentrated sweep, I never really seem to get totally on top of them.

I know some people who never have anything in their Inbox – freaks – but I just don’t know how they do it. I guess these days with seemingly unlimited storage it doesn’t matter that much… but I’m certainly old enough to remember having IT people constantly yelling at me to clean out my Inbox because it was slowing my computer down. Yeah. All 25 emails (vs. my now 600 plus in the Inbox).

Don’t get me wrong. I would LOVE to be one of those super-organised people who files and/or deletes everything but I equally recognise that I’m not one of them. :0)

Anyway, what’s the point of this post?

I’ve been inspired! Inspired by all the wonderful sewing blogs out there and I definitely want to do more sewing this year.

Not a resolution as such, but a definite goal for the year. What’s the diff? Semantics, of course.

Happily, I have already made one thing this year – a slightly skewiff pocket square for my darling partner, Justin. Sure, even the name of it gives some hint as to what its shape should be, but I was running out of time the day before the wedding we were going to and so hems weren’t as carefully measured (measured?! Ha!) as they could have been and so the ‘square’ ended up being more of a slight ‘rectangle’.

This did mean that the lovely triple-fold that I found on the internet was a bit wonk, but happily the wonk was pretty much all hidden in the pocket. Yay for pockets!

Speaking of…

A little something I made today (the photoshoppery, not the skirt! The skirt is for sale on my website, and yes, it does have pockets!).

I really do love pockets in dresses and skirts. My only problem is that I’m not used to them yet so I find myself juggling five things and THEN remembering the saving pockets. Especially brilliant when hanging out the washing… no more bending down like a caveman (eh?) to the ground to get the pegs anymore!

So I’m not very far through my Google Reader backlog clear out, but I send big thanks to the following blogs for reigniting the flame:

Molly's Sewing And Garage Sale Adventures

A Dress A Day

My Happy Sewing Place

Three very creative and entertaining ladies and three inspiring sewing types!

Roll on 2013, you beast.

Hopefully I’ll even finish my ‘four plus years in the making’ Vogue reissue. I can’t remember its number but it has a beautiful drape that hangs from the shoulder and down the back. It is completely finished except for the hand-sewing required for the hem… it’s been this way for at least two years. What can I say… when I’m not in the mood, I really am not in the mood.

Ok, it’s now February so here we go… this thing will be hemmed by the end of the month. Yeah, that’s a long time for one hem, but a girl needs a little wiggle room!

Denise

A Visit To The Shirt Factory That Time Forgot

This week I was lucky enough to enjoy a tour of the Phillips Shirts factory in Melbourne. As a thank you to their volunteers, the tour was run by Melbourne Open House.

The Phillips Shirts business was started in the 1950s by friends Philip Phillips (!) and Alex Peterfreund, two Czechoslovakian immigrants who worked full time by day and made shirts by night.

Cutting out and sewing the shirts at their home – bachelor Philip lived with Alex and his wife and child throughout most of his life – their first big break came when a store in Tasmania placed an order for 800 shirts.

Apparently this caused some consternation for the duo – can you imagine an order of that size coming into your home-based business? Freak out… :0)

Luckily the store was so impressed by the style and quality of the shirts that they were prepared to accept part delivery and have more sent as they were made.

Thus, the business really began in earnest.

That one big order helped them to establish their first business premises at Little Bourke Street… many shirts and seven years of 18 hour days later and they moved to their current premises at 274 Lonsdale Street in the city.

Our tour started with a trip up the very funky, old-school red and black stairs to a small foyer where several old machines sit in pride of place along with some sterling examples of some ruffled, embroidered glories from, I’d guess, the 1970s.

This is exactly the kind of shirt my Dad wore to weddings in the ‘70s… except his frill was detachable :0)

From there it was onto the cutting desk – enough to make any sewist drool – where some fabric was laid out, ready for cutting… again the cutting tools and weights… drool…

The “everyday” cutter

 

The super-duper cut-through-a-foot-of-fabric cutter

As well as the table, the cutters, the weights and the WALL of stock…

…there was also some lovely moments that felt like eavesdropping and time-travelling at the same time.

 

And then we came to the rolls of fabric… or should I say rooms of rolls of fabric… or should I say rooms and halls of rolls of fabric…? Crazy!

Enough of that…

                                

I said enough!

I loved this hidden shirt – traffic lights!

The place is amazing… it has such a sense of history about it – and the fact that it is still a working clothing factory in the heart of Melbourne city – BRILLIANT! There is so much… stuff!… crammed into this space that your imagination starts to get carried away with what could be in the boxes… we did hear a tale of a bunch of velour 1970s jackets in one section. Hipsters, take note!

I think I’m going to let the pictures do most of the talking.

