l'uccello

Fancy work

2012-03-07T02:55:00.000+11:00

Sometimes I get asked what our name means exactly.... l'uccello is Italian for bird, (if you want the full story use the search box and type in "about a bird.") The rest of our title, vintage haberdashery and fancy goods, also raises the odd query. In the past embroidery and needlework were often referred to as fancy work and the materials for this work, threads etc were called fancy goods. I have a collection of Victorian business cards from stores that sold items such as fancy goods and millinery supplies. With our range of vintage millinery & haberdashery, contemporary fabrics and embroidery supplies it seamed a perfect fit

The beautiful swallow featured above is by Robyne Melia, and it will be one of the motifs taught in her upcoming classes.

Our Internet connection is on the blink at the moment so I have to keep it brief this week, if anyone is waiting for me to reply to their email, apologies! To make things worse the shop phone has been on the blink and I got a new mobile this week, which may be great if I work out how to use it.

So many new deliveries at the moment and I have just been to old Sydney town ordering more, now I need more furniture to put all of this new stock on.

new vintage millinery divine!

fancy goods from Valdani, Sajou and Bohin

Gorgeous Sajou fancy goods

inspiring new books, French General pre cuts, and lovely antique pieces of fancy work

I have been trying to get a Facebook page together but I haven't sorted out the link from the blog or vice versa, but it does exist. We are also working away at getting all the photos for the online store done, it really is on it's way. And finally I am also trying to get a Pinterest board together so keep an eye out for the icons in the next couple of weeks, so long as the new modem arrives soon.

If you read Homespun Magazine look out for our first ad, I think you will like him.

Have a super fabulous week x

Sew Good!

2012-02-18T01:19:00.000+11:00

Finally I have put together the dates for

Robyne Melia's crazy patchwork classes

March 24th, 31st & April 14th and 21st

All Saturdays, 10am - 3.30pm with half an hour for lunch. We have scheduled the classes to run either side of Easter to give everyone plenty of time to work on their stitches.

Classes are of course in our lovely new class room on the 4th floor and include morning and afternoon tea. We will also provide supplementary materials, threads and other lovely haberdashery bits and bobs to add to participants own collections.

A full list of things you need to bring and a brief outline of the class by Robyne will be provided upon booking.

Robyne is an incredibly talented and lovely woman, with years of teaching experience. The classes will have a relaxed pace with various stitches adapted for different levels of experience.

We are so excited that our first classes are going to be with Ms. Melia, her knowledge, passion and sense of humour guarantee an inspiring and fun series of classes.

The full series of classes including supplementary materials and refreshments is $280, payment is required at the time of booking. Please give us a call or email if you would like to make a booking or require any further details.

If you haven't already visited Robyne's blog it is in my list on the right, also see her recent interview here www.intocraft.com.au

Here are some images supplied by Robyne of her work and feature the style of stitches and motifs that will be covered in the classes.

GORGEOUS!!

Reasons to be cheerful

2012-02-12T15:21:00.000+11:00

It is hard not to be cheerful when you have such lovely things to play with, I spoilt myself this week with this gorgeous Victorian merit rosette. I bought it under the pretext of using it as an example for a class that we are planning later in the year, but any excuse would do, I love it! It goes perfectly with our new antique glass berry sprays and these pale icy diorish blue leaves. The background is my favourite pattern from the new French General range for Moda, Rouenneries Deux that arrived this week.

It has been a great week at l'uccello, we are all a little weary but happy to have completed so many jobs, it is always so satisfying to cross a few things off the to do list. This week we delivered a huge order of bunting to the Melbourne Arts Centre for the Speigel Tent season. The lovely Tony from the arts centre found us while Christmas shopping in the Nicholas Building last year and asked us to design bunting to match his theme for the Speigel Tent season, and a mini version for them to sell at their events. We also managed to fill all of our wholesale orders and top up our own supplies of products that have been out of stock for a while.

