Treasure

Davis and I went to see our friend at the barn sale last weekend.  We scrounged around a bit, and found some sturdy old tools and an awesome old galvanized steel washtub.  I asked the owner if he ever comes across sewing patterns, and he told me that he does from time to time, but that his sister (who quilts and sews) usually snatches them up.  He said he'd call me next time he found any.

We looked for a little while longer, and I happened to spy a dusty brown shoe box sitting on one of the tool shelves that was tied up with a brittle strip of cloth.  This was intriguing--I walked over and untied it, eager to see what was inside.  The box was filled with rolls of antique newspaper, tied up with antique strips of cloth similar to the one that tied the box shut.  The cloth ties were all different prints -- much older than feedsack.  The newspaper clippings, I noticed at first glance, looked to be from the early twentieth century.  I didn't need to know anything else--I bought the box for something like $3, excited as can be.  Old newspapers are so fascinating.

Once we loaded up our booty and got in the car to leave, I opened up my treasure box and untied one of the newspaper bundles.  What was this?  The first piece I unrolled was cut into the shape of...a sewing pattern piece!  A collar or facing, to be exact.  Oh my goodness -- this was a box full of patterns! You can imagine my joy. :D

Below are some pictures of one of the best finds I have ever found.  Enjoy!

This is the only bundle that dates back to the '40's.  Check out this girl's playing card bathing suit!

More to come soon about wedding/house! :D

~Bessie

Whew

It's been a little over a month since the wedding, and things are just now beginning to seem a bit calmer.  My husband and I just bought a darling house up in the mountains, and have been very busy stripping wall paper, painting, changing faucets, and building a big fence for the goaties.  Needless to say, I haven't had much time to blog! 

The wedding was beautiful--everything I hoped and imagined it would be.  Once we get all settled in, I will be doing a series of posts on the wedding and how we did most things by hand, maintaining both a low budget and a lovely, homespun atmosphere.  I'll also be posting here-and-there about our new house and the make-over process going on there right now. :)

For right now, though, I am going to be busy busy busy making our new house into a home!

Much love,

Bessie

Wedding Update: One More Week!

Less than one week.  Wow.  When we first became engaged, the wedding felt so far away.  Now we are here--staring it right in the face!  It is unbelievable, especially since not even a year ago I was pretty sure I would end up an old maid living up in the mountains with her goats.  

I am a blessed woman.

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So I was finally able to upload some pictures of the veil, and also of a few other projects we have been working on.  Here they are (along with notes and comments from myself) for your enjoyment.  :)

 VEIL

The veil was very easy to make, and pretty inexpensive as well.  I ordered the Russian veiling from Judith M. Millinery Supplies, and purchased the hair combs and the flowers at Michaels.  

My inspiration for this veil came from one of my favorite Etsy shops, thehoneycomb (this listing in particular).  It took me two tries with the veiling--the first time I cut a piece that was the same width on both the top and bottom, and that didn't work out well--the part that wrapped around my face was reeaalllly tight, and the top poofed up in an awkward manner.  Thankfully I had plenty of veiling left for another try.  The second time I tapered the sides of the veiling so that the bottom of the veil was a few inches wider than the top.  Then I gathered and hot-glued the sides of the veiling to each hair comb and covered the glue with a pretty piece of ribbon.  After that I put together the flowers and attached them to the right-side comb.  Voila!

DISHES!

Davis and I were able to procure all the dishes that we needed from thrift stores.  We bought 115 total, and paid something close to $15 for all of them.  They are all washed and packed in boxes for the reception right now.  Yay!

WEDDING FAVORS!

Our wedding ceremony will be held outside in the mountains, and so we planned for things to be a bit chilly.  Of course now it has been in the 60's all weekend, and the weather report says to expect a high of 68F on Saturday.  That's Georgia weather for you!  Anyway, I am kind-of hoping that it will be cold, because we made some really cute glove favors for our guests!  They are simple white gloves that we bought at Wal-Mart (2 for $1), tied with ribbon and a handmade tag that says "Keep Warm" (in my little sister Esme's handwriting).  Cute, huh?

As a nod to my Italian heritage, we will give each guest at our reception a small tulle-tied bag of Jordan almonds.  My mother gave these as favors at her wedding almost 27 years ago, as her great-grandmother (Bis Nona) bade her to, and suggested I do the same. ;)

THE JACKET

This is a horrible picture, but I figured it was better than nothing!  The jacket is finished, and looks absolutely perfect.  I love it.  I'll get some better pics up soon. 

All right, I think that is about all for now!  Have a fantastic day!

~Bessie

Veil

More to come!

What we've been up to...

1. Scarves for the bridal party to wear

We couldn't find any ready-made scarves (it's February!  Out with the winter-wear and in with the bathing suits!), so we ended up making our own out of flannel.  They were really easy to whip up...well, except for fraying the ends.  Fraying is a bit tedious.  It's worth it though. ;)

2. Bridesmaid's Gifts

I cannot disclose what the bridesmaid's gifts are on my blog, because I haven't given them yet. ;)  However I have wrapped them up.  I used plain brown gift bags from Michaels, and instead of tissue paper, recycled some old sewing patterns that were too ugly to use (mostly from the 80's and 90's, if you know what I mean).  I love wrapping with pattern tissue--it looks so different and lovely!  

3. Jacket

I sewed in the lining today, and it looks fantastic.  Now all I need to do is pick out some buttons and sew them on.  Whoop!  Hopefully the buttons will conceal my absolutely horrific and embarrassing buttonhole job.

Yes, I goofed on the buttonholes!  Sigh.  I'm going to blame it on the velvet.

