Artists and Sewists and Fashion, Oh My! (Artistry in Fashion 2011)

Yesterday I attended my first Artistry in Fashion event, held annually at Canada College in Redwood City - it will NOT be my last time!

Some of the strongest impressions that I had:

• The attendees were mostly women, probably mostly 30-ish on up, and I was struck by the fact that so many truly beautiful women were all gathered in one spot.   Not glossy-magazine beautiful, but beautiful in the sense that they carried themselves with confidence, dressed with attention to detail, and exhibited a creative, artistic flair in clothing and accessories that showcased an authentic attitude of "I know who I am".
• The designer/artist booths!  Oh my gosh - overwhelm!  I think there were almost 100 booths, and every. single. one was filled with amazing artistry - clothing, fabric, jewelry, accessories.   It's juried, and done well!
• The Canada Campus is a lovely one - especially on a warm & sunny day.  The designer booths were all outside (& me without sunscreen or a hat - yikes!)   Apparently quite a bit of construction has been going on there, & I think it will be a lovelier campus when some trees have grown up & brought some more natural beauty back, but it was a perfect place for an event like this.
• Of course, the people/friends/fellow sewists!   It was such a great venue to keep running into people I've met through my local sewing group, meet some bloggers for the first time, and be introduced to some wonderful new sewing friends :)
• I don't think I've ever been to a fashion show before....this may not have been an international runway event, but seeing the designers' works showcased, and Lyla Messinger's patterns presented, was really inspirational!  Lyla was the featured speaker, and while I missed her talk, I made up for it by inspecting everything in her booth (and chatting with her a bit, and, of course, spending some $$ there!)

I could have spent time taking pictures of the amazing work displayed & the lovely women I saw, but I pretty much forgot that I had my camera with me, because it was much more fun to just chat with everyone & play with all the goodies first hand ;-)

What I came home with:

My birthday present!   OK, it's not for another month, but birthdays are supposed to start early & end late anyway, right?  These are  felted scarves from harlequin feltworks, and I love love LOVE them!!!!    Made of all natural fibers (silk and wool), and with eco-friendly processing to boot.  It doesn't get much better than this!

Here are a few of the infinite ways you can drape these scarves:

I can't wait for scarf-wearing weather!!!!   By the way, many of the designers have lines that are carried in museum stores and higher end clothing stores, and the prices at this event are deeply discounted in comparison!  Update:  Holy Crap.   I just looked at the online prices of these scarves.  I knew I was getting a good price, and I'm not even going to tell you how much I paid, but I will say this - if you want an INCREDIBLE bargain on one of these scarves, come to AIF next year!

One of my favorite vendors was the button lady, "Missing A Few Buttons".  She has no web presence, but oh my gosh does she have buttons!  I could have spent a mortgage payment at her booth (readers may have noticed by now that I have a bit of a button fetish - especially if they're vintage)

I picked up a few glass buttons from the 1800's, and my favorite - some Victorian "perfume buttons":

What's a "perfume button",  you ask?  (I didn't know either).   The colored bits in the metal buttons are velvet, and the well-dressed Victorian lady would put a drop of perfume on the velvet, so that she could take a delicate whiff of her nice perfume as she walked through the sewage-filled roads of town.    I think I will say no more.....

And, as I mentioned, I stocked up on a few goodies from Lyla Messinger (LJ Designs):

Some patterns, a fun-looking Tips & Techniques book, and some Riri zips designed by Lyla (closeouts at a GREAT price, so I couldn't resist.....)

I usually avoid posting a pic that's THIS unflattering, but at least you'll get a sense of how quickly a warm, sunny California day can shift to freezing-arse cold evening when the fog rolls in with a chilly wind:

Trying to stay warm with shams...

And I can only dream of looking as elegant and gorgeous as Margy, even with a cold wind whipping our hair about:

Artistry in Fashion, I will return!   Until next year......

What I love about Garage Sale-ing

The treasures you can find!  Especially the free ones!   Like a bag of sewing notions - if I ever buy a machine, I'll always fill a bag with loose notions & ask if they'll throw that in (they always do).   And the cabinet drawers of a vintage machine ~ veritable little treasure chests.  :)

I'm making the cute little Colette Sorbetto top (another freebie!) & I wanted to funk it up a bit with some buttons, & wondered if I might have some nice bias tape in my stash to use as well.

Yup - vintage freebie finds to the rescue!

