Open Studios

This is a super quick post as we are busy birds getting ready for Open Studios, yes it is today and tomorrow!! We have been making lots of lovely things for l'uccello, filling wholesale orders and finally installing the new window at Kozminskys. I will take photos of all these things when open studios is over. In the meantime hear is a quick sample of goodies that have arrived just in time for Open Studios.

I have finally put the finishing touches on these fabulous cockades and rosettes, they are made with mostly vintage ribbons including some made with Victorian silk ribbon. Beautifully made by talented milliner Diane Kilduff, they have a broach pin on the back so they are definitely not just for ponies.

These divine little boxes are vintage French lucky dips, over 60 years old, they contain a wooden toy and have remained sealed ever since. It has taken all of my self control not to open them all, I got a skipping rope and Robyn our neighbour got a knitting Nancy, another friend got building blocks. They are very limited supply so if you want to try your luck get in early.

 Please note they are not suitable for young children.

A new batch of bunting featuring lots of French General fabrics.

Sneak peek at the new delivery of Sophie Digard, we recieved a small delivery late today I will take better shots if they last long enough, scarves and handbags, divine!

A quick note of apology to any customers who may have found the fragrance in the shop last week too strong, we were filling lots of our little pillows and sachets and it got a little heady, so again our apologies! The room has aired quite a bit now and is just lightly scented by the pillows we have on display. We will not be filling the pillows in the store from now on, thank you to Anon. for the feedback.

Have a great weekend, come to Open Studio and pop in to say hi xx

A week at l'uccello

Has it been a week all ready? It amazes me how time can expand and contract so much, how sometimes it passes so slowly and then weeks like this it just flies.

A typical day at l'uccello usually involves a tram ride up St.Kilda Road, Wednesdays it is a trip to the flower shop, arriving every morning to the beautiful Cathedral Arcade and then working out a list of priorities for the day. This week has been all about restocking some of our own products, unpacking new stock and making props for new windows due next week at Kleins Perfumery and Kozminskys Jewellers.

Thank you again to everyone who participated in our little completion and for the lovely thank you notes, you are all most welcome. There are a few people who have not claimed their runner up prizes, if you posted a comment before midnight on the 4th please let me know if you would like me to post your prize.

An important date to put in your diaries if you are in town on the 28th and 29th of July, it will be the famous annual Nicholas Building open studios event. Check out www.thenicholasbuilding.blogspot.com for all the details.

On a personal note I have just had the most miraculous visit from a dear friend who I thought I may have lost. But due to the miracles of modern medicine, my friends irrepressible courage and maybe some divine intervention she is back. Some moments in life are perfect and it doesn't get much sweeter than that.

New metallic braids just in

Most fabulous delivery of the week, by Mr Harvey himself no less, was the paper roll dispenser that we bought from  Harvey's, it is the same one that always sat on the counter we bought back in January. It now sits exactly where it always did and we are very proud to be the custodians of these wonderful pieces of Melbourne's haberdashery history, Harvey's have been a Melbourne institution since 1895, and our lovely counter and paper dispenser date back to that period.

We have been busy little birds making lovely piles of new l'uccello scented sachets and pillows, wedding charms and cosy heat pillows. The store is now scented in layers of lavender, rose, cloves and other fragrant spices.

We make everything ourselves, including the potpourri that we fill the sachets and pillows with, we print the fabric for the seed packet sachets and stitch them all together.

Filled sachets ready to sew shut.

We only use pure cotton or linen fabrics, mostly Moda designs and we top stitch our heat pillows with a lovely vintage mercerised thread that gives them a lovely finish. I have sourced our Lavender straight from a farm down Geelong way, it is so fresh and aromatic, just lovely.

A fresh batch of heat pillows

Scented pillows for Linen in lovely William Morris designs

Liberty and Linen Hearts, filled with lavender or spicey orange

We make our wedding charms with pure silk and antique French lace, they are finished with a variety of pretty motifs including Victorian ribbon, Czech diamantes and little love hearts. We present them in bags made with French seamed silk organza so the bride can keep them as an heirloom along with other mementos of the big day.

Delicate hand finishing

I hope you all had a great week and are having a relaxing Sunday afternoon x

Vive Le Tour!!