Kitchen / tearoom

The goods lift

Actually, one thing I will explain – this next picture was taken upside down and in the dark so I had to flip it and lighten it. It was on the inside of the goods lift door and the reason it tickled me was that my Dad and Uncle used to work at Lysaghts in the 1960s/’70s.

A selfie with Marybeth in the tearoom

For a while the third floor was sublet to a company called Bambury. Although their stock is gone, there are some small clues they were here…

Outside, the city is still there… inside, it’s 50 years ago

Then it is on to the retail shop on the second floor…

For when your shirt sleeves just have to match the drapes…

 

This tour was a great treat – for people who sew and those who just appreciate a good shirt or a family business.

The retail shop is open from Wednesday to Saturday, from 10:30am to 3:30pm or by appointment.

I loved it and will be back with some spendable cash in my pocket soon. :0)

Denise

Diamond Dragonflies and Art Deco Insects

A couple of years ago - long before I embarked on this ‘I’m going to run my own business and be perpetually poor’ adventure ;0) and could actually spend money on myself - I was wandering around the awesome alleys and laneways of Melbourne when I came across an amazing store – Sine Qua Non.

Unfortunately they don’t seem to have a website, but if you are near the corner of Flinders Lane and Degraves, you will find them, and what you will find inside is a gorgeous Aladdin's cave of jewellery.

I have had the pleasure of visiting – and buying – from this store several times.

My first purchase was a beautiful pair of earrings that I just could not resist!

Speaking with the store owner, he told me that the woman who makes them, Catherine Popesco, got hold of a whole bunch of original 1800s jewellery moulds in Paris and now makes earrings, bracelets, necklaces and brooches with those same moulds.

A piece of very wearable history.

My second purchase came about because I had to show a friend “this amazing store that is full of things I love”and… well, I found another thing that I couldn’t resist!

I’ve been calling this my art deco dragonfly but I’ve just realised that it is definitely more art nouveau than deco.

This one isn’t a Catherine Popesco, but it sure does make me think of 1800s Paris.

But you know what’s even prettier?!

The real thing…

Photographer David Chambon has captured a series of macro shots of insects covered in morning dew… stunning as any diamond jewellery!

You can find more at his website.

Here is a quick tip to keep your much-loved jewellery looking it’s best… it’s actually something that I already knew but have never actually put into practice… bad Denise!

Make sure that jewellery is the LAST thing that you put on when you are getting ready to go out.

Hairspray and perfume both leave their marks on your jewellery, which was made abundantly clear to me when I grabbed my earrings to take a photo… ick!! Luckily, mine were easy enough to clean as the beautiful Austrian crystals are embedded in a clear resin, but if it was a more intricate design then it would be a much harder job to get the gunk out.

Take my bad behaviour as an example and save your jewellery! :0)

Have a lovely weekend!

Denise xx

A quaintrelle life

I have a new favourite word!

Quaintrelle!

I don’t know how I’ve lived my whole life and never come across this word before.

From Wikipedia… a quaintrelle is a “woman who emphasizes a life of passion expressed through personal style, leisurely pastimes, charm, and cultivation of life’s pleasures.”

Sometimes I feel we are all so busy getting through the Monday to Friday that we don’t make time for the things that we are passionate about.

I’m going to find a really pretty font, print out “Quaintrelle” in large letters and stick it on my mirror to remind me not to go through life passively, but rather passionately.

Life isn’t a practice run… as far as we know we only get one go through.

So from now on, although tracksuit and cargo pants are easy, so are skirts, tights and dresses… in fact, a dress is one piece so technically even easier than pants and a top. I am not tracksuit pants!! That’s not who I want to be… (except at the gym). I don’t feel like me when I dress down… I lack zip, vim and vigour when I slop around and don’t take care with my appearance.

I’m not making judgement calls on anyone else and what they choose to wear… I’m simply saying that is NOT how I want to present myself to the world and, more importantly, to me!

So ‘Quaintrelle’ on the mirror is going to be my coach and a life of passion my mantra.

I hope you have had a great – PASSIONATE – week and that more of the same is to come this weekend!

Who is this gorgeous creature, you ask? Why, one Betty White! Now there’s a lady who has lived her life with passion!

Denise xx

Spring has sprung!

What was predicted to be a rather average day here in Melbourne has turned out to be GLORIOUS!

The birds and singing, the sun is shining, Spring has sprung!

My thoughts can’t help but turn to dresses, especially at this time of year and doubly so in Melbourne. The Spring Racing Carnival is a big deal down here… it’s not just Melbourne Cup and then it’s over… the stores are all Spring Racing Carnival mad… and not just clothes stores but also haberdashers (plenty of hat-making supplies out this time out year), hairdressers and even hardware stores… they all manage to work in a saddle or a pretty floral fascinator into their displays somehow.

So this is what I’ve been looking at today…

 

Does that not say “Spring” to you?

It does to me!

Denise