To top it all off we have had the great privilege of being featured by WGSN, they are one of the top trend forecasting companies in the world. It is a service that design companies subscribe to for all the latest trends, we are featured in their Vintage Melbourne report. AND we have been viewing the new season Sophie Digard collections for winter and spring, very, very exciting! I went a bit mad so expect lots of lovely new designs and colours, broaches (at last!), and lots of other lovelies all due April/May.

There is still a very long to do list, and at the top is class timetable, we should be ready to start listing classes next week. We would love to hear from you regarding which day and time you would prefer classes to be scheduled, even if you can't attend, I'm not sure what suits most people best, feel free to leave comments. On the subject of comments, I do sometimes forget to answer, I do apologise of I have done this to anyone recently.

Here are a few snaps of this weeks comings and goings.....

I managed to be going past just as the bunting was being installed. Many, many thanks to Connie for ALL that sewing!

Just arrived, French General Rouenneries range, gorgeous!!

Part of our new range of applique, quilting and embroidery books, very inspirational.

This book by much admired author Trish Burr is perfect for embroiderers wanting to develop their skills with colour.

Delicious vintage French cotton and linen lace, perfect to team up with the new Rouenneries range.

Just a small sample of new vintage button arrivals

Lovely vintage Czech orchids and Chrysanthemums

Delicate antique German glass sprays

I am redesigning the store signage, not quite sure where it is going just yet, however I am happy with the new door patchwork. As the door is now permanently open you can't see the patchwork I had on the outside, I kind of miss it so I thought another on the inside would be good idea. Of course forgetting how long the first one took, never mind it is always worth it when you finish, don't you find?

Have a splendid week and I promise timetable shortly! x

Heavens to Betsy!

2012-02-03T03:30:00.000+11:00

Well time really does fly, sometimes when you are having fun and sometimes when you definitely are not. We have been so busy this week I can't believe it is only the end of January. We are still trying to finish off the move to our new store room and classroom ( it is starting to look lovely) but we have so many orders everything is in a state of half finished flux. To add to the chaos I have been off installing Valentines day windows for Kleins Perfumery and Kozminskys and all the new year deliveries are rolling in. Fun and chaos and a little bit grumpiness, guess who got trapped in a lift for half an hour, that will teach me not to take the stairs.

I must confess it is very hard to get on the the less lovely jobs when there are so many new treasures to sort through and admire. We have had lots of new vintage millinery pieces come in, and sell out very quickly. Just arrived today is a huge shipment of fabulous stamens, with more millinery trims on the way. Stacks and stacks of new vintage buttons, sorry forgot to photograph them. Boxes of new Sajou embroidery delights, a few new pieces of Sophie Digard, new Moda fabrics, pretty scented soaps and some gorgeous new books on embroidery, quilting and applique. Now to work out where to put it all!

Sajou stranded thread has a lovely sheen and is a joy to work with, I've teamed them up with some of my favourite Liberty fabrics, including this one the lovely Betsy

St Pierre woolen/polymide thread, perfect for stitching projects made with our pure wool felt.

Sajou couture thimbles, scissors, thread winder cards and needles, all beautifully crafted in France.

Assortments of linen lace making thread in pretty colours, some plain and some variegated, from Au Chinois, also French.

Beautiful vintage Anchor broder thread in great vintage colours.

Vintage berry stamens

New varieties of pretty vintage stamens

Sweetest ever spun cotton mushrooms.

Lovely Bon Bon soaps in 8 fragrances, made in Australia and triple milled.

Classic French country enamel soap dishes (well German actually), practical and stylish.

Sneak peek at this weeks big project, we will tell you more next week.

Gratuitous shot of some of my personal stash, I have been collecting lots of lovely shabby things for my circus girls (as featured in the Age recently, see I must be busy I didn't even remember to brag about that!)

Have a lovely week x

Oh sweet Liberty!

