FEBRUARY

We all love getting our holiday decorations out of the attic to decorate our homes.  Now admit it, you love getting those crazy Christmas sweaters out and wearing them (and because you only wear them a couple of days a year, they remain FOREVER in your wardrobe).  But Christmas themed jewelry can be worn much longer – from Thanksgiving through Epiphany on January 6^th.  Yes, the 12 Days of Christmas actually refers to the 12 days AFTER Christmas!

How many versions of the song “The 12 Days of Christmas” have you heard?  I know there are many, many more but Jeff Foxworthy’s Redneck version always makes me laugh and the one done by the GPS company always gets stuck in my head.  I admire the creativity of those who do parodies; I suppose I could do one, but it would take more than 12 days to complete!

As with the song, here are a few different versions of the “Partridge in a Pear Tree” pin.

So ... for your viewing pleasure an entire collection of vintage partridge in pear tree pins!

Wishing you and your loved ones a Happy, Healthy New Year!

I’m often asked how I got into vintage.  After much thought, I’ve finally realized that  it’s really All Barbie’s Fault.

A few years back … use your imagination here … I received a gift of a brand new blonde bubble hairstyle Barbie doll.  One of my little friends was the proud owner of a brunette PONYTAIL Barbie doll.  She also had the coveted “Solo in the Spotlight” outfit.  Then, I received “Dinner at Eight” and felt vindicated.  It was my favorite Barbie outfit (and still is).

About this time, I met another little girl in my neighborhood who was also a Barbie fan and we became best friends.  Every weekend, we would pack up all our Barbie paraphernalia and lug it down the street to one or the other’s house … for the weekend.  We had Barbies in cases, in houses, on horses, in a camper … and clothing.  Oh my … the clothing.  Those teen fashion models had it all!  I remember how we saved our allowances and then had our moms take us to the store to spend it ALL on Barbie clothes!  Pure joy!

In time, we accidentally grew up and outgrew our Barbies and had new interests.  Barbie was packed away in the attic.  I became interested in history.  One thing led to another and I was studying clothing from the mid 19^th century.  This led to studying clothing from the late 19^th century, which led to studying clothing of the early 20^th century … you see where this is going.

About the time I got around to the clothing of the 50s, I acquired a vintage mannequin and found I really enjoyed finding all this great clothing and dressing the mannequin – all decked out in hats, jewelry and accessories.

Then it hit me:  this is grown up Barbie!  I’ve never recovered from those wonderful days in the 1960s when women wore hats and gloves, matched their purses and shoes, and (GASP!) wore splendid dresses on a daily basis

So you see … It really IS all

Barbie’s Fault!

BOTH of my sons are getting married next year!  My youngest son honored me by asking me to make their wedding cake to help with expenses.  I’ve decorated my share of birthday cakes, but a wedding cake?  As fate would have it, I passed by our local cake shop and noticed they were doing decorating classes.  For the first time in my life, I didn’t procrastinate and signed right up!

The first class was this past Saturday.  Having had 25 years of birthday cakes under my belt (pretty much literally!) I did pretty well but I learned so much.  Guess you CAN teach an old dog new tricks!  But if I don’t gain 10 lbs. doing this, it will be a miracle.

Which brings me to the vintage tie-in.  When Youngest Boy and Sweet Fianceé came home to show off The Ring, we girls naturally started talking about The Dress.  I don’t have a lot of wedding dresses in my inventory – not my thing, I guess – but we went to my studio and she tried on a couple of dresses.  One too frilly and one too plain.  The Dress must be JUST RIGHT!  Then I thought of my wedding dress that had been properly packed in acid free tissue paper and box … then shoved to the farthest corner of the attic.  We have squirrel issues in the attic (oh, the stories I could tell) so I expected to open the box and find a huge pile of walnuts and a shredded dress.  Proper packing materials can do only so much – you still have to store the box properly and I hadn’t.  But, considering that most women burn their wedding dresses at their divorce party, the fact that it still exists says … well, I’m not sure what.

