My Vintage Blue Floral Chintz is in an Etsy Treasury!

Thank you to Clay Hollow for including my vintage cornflower blue cotton floral chintz fabric in your beautiful Fabulous Sewing Supplies Etsy Treasury! You really found some great suppliers :)

My First Etsy Treasury - "Pee-Wee in Love"!

Please check out my very first Etsy Treasury called Pee-Wee in Love! It's getting a lot of likes and reblogs in my Tumblr blog, so be sure to check it out there too!

Do You Tumblr? Check Out My Bike's Photo Blog!

I really really love Tumblr blog, and I've had one for my business for quite some time where I post photos of my works as well as photos of interiors that I've been collecting for almost twenty years. You can see that blog here.

I recently got my hands on the bike of my dreams- an Electra Pajama Party in green polka dot and am completely obsessed with it. I started riding it around my neighborhood and texting pictures of it in different locations to my friends when I decided to share those photos with the rest of the internet world. You can see photos of my bike in various locations in New York in my new Tumblr blog http://greenpolkadotbike.tumblr.com :) I don't have too many photos posted yet, but I plan on taking some trips into Manhattan soon, so rest assured, there will be some fun photos coming up! I also have a few photos of other Electra bikes on there, as well as various lime green items as well as cute bikes.

This is one of my photos, taken in front of The Sanctuary of Our Lady of La Salette Chapel in Queens, New York. Go check out my pictures and I hope you enjoy them!

My Plush Matryoshka doll is in an Etsy Treasury!

Thank you Miss Mellie's Parlor for including Birdie, one of my Plush Matryoshka dolls in her awesome "To Russia With Love" Etsy Treasury! And take a moment to check out her Etsy Shop, where she has the prettiest pin-up girl inspired accessories on Etsy!

You can see more pictures of my nesting dolls, all of which are embroidered with vintage Kismet cotton thread and vintage fabrics on my Flickr photostream :)

Personal Home Project: The Yellow Chair

I have this old chair that was given to me ten years ago that was used in a window display from an old job. I don't know the history of it, I just know that it's old, hand carved, and stuffed with horse hair that collects on the floor under it any time someone dares to sit on it. Soon after getting the chair, I dug up this fantastic vintage Italian upholstery weight fabric made of silk and linen in bright yellow. It's a damask with unusual tropical animals, including a miscfhievous monkey and a cute Kookaburra. I upholstered the chair and added a great vintage French gimp in this color sommewhere between chartreuse and olive.

Sadly I didn't back the fabric, and after years of abuse from house guests, it was no longer visually appealing...

Fortunately I have just enough of the yellow fabric for one more run of upholstery. But I wanted a little more... I decided to do some tattoo inspired embroidery on the seat and back of the chair. I'm a huge fan of the tattoo artistry of Ashley Love, so I crated a design inspired by her bird cage tattoo and got to work.

Along with collecting vintage fabrics, I also collect vintage threads.  I selected some shiny rayon embroidery floss as well as some silk shoe thread from W. C. Thairlwall & Co. Inc., and mixed them with some brightly colored cotton embroidery floss.  The old Embroidery floss tends to twist and knot up as I work with it, but I absolutely love the result!

I'm about one-third of the way through this design. I'll post more photos as I go along. I'm pretty busy with a ton of different projects going on right now, but I'll do my best to get this one done before the end of October. Stay tuned!

My Vintage Fabric was Featured in an Etsy Treasury! Thank You Roxanna Bikadoroff, AKA Snazzy888!

My vintage Italian fabric named "Les Saltimbanques" in color burgundy was featured in Roxanna Bikadoroff 's Etsy treasury named Kismet (ironically the name of the vintage threads I sew and embroider exclusively with :) Thank you Roxanna! You can click on the photo below for a close up.

Roxanna Bikadoroff is a well known illustrator from White Rock, BC (her works can be seen on her website www.roxannamundi.ca and on her Facebook art album page). Her Etsy store is absolutely incredible! She describes her store as follows: "My Snazzy Boutique concept is based on the boutiques my mother used to take me to in Montreal in the 1960s/70s and the indoor emporiums with many little booths/open shops inside which you find in London." Roxanna also has a blog called Roxanna's Gallerie Mystique featuring her enchanting artwork. Go take a peek!