2012-01-13T02:15:00.000+11:00

We are so excited about the arrival today of our first shipment of Liberty fabrics, how delicious! So many pretty patterns, I can't decide which one I love best. I am working on a scrappy hexagonal quilt at the moment and have started to incorporate Liberty scraps left over from the production of our Liberty and linen hearts, it is looking so pretty and fresh, I'll post a picture when it is a little bigger. So of course I am eyeing off a few of the new patterns in our delivery, maybe a little piece or two might accidentally fall off into my patchwork box, oops how did that happen?

And just in case that was not enough to get our eyes spinning the second new shipment of vintage millinery turned up today too. It must be my reward for spending all week sorting buttons and miscellaneous boxes of odds and sods, endless endless boxes. You know when you start having a tidy up it all starts so well, then the mess starts to look worse before finally looking better, well we are not quite there yet. Once the new room upstairs is finished and we can finish moving all the spare stock to the new storeroom we may even reclaim the office, who knows I might even see my desk one day. Any way almost all the buttons are sorted which is fabulous so I can spend all day tomorrow pricing all of these lovelies and finding somewhere to display them into the cabinets.

A couple of lovely new vintage straw and crin braids, pretty little blossoms and lovely new silk and organza roses

More gorgeous vintage stamens

The perfect hat trimming for Peter the Rabbit

Fabulous rare leaves

Lovely new colours and textures in this collection of vintage leaves

And while all of this was going on downstairs the lovely George was busy painting the new classroom for us, I hope you like pink!

Finally don't forget the Happy New Year Sale continues, between 10% - 50% off everything!

Have splendid week x

Just in case you thought......

2012-01-04T02:30:00.000+11:00

Just in case you thought we were lounging around on the couch peeling another grape here is a quick rewind and replay on the last week or so.

The handsome fellow above is the new man in our lives at l'uccello, he is our new gift certificate, doesn't he look pleased with himself?! He arrived just in time, and we look forward to seeing the lucky girls who received one for Christmas.

Before I go on with the rest of the list, please note our

Summer Sale

will officially start on Thursday but many of our Christmas items are already on sale with 50% off.

A little Christmas cheer

Fabulous new delivery of cockades and rosettes needed to be unpacked and displayed.

Flowers and food shopping at South Melbourne market on the way to work, Christmas lunch was delicious and the table looked lovely (even if I do say so myself)

In the middle of all the Christmas excitement the door was finally fixed, now when you visit this is the entrance you will see so just waltz right on in! Thank you Santa!!

The door can now remain open to this small device

Just before Christmas we managed to get the entire production room and store room moved to our fabulous new digs on the 4th floor. This great new space is big enough for a separate production area and a great sized class room.

Ever since we have been sorting a small mountain of textiles, props and tiles and doing a bit of a make over on the rooms. This is the underneath side of a mosaic table top that I did years ago, I am modifying the boarders so it will fit the new bench I am building to house my personal stash.

I also tiled the old cupboard top with remnants from my mosaic days

Lovely stacks of fabric ready to go

I built the new work benches and bought a comfy chair. The old room was far from comfortable so I hope the new aspect with lots of natural light will help production run smoother

Lovely tea rose pink for the feature wall in the class room

Selecting which fabrics to go where, these two are going to be curtains to protect my collection from the dust and UV light.

Just to the thing to get the new year started perfectly, the arrival of a big box full of lovely millinery flowers, leaves, cherries and velvet strawberries.

Perfect!!!!

If you add Christmas trading in the shop and the change over of windows at Kozminskys and Kleins Perfumery you could say there has been a bit going on at l'uccello.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Just in time Sophie Digard delivery

2011-12-20T03:03:00.001+11:00

At last our final pieces of Sophie Digard have arrived and they are absolutely delightful. As always I have had trouble capturing their beautiful colours, but these images should however be a good catalogue of the pieces of the Summer range of Sophie Digard at l'uccello.

These exquisite hand made accessories disappear quickly, if you see something you like contact us at the shop or via email before they get snapped up.

