Is it Christmas?

We have had quite a few exciting deliveries of lovely new stock arriving this week. It feels like Christmas with spools of French antique gold thread and ribbons, more gorgeous vintage stamens and flowers, vintage French lace, fabulous coat buttons form Belgium and France and lovely new bolts of French General and kokka fabrics. We had it piled all over the counter and the floor covered in empty boxes and wrappers.

More lovely stamens and the cutest little apples.

Great new range of coat buttons.

 

Stunning flowers, beautiful ribbon in the softest peachy pink, French antique silk ribbon in deep burgundy grosgrain and 8cm wide caramel satin faille, spools of lovely antique French thread, vintage French linen and silk crochet style lace and delicate tulle based cotton lace from the 1930s. We also recieved our shipment of antique gold thread, stunning colour and condition and not forgetting a beautiful little collection of vintage gold filigree, mirror back buttons. 

  

Vintage DMC pearl cottons, pretty poppies and plush velvet leaves, lovely vintage ribbons in teal moire, soft blue rayon, Swiss kelly green picot, 10cm aqua satin and antique French glass buttons with stunning brass mounts on the back.

We have been busy making more Crafty Cards kits and our little scented pillows for linen, they have been selling like hot cakes. I love it when we are sewing a new batch, the studio smells divine, a mixture of lavender, rose and cloves. 

This is the pot pourri that we fill the pillows with, hand made in the studio.

Happiness is new fabric!

Crafty cards

Our new gift wrapping paper, designed using our collection of vintage ephemera.

I have also been making a little welcome sign out of one of my favourite doilies and decorated the entrance  to the store with frou frou dress up tulle skirts and plumes of ostriche feathers in my favourite muted shades of pink and apricot, garlands of love hearts sewn from old sheet music and my favourite old bunting.

l'uccello

Too girlie?

Just in case our blog has been getting too girlie, (just for the record we don't think that is actually possible) we thought we should feature some manly haberdashery. New arrivals are these fabulous vintage Indian measuring tapes and vintage French press snaps.

How great are the boxes the measuring tapes came in?! He's got some sort of big game hunter/tailor look going on, love the leopard skin.

It might take more than a few press snaps to keep his fur on, sheets of vintage French press snaps in mint condition

 

Speaking of sport, astonishingly I ended up at the footy on Friday night, the ground looked marvelous, almost kelly green.

Please note the lovely red felt cloche in the centre of the photo, it proves that fine taste in millinery and a love of football are not mutually exclusive

The match by the way was between Geelong and Collingwood, the last time I went to a Geelong match was in 1978 at Kadinia Park, standing on the dirt terraces with my grandfather. I have to say the members at the MCG is certainly more comfortable, but it doesn't have the same atmosphere, it's in colour and 1978 is in black and white. Sometimes I prefer black and white.

Almost a haberdashery moment, do streamers count as ribbons?

Go Cats!!

Haberdashery Heaven

Sourcing vintage haberdashery is not for the faint hearted, there are far reaching outer suburbs to be traversed, dusty warehouses to be explored, tragic finds of poorly stored, once beautiful merchandise well past any sort of rescue. The ultimate find is new old stock in pristine condition, in it's original packaging. There is always something special about opening a packet of stock that has remained sealed from the day it was manufactured, decades ago. This week we have had some lovely new stock arrive, particularly vintage millinery supplies. Glorious pearly stamens, a large range of soft and blousey flowers, violets, rosebuds, carnations, lily of the valley, margarite daisys and forget me nots, so romantic! We have also found some stunning passementerie trim in violet and black, very Madam du Barry.

In the studio we have been packing more Cutie Doll Kits, including the new evening Cutie with black lace to create the classic LBD. We have also started to develope our own range of bridal accessories, lovely gifts for brides or the bridal party, it seems there is a romantic theme this week. With so many exquisite vintage silk ribbons and French laces to choose from it is a lovely project to work on.

How gorgeous are these little beauties? 

Prettiest stamens, ribbons, rosebuds, garter and Venetian glass buttons.

 

Exceptional antique French silk jacquard ribbons, sweet posies of violets in various hues, cute little vintage birds and 1940s buttons and glossy bobbins of vintage mercerised DMC cotton in their original box.

French antique passementerie trim, tear drop shaped wooden beads wrapped in beautifully woven stripes of violet and black and each one is finished with a small black bead and a perfect knot of thread, a rare find.

More beautiful pearly stamens in buttery and creamy shades, lovely lemon 1940s buttons, antique French silk picot ribbon, late victorian jacquard ribbon with flowers and birds and sunny daffodils, in organdy and velvet from the late 1940s.

Vintage edelweiss ribbons, stamens in various interesting shapes and colours, cutest ever hat and flower buttons, beautiful velvet and satin leaves and Irish linen thread, great for various sewing projects.

We love putting these kits together, vintage lace, ribbons, beads and sequins, lovely.

 

LBD

Mum's the word

It's a few days until Mother's Day and l'uccello has lots of lovely gift ideas................

This gorgeous Mother and child pair of vintage Kokeshi Dolls have just arrived.

These little Cuties are fun to make and are so sweet and nostalgic.

These kits are great for anyone who likes scrapbooking, card making, collage or altered art, lots of great authentic vintage cards and labels, some dating back to the 1930s.

This is a great little collection of pristine vintage haberdashery, including the Milwards Needles, it's quite rare to find them in such perfect condition.

Crafty Cards are fun to make, they include instructions and a selection of cute vintage swap cards, buttons & ribbons.

These fun little books from Arcade Publications have just arrived, great stories about some fabulous ladies.

Freshly made in Serena's studio upstairs, gorgeous felt accessories by Serena Lindeman

 

We can put together lovely gift boxes finished with a beautiful ribbon.

 

We always offer complimentary gift wrapping.

Words of wisdom from the wheel of fortune.

Sunday Best

Today was definitely Sunday best, it started at a fabulous sale of vintage millinery where I managed to snap up these gorgeous old hat cases, display stands and a few other little treasures. They are going to be so perfect for display in the shop, I nearly skipped all the way to the tram stop. Also an important lesson learned -never ever stand between a milliner and rolls of super wide vintage petersham, that's all I'm saying!

Then I met up with my Mum and Dad who had a very exciting delivery. A couple of weeks ago I bought the most amazing vintage dolls house complete with a coin operated wheel of fortune. It needed a little tlc to get the wheel working properly and a new porch, kindly provided by my dear Dad. He has also made tokens heavy enough to make the wheels spin a little more enthusiastically. There are lights in each room that flash randomly as the wheel spins and it is decorated with  the most amazing collection of ancient wallpapers, how fabulous is it?!! I'm not exactly sure what I'll do with it, I think it might be great for displaying cotton reels or something similar. Also Mum gave me some beautiful vintage Liberty and Sanderson linen fabric in perfect condition, a huge thank you to them both.

Vintage Liberty

Then to round things off  Mum and I went to the Quilt Convention at the beautiful old Exhibition building, so many fabrics, so many quilts, so much money spent. Here is a snap of my stash, the hand dyed felt is for a range of necklaces I am designing, can't wait to get started, and the fabrics are for my stash of mythical " when I get around to making a quilt" fabrics. I also bought some special lace dye to experiment on a hugh batch of vintage white cotton edging lace I bought in a moment of madness, hope it works.

It's been a fun and busy week that has included pinning and glueing over 400 ribbons on a backdrop for my next window for Kozminskys, meeting with some lovely ladies from the National Trust who came for a visit, shipping out orders of heat pillows and meeting lots of clever quilters who visited l'uccello during the quilt conference. A great week and Sunday best.