Just arrived

We are so excited the big day is finally here, we love a big parade and no one does it better than the British. So good luck to William and Kate, we hope they have a long and happy life together.

It has been a busy Easter at l'uccello, we moved a lot of our production to another room upstairs, we had to make room for all the new stock that has arrived lately. While we were at it we painted the old storeroom and are in the process of turning it into a lovely new office and staff room, (a small room but 30 windows to mask and paint!) So I am glad that is over, we just have to finish sorting things into new boxes with labels, it is my resolution this year to get organised, lets just say I am still a work in progress.

I have also been making pom poms, many many pom poms for the Kleins Perfumery Mother's Day window, which I installed today, but not enough pom poms! So I will have to make a whole lot more, they are fun to make, I have been using the Clover pom pom makers that we stock, they are so much faster than the old cardboard method. 

Well I will get on with the photos, there is so much new stock, this is only part of it. The most exciting news is the winter collection of Sophie Digard exquisite hand made scarves and necklaces have started to arrive, the rest of the collection is due in a couple of weeks. I do apologise for the photos, I forgot to charge the camera so I had to use the phone, the colours are far more lovely than the photos suggest.

A quick note about Mother's Day, l'uccello now offers gift certificates and as always we also offer complementary gift wrapping, so if you have a crafty mum we have lots of great gift options.

New felt delivery, we now have over 60 colours in lovely pure wool felt.

We have expanded our range of felt to include these bundles, they are 2 metres long.

And we also now have a few colours available by the metre for larger projects, it is a metre wide.

Gorgeous new vintage threads, French pearl cotton, mercerised cotton, buttonhole twist silk and some gorgeous old crochet hooks in fab colours.

Beautiful new collection of hand quilted bed throws made from vintage cotton and silk saris.

Some great new fabrics from kokka, this one features antique perfume labels.

Last but not least, we have finally produced our new version of the seed packet linen sachet, our first batch has been shipped off to Kleins Perfumery in time for Mother's Day.

 Have a great weekend! x

Easter SALE

Easter Sale!!!

l'uccello will be open extra days this week for our pre

Easter Sale 

10 - 50% off most stock

A perfect time to stock up on craft supplies for

 Easter break craft projects

Monday - Thursday 10am -6pm

l'uccello will be closed Good Friday and Easter Saturday and will be open again

Wednesday April 27th.

Mad I'm not a hatter

We have had so many new pieces of vintage millinery turn up this week. I'm mad not to be a hatter. Or milliner to be precise, we have a young and passionate hatter who insists that milliners make women's hats and hatters make men's hats. Is this true? What happens when a maker of women's hats makes a hat for a man?

The photo above features some of our lovely vintage millinery stock, including:

vintage Swiss braid, French silk veiling, beautiful wide sheer silvery grey vintage rayon ribbon, antique French horse hair hat adornments and lots of pearly and hand dyed vintage stamens.

Art deco bird shaped adornments, extra wide vintage French yellow/gold colour moire rayon ribbon and sheer French rayon ribbon. These lovely old Swiss braids are beautiful, the black one featured in this photo looks like Venetian candy cane spiral glass. The vintage yellow stamens are new, and they complement the rest of our collection perfectly.

I adore these colours so much I almost can't bare to part with them. Beautiful ivory wide French rayon ribbons in woven stripes and and polka dots, cotton and silk grosgrain, prettiest pearly stamens, two of my favourite Swiss braids and of course the divine Deco angel wings.

This wonderful Kelly green is soooo Irma Le Duce! A favourite film of mine with the gorgeous young Shirley Maclaine playing the Parisian street walker Irma and Jack Lemmon as her confused lover. It is quite mad but worth watching for the costumes and her charming shabby apartment. The reason I always associate green with this film is Irma only wears green clothes, particularly this shade. This photo features two sets of art deco French angel wings, a black feather adornment featuring egret feathers, French plaid and black moire rayon ribbon, Victorian silk ribbon, glorious wide Swiss braid, vintage stamens and fabulous French buttons.  

This collection of adornments feature lots of lovely game bird feathers such as pheasant, they are so old but in such great condition it really is amazing.

Classic French chic, navy blue and ivory, very Jackie O. Heavy double sided extra wide satin in navy, sheer French cream wide rayon ribbon and beautiful navy moire with a woven chequered boarder. Vintage ivory Swiss braid, antique French navy bird hat adornment and sublime silk veiling in navy with tiny ivory hail spot.

Finally a rare collection of vintage millinery fabrics. From the left, heavy lustrous dark chocolate brown satin, taupe, grey and scarlet velvet with machine stitched detail, lemon fine grosgrain and slightly courser bluish grey and white grosgrain. A number of these lovely things sold before I could even get them into the display cabinet, so if you see something you like don't hesitate to call.

Have a great week and check in next week, there should be a few more things by then x

What a circus!

It has been another fast and fun week at l'uccello, we finally finished all of the hot air balloons for Kleins Perfumery's Easter window display last week. So this week has been all about circus girls for Kozminsky Jewellers' new window display. But something curious is going on, I have been obsessing about circus girls for months and all of a sudden there are circuses and speigel tents everywhere. It is of course Comedy Festival time in Melbourne. the above image is one of three speigel tents in town at the moment. So I am in giddy showgirl heaven with so many lovely old references to see. I have done a little tour of them all and then down to St Kilda, the Moscow Circus is also in town and Luna park is a perennial favourite.

Quick catch up from last week, these are the hot air balloons at Kleins Perfumery, we used fabrics form this years range of Lavender Heat Pillows and Scented Pillows for Linen. So if you need a new heat pillow to keep cosy this winter pop into Kleins Perfumery in Fitzroy, Muse Beauty Boutique in Canberra or l'uccello.

This is the first of a series of circus girls we are making, all of them are dressed in costumes made from rare antique trims, divine vintage ribbons and other special pieces of moire, velvet, lace and silk from my collection. I wanted them to look like they came from some old side show/circus display, after painting them I have applied layers of glaze to make them look old and a little shabby.

The Famous Speigel Tent outside the Melbourne Arts Centre St. Kilda Rd

Down by the river next to Federation Square there is another Speigel tent, featured in the top picture, along the way I saw this lovely little carousel.

And a Ferris wheel

In the city square is my favourite, called the Bosco

The big top on St Kilda Beach, I forgot my camera so apologies the phone photos are a bit blurry.

I was a little deflated by the entirely inflated facade and entrance to the circus, I love old circus and side show art. So feeling like I needed a little more romance I finished my tour at Luna Park.

It took me a while to find the laughing clowns, they are right down the back and there is only 4 of them, I remember a great long row, all busy with kids. I used to love the way the paint was so thick and chipped from having another coat of paint applied over and over again for so many years. These clowns don't have that pedigree but they were fun never the less, and I won a whirly gig!

 So whirly gig in hand I finished my tour, a little sad that the old Giggle Palace and other such things are gone but very happy that so many of these lovely old amusements remain.