There's an upside/downside to vintage button finds - often you find a delightfully unique & fabulous button...and there's only one.   The good thing is that creativity gets triggered in figuring out how to use it.  I'm thinking of combining these buttons, & that wonderful 100% cotton bias tape, on my animal print(!) blouse:

But THIS is what really caught my eye - on the back of that bias tape package is this:

Love love LOVE this phrase:  "we will reimburse you for the reasonable cost of your labor and all material used in making the article on which it is applied."  What are the odds of finding THAT guarantee on anything made today?

Here are a few more packages of tape from roughly the same ($.15 per package) era:

All cotton or rayon, & even different companies have that same guarantee!

Love the washing instructions on this one:

"Boil with pure soap or soap flakes.  Rinse in clear, luke-warm water, Iron before quite dry."

Many of these finds have no monetary value, and little value of any sort to anyone but us sewists, but they make the little cockles of my heart go pitter-patter when I sort out my bags & drawers of treasures after a day that is often filled with delightful chit-chat & sharing goodies & stories with other bargain hunters.  :)

What fabulous vintage sewing finds have you come up with in your estate sale wanderings?

A Double Dose of Yummy!

Well, y'all may realize that I've not been finding the time or energy to be doing a whole lot of sewing lately.   So what does a non-sewing sewist do in such a case?  She buys fabric and sewing machines, of course!

I'm a reformed SMADist, really.  I am.  (for the uninformed, SMAD = Sewing Machine Acquisition Disease).  There are just a COUPLE more machines on my wish list....you know, just in case the right one comes along at the right price.  One of those was a treadle.   And if a Rocketeer fell into my lap, I would, of course, cuddle it for awhile & then happily let it follow me home.  And I always have a soft spot for a nice little Featherweight.  (it's the machine I learned to sew on under my Mother's guidance, after all).

Today there was a "Last Minute Estate Sale" with a Featherweight listed.  Kind of off the beaten path, but very close to my house.  "Everything Priced to sell!"  Since I was passing nearby while out & about, of COURSE I had to check it out, thinking the FW would be long gone if it was, indeed, 'priced to sell'.  But at $300? Nope, not priced to sell to me, but that was OK, because they had MY treadle!!!   $50.   For a Singer 66, and my second choice in treadle cabs.  Sold.  :)  (the only treadle cab I like more is very similar to this one, but the cast iron has straight legs - lovely, simple, clean lines.  Also harder to come by than this one, which is quite common).   By the time I had gone home & emptied out my car to make room for the treadle, & returned to pick it up, the FW was marked down to $200.   Twenty minutes later, I was back home with this:

The 1952 Feather (with case & just a couple of attachments), the 66, which needs some TLC, (but if necessary I'll just cannibalize the wheel & put it on another machine) and a cute little Spartan.   All for $200 - I'm OK with that.  :)  

Someone had refinished the top flap on the desk, which clearly has the potential to be gorgeous!   I think that grain is fabulous!

Next step:  decide which machines to re-home (no, I'm not admitting to how many I have....not at the moment, at least)  ;-D

And then, shortly after getting home, my Fabric Mart box arrives!   Best.  Box.  Ever!

Even His Furriness the Inspector General is in full approval of this one.  Pigskins, sheep shearling, silks, linens, rayon knits, waterproof stuff....& a couple of mystery bits in the freebie bundle (like that lime green twill in the corner.....anyone love lime green?  Because lime green lover would not be me.....)

I've never been this thrilled with a box of fabric in the mail!   Now then.....to sew, to sew.......   Right after I pay the bills.  & go to the post office.  & grocery shopping.  & the bank.  & make dinner.   & get ready for work tomorrow.   & do all the Mumsy stuff.  Oh.  Yeah, right.   All that is why I haven't been sewing.   Maybe next week?

But first, give me a minute......I need to go coddle some pigskin & stroke some silk..........

Oh!  I almost forgot!   The bonus score from the estate sale - a pile of vintage buttons!!!  (Have I ever mentioned that I'm a bit of a button freak? - especially vintage)

Of course, with a pile that size, there are bound to be a few really cool buttons.  Here are a few of my faves:

I love mixing buttons, so the fact that scores like this rarely yield duplicates of the really unusual ones is OK by me :).   What's with the Roosevelt pin, you ask?  It appears to be a real, vintage, pin.   Not a super-valuable one, but apparently worth more than I paid for the buttons!  Kinda cool.  :)