As you may remember from your last newsletter – long, long, LONG ago – I was turning over a new leaf having just completed moving my brick and mortar shop to a smaller studio.  My old shop started out as an antiques shop with the vintage clothing and jewelry as a sideline, but the clothing and jewelry took on a life of their own.  Since my real passion lies in vintage fashion and accessories, I decided to sell the brick and mortar, dispose of the antique inventory, and move the clothing and accessories to a smaller space.  By the first of the year, I thought the majority of the moving was complete.  NOT.  Sending the antique inventory to new homes turned out to be a much larger task than anticipated.  The good news is that the antiques finally have a new home and I have my home BACK.  (And, my sanity too, I hope!)   We’ll still be selling interesting antiques from our website www.craigantiques.com because, well, I do still love antiques and I can’t keep everything that I find!  If you have a moment to check out Craig Antiques, please do.  We’ll have things like vintage fabrics, sewing collectibles, buttons, linens, vintage and antique home décor – from shabby to primitive country, to retro.   All this madness has kept me from blogging in a timely manner and that, also, will be remedied.  If you didn’t catch the blog about Barrow Coats --- baby petticoats – be sure to check it out.  This is the barrow coat I’ve had and … I couldn’t quite figure out the wide waistband on a petticoat that was long enough for a teenage girl (an extremely skinny one, at that!).  Luckily, my friends at the Vintage Fashion Guild were able to tell me what this mystery piece is called and I’ve passed what I learned on through my blog.   Keeping this short and sweet for now.  I hope you’ll visit and “Like” our Facebook page because it’s a good way to keep an eye on when new inventory is added, AND I like to pass along a few interesting links about vintage there, too.  If you use Twitter you can add us (bctreasuretrove) to your feed.

First, let’s define what an antique textile is.  The generally accepted definition of “antique” is any item that is over 100 years old.  That makes all Victorian clothing antique and most Edwardian clothing, as well.  But it just makes good common sense to include any fragile textile or garment that is collectible and/or meant to be kept over time in this definition.

When you visit my website, you will notice that with antique or particularly fragile items I state that “measurements are given for reference only since a garment of this age should not be worn”.  Certainly, there are dresses that might be carefully worn such as some Edwardian era dresses and Flapper dresses.  But generally speaking, 100 – 120 year old fabrics will not hold up well to wear.  Remember, once an antique dress is damaged, it is gone for good and a piece of history has been lost.  These items really can’t truly be repaired and they will continue to deteriorate.  We can attempt to conserve what remains but we can never restor

The very best way to enjoy and appreciate the lovely clothing confections of times past is to collect and carefully display it.  If you really want to wear an antique gown, it is best to reproduce it as faithfully as possible.  It’s amazing how much you learn about fashion and the way a gown was worn just by learning how they are constructed.  Reproduction sewing patterns, sized for today’s bodies are available.  You can also purchase vintage patterns (mostly post 1940).  If you don’t sew, I can direct you to seamstresses who specialize in historical sewing.

Welcome to my blog! (How’s that for cliché?) Like beginning a presentation, I always have trouble with the opening. I’m fine once I get going. In fact, just TRY to shut me up! LOL

Early 1950s Nelly Don Day Dress

A dress inspired me this morning. Isn’t that fabulous? I always like to do a little extra research for my descriptions when I add anything to the websites, especially when there is a label or an interesting feature or history. I’ve had other Nelly Don dresses, but this one just has that Pitty-Pat Factor. I love it. I would wear it in a second, but it will take longer than a second to return to my pre-marital, pre-motherhood weight and shape. Liposuction, here I come!

The style is just adorable with the wide waist, cap sleeves, and pleated skirt. One of my favorites. But it’s the F A B R I C that really caught my attention: a dark, royal blue with black sort of amoebas and bright pink, green, white, and gray spring flowers scattered throughout. They stand out so - almost starkly. It’s very striking and THEN it fastens at the center front with small rhinestone buttons.

So I did a little research about Nelly Don dresses. In an archive of Time Magazine, there is an article entitled, “Nellie’s Big Night” dated Monday, October 18, 1948 that gives a brief overview of her success story. (An interesting side note - did the original article misspell “Nellie” throughout the article, or is it a transcription error?) A documentary book and film “A Stitch in Time” that was made, I believe, by a nephew reveals that, besides having started the “largest dress manufacturing company in the world” she was actually kidnapped and refused to pay the ransom! It has been stated that her company made 75 million dresses between 1916 and 1978. Check out the Nelly Don website!

It fascinates me to learn about the lives of women like Coco Chanel and Nelly Donnelly who were successful business women with multi-million dollar businesses at time when most women were happy housewives (or not so happy). Yep, we’ve come a long way!