Our much awaited delivery of beautiful French embroidery supplies from Sajou arrived today, just in time for the start of Le Tour. I have become quite a fan of Le Tour over the last few years, I love all the footage of the French countryside and the drama and excitement of such an extreme event.

But I love Sajou's products more, superbly manufactured in France and beautifully presented they are a joy to use and make lovely gifts. We have some new products this delivery including stranded cotton, tapestry wool and fine glass headed pins, along with our regular favourites.

Before I go on with pictures of the new Sajou, I must thank everyone who has sent such lovely comments for our competition. Thank you for taking the time to read our blog and for such kind thoughts.

The 3 winners of our gift packs are Purly Wendy, Rachel Bee and Amanda (your comment worked after all!) Congratulations!

We loved every ones comments so much we have decided to give little runners up treats to everyone who posted a comment before midnight on the 4th of July.

So all you need to do to claim your prize is let us know if you would like to pick it up at the shop or post it to you. If you would like it posted please just email your address to info@luccello.com.au

Let us know what sort of things you like to make so we can pick a suitable gift for you.

 All prizes will be ready by Friday. Yayyyy!!

Finally back in stock, our favourite bicycle man thread winders and Eiffel Tower scissors.

Sajou source much of their packaging from old archived designs, their thread cards are the top row, the bottom row is original linen thread from the 1940s, we have both in stock.

New to l'uccello, Sajou stranded cotton thread in the most gorgeous colours.

Tapestry/embroidery wool from the famous old French company Laine St Pierre, beautiful quality and colours.

Gorgeous new sets of fine glass headed pins.

Manufactured in France, these lovely Eiffel tower scissors are a pleasure to use and so cute!

I'm off to watch the end of the race, I look forward to wrapping lots of pressies tomorrow,

thanks again to all x

Lucky 11

Finally, after much deliberating on my part.....our fabulous new business cards have arrived, well actually there are 11 different ones. We all loved the swap card business cards but it was becoming difficult to source so many great cards and it took hours to put stickers on the back of them all. So our customers don't miss out on the fun of picking out their favourite we have decided to print 11 different cards. All the images are from our collection of trade cards from the 1880-1890s and our post card stash, mostly from 1905-1915. To celebrate their arrival I have done some shots of new stock with each card in the collection. You may notice there is only 10, unfortunately I ran out of light and battery power so I will post it next time.

So you can celebrate with us we are having our first give away competition, yayyyy!

Simply post a comment about which is your favourite card and the first three will receive a lovely gift of co ordinated goodies to complement their choice of card.

 We will announce the winners in the next post.

To complement our lovely icy aqua velvet ribbon I have grouped together vintage aqua Swiss straw braid, vintage silk and velvet leaves and some of our lovely new silk blooms.

We have so many lovely shades of French blues and vanilla at the moment, lots of navy too which is fortunate as it seems navy is going to be big this spring. This collection includes more divine vintage Swiss braids, a silk and organza rose, a lovely delicate rose in the loveliest shade of bluish grey organza, and of course my new favourite Dior blue vintage silk leaves.

More lovely blousey silk flowers and some antique Belgian linen threads.

This handsome devil is accompanied by pinky mauve silk and organza roses and a lovely bunch of pink and burgundy silk blossoms.

These pretty vintage Swiss braids are a little over exposed, apologies I was rushing to finish before I ran out of light and power, they are actually lovely shades of yellow a little like pale corn. They are complemented by a black silk and organza rose.

Two gorgeous new fabrics from Moda's recently released Grace range. 

More silky blooms with pretty lilac coloured vintage velvet ribbon.

Light upholstery weight French toile de jouy also available in blue and black, and at the top of the picture is Indian hand printed cotton, similar to lawn, perfect for summer dresses or sleepwear.

Prettiest shades of vintage pink rayon ribbons dating from 1930s-1960s including the new roll in mauvey pink called Heliotrope, second from the left. We stock a large range of antique, vintage and new ribbons, including Belle Epoch French silk ribbons, early to mid 20th century French rayon ribbons, up to 15cm wide and a select range of lovely contemporary ribbons.

Have fun choosing!!