My friend, Valerie, got married this weekend on the beautiful grounds of the Oatlands Plantation in Leesburg, VA. Helping her devise items for the wedding was quite a treat. This was one of our “concoctions” so to speak.

We found this amazing vintage washstand at Chartreuse & Co, a monthly vintage tag sale up in Fredrick, MD. There’ll be a post on that soon too.  Inside the upper bowl are little bottles of bubbles, and in the bottom, flowers floating in water.  The side pockets were designed to hold the programs using all materials I had on hand – linen from my old kitchen curtains, some embroidered linen upholstery samples that worked with the colors and floral designs on the invitations and brown grosgrain ribbon.  Pretty, no?

P.S. This is a To-Do list project.

A close friend of mine found an local interior decorator who was moving offices/going out of business/changing things up (we’re not quite clear exactly what the situation is) and was invited to take a look at the stuff that the interior decorator was getting rid of. She was astonished to find that ”stuff” included ROOMS full of fabric: samples, yardage, upholstery, silk, cottons…

My friend kindly invited me to join her yesterday for some free S.E.X. (if she knew that that is what it is called, I think she would unfriend me immediately) and I happily agreed, though I have to admit I was a touch skeptical. We arrived, and the decorator informed us that we were last on her priority list, first being her staff, second being charity and third, us. This was FINE WITH ME.

The fabric selection was astounding. Being a quilter, I could happily take even the small sample-sized fabric squares. By the time I left, I had 3 trash bags FULL of fabric & even a number of beautiful trims, and they STILL hadn’t finished clearing out the back room. Of course, it turns out that the fabrics I really wanted were in the back of the back room. My wonderfully, amazingly, awesomely fantastic friend volunteered to go back today and pack up even more fabric for me, along with some pillow forms and other wonderful things.

Last night I cut open my garbage bags and sat in my living room sorting fabric.  Quilters cottons, tiny pieces, medium pieces, yardage, shears, other, and trims.  I have ideas for about 50% of it. 

Keep your eyes out for some fabulous carpet bags and vintage style baby quilts to appear in my etsy shop soon!

See? Cute. Mine is going to be in this greyish-periwinklish wool/cashmere blend, with vintage silver-backed glass buttons.

A while back (like six months ago) I made myself a new skirt, but it was much too short. Didn’t realize how short the pattern was until too late. Other than that, I haven’t made any clothes for myself in quite some time. Since before they baby. That’s a long-ass time. So the jacket is taking me a little while.

Not gonna make the hat, though. That would just be way too much.

Just realized that it’s Tuesday so it’s sewing night!

My new fabrics from Equilter arrived! Also, my new Vogue patterns arrived AND I went to the awesome vintage store and got buttons with toadstools and four leaf clovers on them. How could the day get any better?