CHRISTMAS HOURS

we will be open 10 am to 6pm until Friday the 23rd of December

we are closed from Christmas Eve until the 2nd of January.

No. 1

Patchwork of crochet, smocking and embroidery in linen, medium size

No 2

Crochet wool, small handbag

No 3

Crochet wool medium handbag

detail of above

No 4

crochet wool small handbag

No. 5

Crochet, linen and velvet small handbag

No 6

crochet wool small scarf

No 7

wool crochet scarf, large

No 8

wool crochet scarf, large

No 9

rose embroidered linen wrap/large scarf

No 10

Grey,slight tinge of mauve wrap/large scarf

No 11

Fuchsia linen wrap/scarf

No12

Aqua linen wrap/large scarf

No 13

crochet linen small scarf

No 14

crochet wool small scarf

No 15

crochet linen scarf, small

No 16

crochet wool scarf, small

No 17

embroidered linen scarf small

No. 18

embroidered and applique linen scarf, small

PS this is our 100th blog post, check out next post there may be a little last minute give away to celebrate. x

Special delivery

2011-12-14T04:39:00.000+11:00

Well it has been a while, we have been flat out with Marche Rouge, Christmas orders, preparing for the relocation of our production room to the 4th floor and the set up of our new class room.

We have a number of exciting news flashes, first is the long awaited resolution of our front door problems. Yes folks, the door is now open!!!! The electro magnetic gadget has been installed so you will no longer have to heave open the great steel door to enter l'uccello. To be honest I am not sure how little l'uccello survived for 12 months that it has been closed, so many people assumed we were closed or were not comfortable to come in. Such an impediment in the first 6 months of a business, already in an obscure location, during a difficult time in retail was no small obstacle. We would never have survived without the loyal support from our regular customers and new visitors brave enough to come through the door, thank you all so much. I must also thank all those who have blogged l'uccello, it really is such a great help in spreading the word, a special word of thanks to Miss Pen Pen for her words of crafty wisdom and encouragement.

The next news flash is the devine Ms Bobby La, otherwise known a Robyne Melia, after two years of wooing has accepted our proposal, to share some of her extraordinary wisdom in a very limited number of classes in the new year. Check out her blog in my list on the right, and you will see why we are so excited.

Finally as well as proudly stocking the beautiful Kleins Perfumery in Fitzroy, Muse Beauty Boutique in Canberra, The Crafty Squirrel in Ballarat and Maison sur Mer in Western Australia with our scented and crafty products, we have just completed our first order for the National Gallery of Australia. So if you go to see the Italian Renaissance Exhibition that has just opened you should be able to find the gift store by the scent of our pillows and sachets.

As if that is not enough we have just had boxes vintage and antique haberdashery arrive, the packaging is classic Frenchy fabulousness with a good dose of Belgian as well. So here is the eye candy, I will update Sophie Digard arrivals by the end of the week, we have another delivery in transit as we have sold out of many pieces. And I will do a quick last minute Christmas gift ideas list and our Christmas holiday dates shortly too.

French Galalithe buttons

Unusual French glass buttons

French cotton seam binding tape, 5 metre rolls, lovely to use as ribbon

Superb ombre wired ribbon

Exceptional French passementerie

Beautiful antique lace

A very rare find, a box of linen thread on original thread winder cards, divine!

Lovely complete cards of large press snaps

Old packets of hemp string with great labels

This is why I love collecting vintage haberdashery, how good are these labels?!

and this one

Boxes of vintage DMC pearl and stranded thread in original boxes

Vintage furnishing trims

Great find! Old rolls of wall paper trim, perfect for my paper dresses

This beauty is going stright into the l'uccello collection, extraordinary metallic embroidery on black tulle in PERFECT condition, it would have to be around 100 years old, amazing.