I love everything in her shop, and I do mean EVERYTHING, but if I had to pick a favorite, I would have to pick Oriental Beauties - a pair of hand painted / mixed media Chinoiserie Harpies. These miniature paintings are super feminine, and have an incredible amount of detail.  I would love to have them in my sewing studio. They would surely inspire me to create! 

Passion Flower Chintz Hot Dog Time!

I have this great chintz with passion flowers and carnations and lots of little flowers all over it. To be more specific, I've had it for over fifteen years. It's absolutely glorious. It's hand screened with maybe twenty five to thirty different screens, and if I recall correctly, it's French. 

It was just SO girlie that I couldn't figure out what to do with it. I even struggled making a Dachshund out of it thinking the floral just wouldn't work.  I took a chance though and laid out the gof patterns, and lo and behold, it looked great!

I sewed her right up, and my daughter named her Summer. I put her up for sale today so head on over to my Etsy listing to get a closer look :)

A New Green Plush Dachshund is Getting Ready for Etsy!

My internet has been in and out (mostly out) for two weeks, plus we went on a mini vacation, so I haven't been able to list anything on Etsy. However, I have been SUPER busy on the sewing machine! I'm getting ready to list three new plush Doxies on Etsy!

I'd like to introduce you to Cookie. This little lady is made from a gorgeous and super girly green floral swirly vintage fabric. It's a hand screened print on cotton, and is made with fourteen screens. I think it was made in France, but I'm not 100% sure.  Here are some scans of the fabric.

Cookie's nose is made from leather, and her bow is made from vintage French ombre ribbon that fades from soft pink to a mossy green. I've posted a photo of Cookie below, and you can see more photos of her, as well as other dogs I've made in my Flickr Weenie Dogs photo set. Look for Cookie in my Etsy store early this week!

My Orange Punk Rock Pillow is in an Etsy Treasury!

Thank you to BusyBee67 for including my Orange Vintage Tartan Punk Rock Pillow in your fabulous Multiplicity Etsy Treasury! You've got a fantastic eye for color!

Oil Spill "Epic Fail Whale" Tote

Here's a tote bag I made for my own personal use. The oil soaked whale isn't my design, so I'm not making them for my Etsy shop, but I did make a few for my friends who harassed me until I caved in. I've gotten so many complements on it, and I really wish I knew who the graphic artist was. If anyone knows, please drop me a note and let me know!

Embroidered Nesting Dolls Made with Vintage Materials

I've created these nesting dolls with all vintage materials :) The faces are embroidered on vintage silk taffetas from Lelièvre in Paris with vintage cotton threads. The bodies are various wonderful vintage hand screened cottons! The dolls stand ten inches high and are gently stuffed with new premium polyfill and hand stitched closed :)  They will be available in my Etsy shop, crashandcarry, in the coming weeks! 

My New Pillow Was Featured in an Etsy Treasury!

Thank you Jalinde for including my Tartan Plaid Punk Rock pillow in your awesome Shiver Me Timbers treasury!

One Saturday I took a walk to Zipperhead...

I've had the idea for these pillows for about ten years now, but I finally sat down to work on them last month. These punk rock pillows are made with authentic 100% brushed cotton tartan plaids. I didn't want to just stick a zipper on, all messy and punk rock-like (I know... the messiness is anti establishment.. blah blah blah) so I separated the zipper and backed it with either a super colorful polyester satin from the 60's or some really great moire I picked up back in the 80's when the Prince of Chintz reigned supreme!

These little gems are further spruced up with pins, buttons, badges, iron-ons, feathers and gorgeous embroidery done with vintage cotton thread. Each pillow is generously stuffed with premium fiberfill and gently hand stitched closed. Each pillow measures approximately 12" x 12" and are all one of a kind! They will be added to my Etsy store soon... I promise!! The yellow one is just a prototype and has been loved nearly to death... so ignore the lumps and bumps because that one isn't for sale :D

Weenie Dogs!