The first one turned out beautiful.

The second one...not so much.

Third one, even worse.

Fourth one..eh.  A little better than the second and third, but still not ideal.

Yes, they are all slightly different sizes.  I am mortified.  Ah well--'tis life!

4. Wine Glasses

So Davis and I decided that rather than purchasing plastic wine glasses for our wedding, we would thrift wine glasses.  We bought 62 glasses  for a little over $10!  Oh yeah.  They cleaned up beautifully, and are all different shapes and sizes, which looks super cool. 

We found that the glasses stored perfectly in old empty wine boxes from Trader Joe's.  

We are going to thrift plates for the reception as well.  Yesterday we bought 30 plates for 20 cents each.  We are hoping to gather about 70 more tomorrow, and for around the same price. :)  

I really want to post about my veil, but this computer is having issues and will not let me upload my pictures. :(  So sad!  I put it together tonight, and it turned out so pretty.  Alas--the veil will get its own post later, I suppose.  

Well, I must get off the computer and sleep.  Haven't been getting a whole lot of that lately. ;)  But that's OK--I've been spending time with my best friend and preparing for our marriage and our life together.  I am full of joy. 

~Bessie

Bernard, my new friend (and some wedding stuff, too)

I love that the man I am going to marry is creative.  Look what he made for me:

He was watching me work on my jacket muslin, and decided to start a project on his own.  He took a piece of scrap fabric, drew a face, ears, and paws on it, and then cut them out.  Next, he found some contrasting fabric, pinned it behind, and hand-stitched around each shape.  Once he had finished that, he sewed a back on, stuffed it, and voila!  We have Bernard the Bear.  I was impressed.

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So, on to wedding stuff!  Table decorations, to be exact.

I love old glass jars, and have GOBS of antique white buttons (like jars full), so I decided to combine the two--with votive candles--to make decorations for the tables at the reception.  

There is an old man named Clyde who has an old barn full of cool old stuff near where I live.  You can go to his barn and buy stuff for really cheap.  Example: my friends bought a solid pine round table for their kitchen for $40 last year.  Yeah.  

Clyde has a butt-load of old glass jars (most of them full of old tools, screws, light bulbs, etc. from his workshop), and sells them for 25 cents a piece.  Perfect place to get my glass jars!  My fiancée had never been to the barn before, so we went together to pick out he jars and look around.  I had a feeling he would like it--he loves thrift stores and such.  We ended up purchasing 16 glass jars, all sorts of cool shapes.  We also purchased a kitchen table and four chairs from the 30's or 40's, a cool yellow upholstered chair, two twin solid wood sleigh bed frames, and two pretty side tables from the 50's for $200.  Oh, plus Clyde threw in a really awesome phonograph/radio cabinet from the 60's for free.  Whoop!  I love the barn sale.

Here are some before/after pictures of the glasses I purchased, plus some up-close pics of my favorites.  We are going to fill each one part-way with the old white buttons, place a votive inside, and set them up on the reception table amongst other decorations.  

 Before...

And after!

Some of my favorites:

This one is really old.  It didn't come all the way clean, but I'm going to keep working on it.

 I love this old Skippy jar.  It has measurements on the side!  How cool is that?

The buttons are so beautiful.  All different shades of white and off-white, and a mixture of plastic, bakelite, shell, glass, and mother-of-pearl.  They look especially pretty with a candle set on top.

Alright, that's all for today!  I'm going to go work on bound buttonholes for my jacket...

~Bessie

Poor neglected blog!

Hello!  It's been so long since I last posted, that I hope I still have a few readers out there.

Why have I neglected my blog so as of late?  Because I am getting married.  Whoop!  That's a good reason, right?  We are planning the wedding ourselves, and only have about five more weeks until the big day, so needless to say we have been very busy.  I am going to be doing a lot of the wedding prep by hand, and I thought it might be a good idea to share our progress on various projects with you here on the blog.

There are a lot of projects I could post today, but I will start off with the main project (and the one I think you will all be most interested in):  The Dress.  Now my fiancee will not let me post any pictures of my dress, because he likes to read my blog and doesn't want to see it until the wedding day.  ;)  That's fine, because I don't really need to do anything with it.  It is a vintage dress from the 70's that I purchased last year from an antique store for $40.  Now you might be thinking tacky polyester 70's--that is not the case with this dress.  It is absolutely gorgeous, with lots of delicate lace, chiffon butterfly sleeves (ok, that's definitely 70's), and buttons all up the back.  I love it.  What I will be posting about is the jacket I am making to wear over my dress at the wedding.

The Jacket.  Oh yeah.

We are doing an outside ceremony at the end of February, up in the mountains, so we are planning on it being a little chilly.  Thus I pulled out a pattern I have been wanting to use for a long time and started sketching out some ideas.  I decided to sew it up in a rust velveteen, to go with our wedding colors.  It's going to be really pretty. :)  My fiancee helped me make a muslin for it, and got to experience the fitting process.  I'm pretty sure he enjoyed himself!

He sewed together one of the sleeves, and did a fantastic job.

Me trying on the muslin.  I think I had just gotten it to fit perfectly.

The Muslin (minus one sleeve)

The new front and back pieces.

I got the fabric in early this week and cut it out yesterday.  I also began the building process (interfacing, grosgrain ribbon, etc.) and sewed together the shoulder and side seams.  It is coming along nicely, and I really love how the fabric looks.

I'll try to post more pics as I have them.  I'll also be doing some posts on wedding favors and centerpieces soon.

Have a fantastic day!

~Bessie