Hope you are not all too frantic preparing for the end of the year, time seems to compress in the last couple of weeks before Christmas, thanks for finding the time to stop by. x

Crazy days

2011-11-22T03:50:00.000+11:00

Today was one of those crazy days, crazy good actually. First off Mum and Dad turned up with a new sewing machine, just in time for a new order we are busy sewing for the National Gallery of Australia, (exciting news from last week.) Then after much patience, hoping and dreaming Robert the electrician turned up to mark out the installation of the gadget required to get the big old steel door open that covers our front door, (really truly can't believe it may actually happen, just waiting for the gadget to arrive) then two minutes later 2/3 of our much awaited Sophie Digard order arrived. Too much happiness! We are still tiding away the remnants of yesterdays hen's party, yes l'uccello does cater for crafty hens parties etc. We are all set up to sign on the dotted line for great new digs for a class room and production room upstairs so stay tuned for a class time table soon. As we are moving we are having a GARAGE SALE this Friday, 10 - 4pm every thing must go (so that we can fit into our new rooms), the shop of course will stay where it is on the second floor. So we are working like crazy elves getting ready for Marche Rouge next week and now it really does seem like the season to be jolly.

AND I finally managed to get all the prizes from the competition packed and off to the post office today so if you won a prize it is on it's way, thank you so much to everyone for your lovely thoughts and support.

X marks the spot, could the door finally be about to open? This is actual electricians tape, I know it's not much but it is the closest thing to a start in almost a year so very exciting, open sesame.

Sophie Digard and Artiga too much lovely Frenchiness

What's better than a new Sophie Digard necklace? A Sophie Digard necklace and Lacroix stationary, of course sweetie!

I will post more detailed photos of Sophie delivery tomorrow night, it is 3 am and the only thing keeping me awake is some wicked chocolate cake left over from the hen's party. We have lots of new antique threads perfect for gold work embroidery and a few vintage millinery trims with more on the way, will blog them as soon as they arrive.

Have a fabulous week and just give us call if you are interested in any of the Sophie Digard pieces, but as always don't wait too long, we only have one of most of them. Thanks x

Oh Deer

2011-11-12T02:00:00.000+11:00

So sorry about that, but oh deer I couldn't resist. The only thing better than a life sized fake reindeer is 3 life sized fake reindeers don't you think? Our lovely muse has returned this year with two of her charming friends to announce with great excitement the date for this years Marche Rouge Christmas shopping event at the Nicholas Building. We are all busy little elves helping Santa get lots of gorgeous treats ready, Kimono House will have beautiful Japanese delights, Harold and Maud will have all sorts of eclectic treats in store, Peter O'Connor and Vicki Kassioras are making their exquisite leather goods and jewellery. Maria's Beads and trims will be overflowing will pretty sparkly stock to embellish all of your Christmas craft projects and don't get too excited but Kate at Buttonmania is having a massive vintage button sale. In case that is not enough Arcade publications have a pop up shop called Melbournalia and Matt bags will be open next door both on the 3rd floor. On Thursday we will have fabulous Betty Bircher, 1940's tea lady doing a few of her famous and spookily accurate biscuit readings and in the evening we will have the lovely soprano Cathrine singing a few carols to get you in the mood. L'uccello will of course be there, filled to the rafters with gorgeous decorations and gifts, it all makes for a charming and relaxed Christmas shopping experience, so make sure you pop it in your diary.

Thursday December 1 & Friday December 2 10am -8pm

Saturday 10 am - 5pm

Please contact l'uccello if you have any enquiries.

And now for the moment you have been waiting for, the winners of the give away are:

Brenda, Patchwork and Play and Emma, congratulations!! And because we are so excited about our new packaging, all the other lovely people who left comments (before 11/11/2011) will be getting a little gift too.

So if all the give away winners send me their postal address we will get your treats in the post to you.