I've put my Etsy shop on vacation so I can work on some new pillow and plush designs. My favorite new design is a plush Doxie made out of vintage hand screened fabrics from all over the world and vintage stock French ribbons :) This design seems to be quite a hit because I haven't even listed them in my shop yet and I already have orders going out!! Here's a preview... Woof woof!

Two of my vintage fabrics were featured in an Etsy Treasury!

What a beautiful collection of all things Chinoiserie by Jambo Chameleon ! You can also read her blog at Colors of Time . Thank you Anita!!

That Chair All my Friends Like.

There they were, by the side of the road. Just waiting for the trash truck to come and take them away. There was three of them in various stages of disrepair. Unloved. They were covered in a disintegrating green wool satin stripe with a wool braided cord. And they were gorgeous.

I dragged them, in all of their hand carved glory, into my home before anyone else got to them.  Their joints were achy and loose and the springs were sticking out of the bottom. There were strands of dried out horsehair or boar hair (or whatever long dead, hairless creature they used to stuff this thing) hanging out of the torn fabric in tufts. Their feetsies were missing the caps.

They sat around my home for years. They came with me when I moved. They went in and out of mothball smelling storage units. I didn't know WHAT I was going to upholster them with, but I knew it HAD to be beautiful.

Fast forward about ten years. I decided to teach myself how to silk screen and chose the Jolly Roger as my first image.  I have this huge vintage fabric collection that I had collected over the years, and I selected my favorite fabric to be my first victim. It's a vintage French hand screen print with about 23 screens (I have some pieces in my Etsy shop in a few different colorways). It's a gorgeous greenish-blue with beautiful swirls, flowers and birds. Glorious! I screened on the skull and crossbones with intentions of making pillows for my bed. Then it hit me. The chairs!  So I got to work.

I'm a self taught upholsterer. I learned from watching Ed and Joe, "The Furniture Guys" on PBS. *HORSEHAIR!* I'm also fortunate to have a father who was a plumber and a brother who is a hot rod mechanic, so I'm terribly good with my hands, and have a wicked tool box full of hand me downs and greasy castaways that still work perfectly fine.  I also honed my upholstery skillz by  reupholstering (only) half of the gray sectional in our living room in red moire, much to the chagrin of my family.  But that's a different story.

 I won't bore you with the upholstery details, but I can assure you it involved a LOT of upholstery tack nails, some Gorilla Glue and really big c-clamps. Oh, and old woven vinyl lawn chair strapping. The finish on the wood wasn't awful. I gave it a really nice rub down with oil and made sure to mop up whatever was left so as not to grease up the fabric.

I also happen to collect trimmings and tiebacks and cording and such, and had tons of this fabulous French silk gimp in chartreuse.  The fabric has no chartreuse in it, but since I'm not at all afraid of contrast, I went ahead and glued it on. This chair was coming out hella sexy, but it was still missing something. 

Now being a typical blonde, I'm attracted to (and often hypnotized by) shiny things. I have an unhealthy fixation with Swarovski rhinestones and affix them onto anything and everything that doesn't have a pulse. (This of course was years before I ever heard of vajazzling.)  Anywho, since I glue rhinestones on everything else, why should this chair be left out? I put in a huge order with my favorite Rhinestone Guy  consisting of bout 1000 Swarovski flat backs in 20SS and a tub of Gem Tac.

  

 It was a daunting task, methodically gluing these rhinestones on one by one. It was also a painful task, ripping glued rhinestones out of the cats' fur (but don't be sad, it wasn't painful for me).  The long long loooong hours were well worth the final product though. The chair came out stunning! This chair gets SO many complements, and it's definitely one of my prized possessions.  It's so leather and lace. It's so naughty but nice. It's so librarian by day, dominatrix by night. 

 I know you're wondering, "Self, does she let anyone sit on it?". Honestly I prefer that no one sit on it, but it IS sitable.  It hasn't lost a rhinestone yet, and thankfully survived a cat scratching incident without too much damage.  

And the best news of all? There are two more chairs just like it, waiting to be reupholstered!   I'm really torn with what to do with them. I refuse to upholster them in the same fabric, or with the same silk screen. I have some really clever ideas for them, but since I haven't finalized my idea for the next chair project, you will just have to wait. 

But I'll give you a hint. 

Guns and Squirrels.