Yayyyyy, have a fabulous week end x

l'uccello fancy goods

2011-11-05T02:26:00.000+11:00

Well it has finally happened, our lovely new labels have arrived and we are so happy with how they have turned out. It has taken a huge team effort to get them this far, special thanks to Reina who did all the design work. We don't have all the products ready yet, we are working away like Santa's elves to get them finished in time for our Christmas market, Marche Rouge. To celebrate their arrival we are having another give away, the first 3 comments posted will recieve a selection of our goodies.

We hope you like them, have a great weekend.

PS Marche Rouge Dates are 1st, 2nd and 3rd of December, I will post all the details shortly.

T'was a few weeks before Christmas....

2011-10-20T01:35:00.001+11:00

It's all about Christmas at l'uccello at the moment, we are busily making Christmas stockings, scented hearts and other lovely things for Christmas orders. We finally signed off on all of our new labels, thanks to the very talented Reina who is making sense of all my crazy ideas. It is very exciting and all products made by us should have their new labels on before the end of next week. I can feel another give away competition coming on to celebrate.

These photos feature some of our fabulous new paper craft products, these ones are called Dresden papers and they are made in Germany, they have been used since Victorian times to make decorations etc.

We are very pleased to announce the first classes at l'uccello, Victorian paper Christmas decorations.

The class is on Sunday the 6th of November from 10am to 1pm at the store. It will be an introduction to making decorations and cards using a combination of traditional paper products and vintage ephemera. We have also imported authentic German glass glitter which is made with sterling silver, glitter like it used to be to give your decorations a lovely vintage feel. We will also use vintage postcards and antique paper scraps.

We will be making a number of decorations suitable for the tree or as gifts for friends, Christmas crackers, and cards.

The cost will be $65 including a delightful morning tea, materials and tuition. Numbers are very limited and some places are already booked so don't delay if you would like to join us. If the class is over booked we may schedule another class the following weekend.

Please ring the store if you wish to book a spot.

PS we have stacks of new stock in this week including (at last!) gorgeous Artiga striped fabrics in wider 160cm widths, more lovely patchwork fabrics and Mila will be happy to know the birds are in!

Have a fabulous week, if you are wandering up Bourke Street have a look at Kozminsky jewellers, we just did their window today featuring our beloved top hats and antique ribbon rosettes, hoorah. X

New deliveries

2011-10-16T02:21:00.000+11:00

This week went so fast, how can it be Sunday already? We are well into Christmas production, the last couple of days we have been making some very jolly Christmas stockings, they are looking very sweet with lots of fun fabrics and vintage trims. Deliveries of all sorts of goodies are piling up, I really must try to get the store room sorted before the boxes take over the store.

We have had lots of gorgeous new fabrics arrive this week including some of the new French General range and other lovely Moda designs.

We also received our first delivery of these divine reproduction fabrics, so 1930s, they have a texture a little like bark cloth. Printed in Japan, they are reprints of old archived designs.

Exciting news, Hatched & Patched hand dyed woven wool felts are finally back in stock, including some gorgeous new colours

Best of all, thanks to my neighbour who has loaned me her old laundy rack, we have been able to put out a fabulous collection of vintage and antique linens. These lovely old pieces feature many different techniques, including tatting, crochet, embroidery, cut thread work, needle, fillet & battenburg lace, applique and cross stitch.

I also keep forgetting to photograph the new delivery of vintage Czech glass beads, stacks of divine new colours.

And we now stock eco friendly organic bamboo quilt wadding.

Hope you are having a very laid back Sunday X

In case you were wondering....

2011-10-13T00:29:00.001+11:00

In case you are wondering why I have been very quiet on the blog front, we have been flat out making these giant softie perfume bottles. It is the latest window display at Kleins Perfumery (www.kleinsperfumery.com.au ) in Brunswick Street Fitzroy. With lots of help and beautiful stitchery by Johanna, I have made more or less scale replicas of some of our favourite perfumes at Kleins. Kleins is of course the loveliest perfumery in town and we thought it would be fun get crafty with a few of their divine scents.They are selling fast so if you would like one, you'd better get in quick.

I have stacks of shop news but the camera battery was flat so hopefully I will get some photos done tomorrow and I will try to post tomorrow of Friday night. Also I will have dates and details for our first classes at l'uccello and dates to pencil in for our Christmas market, so stop by again in a couple of days.

Have a fab Thursday x

Bloomin' marvelous

2011-09-21T01:17:00.000+10:00

So I have been a bit behind on the blogging, this time of the year really starts to get a bit crazy. We are busy keeping up with Spring orders and new products, and starting our Christmas production, we have some lovely new treats for this years festive season. we are even starting to plan this years Marche Rouge Christmas market and our first classes, which will be Victorian style Christmas decorations. We have sourced lots of beautiful Dresden embossed, die cut papers and German glass glitter & lameta for authentic looking decorations (they won't be in store fore for another 2-3 weeks, we are just finalising some packaging)

We are also almost ready to go to print with lovely new labels for all of our l'uccello products, we can't wait to see it all together at last.

But the biggest story in store at the moment is the rapidly approaching Spring Carnival, while you are sleeping many of our fabulous milliners are busy creating their magical creations so all the ladies and gents look their glamorous best at the track this year.

Just in time we received a huge new delivery of the glorious blooms, lots of lovely silk lovelies in a whole rainbow of colours.

Speaking of rainbows I have seen more rainbows in the last few weeks than I have in the last few years, and not ordinary wimpy rainbows, enormous, vibrant, isn't nature unbelievable rainbows. This is another one today from our balcony, I sure it is a good omen.

Lovely vintage silk freesias, velvet violets and strawberries

Posies of blossom and bell flowers. lovely flower broaches.

Pink so intense it almost hurts

Gorgeous new velvet and organza lilies

Pure purple silk and organza rose, lilac orchids and turquoise poppies

Tiny vintage silk leaves

New silk, velvet and organsa rose

Velvet strawberries

Fabulous new deluxe double rose, silk velvet and organza

And to top it off we got hugh new deliveries of ribbon

Hand dyed woven wool felt, (check out Cathy Baines' new patterns on her blog Willow Valley Store, it's in my list on the right)

And a big restock of delicious woolen felt.

Finally, look what I bought myself from my very clever friend Penelope Dursten at Cottage Industry (also in the list on the right) Beautifully made and amusing, classic Miss Pen Pen.

Have a great week x

l'uccello is open.....

2011-09-04T21:53:00.000+10:00

l'uccello is now open Monday - Friday 10am - 6pm & Saturday 10am - 4pm.

We have decided to make things easier for our lovely customers, no more trying to fit a visit in with your schedule, now we are open every day except Sunday, it's too easy.

Have a splendid week! x

Must do list

2011-09-01T03:22:00.000+10:00

No. 1 on my must do list is find time to go to Bendigo to see the White Wedding Dress Exhibition, in the mean time I am savouring this beautiful new book that arrived in store last week. It is by the V & A Museum, and it full of beautiful images of their divine wedding dress collection, I am not sure yet which pieces are in the Bendigo show.

No. 2 on my must do list is a little closer to home, Louise McDonald, maker of exquisite hats is having a retrospective exhibition in the Nicholas Building, so if you love fine millinery make sure you get along to see it. Click the link to the Nicholas Building blog in the right hand column for all the details

No. 3 on my must do list, after making hundreds of paper blossoms for their window display, I must get up to Kozminsky Jewellers, (421 Bourke Street Melbourne) because they are having a sale. Kozminsky stock the most divine range of jewellery, both new and antique, exquisitely refined and always fascinating, this Melbourne icon is home to an eclectic collection of treasures including fine art and objet d'art.

No. 4 on my must do list is to sort and price a small mountain of new stock that has just come in, including these delicious coloured vintage Czech glass buttons.

And these divine creatures from the early 20th century, again from Czechoslovakia

And these fabulous casein and Bakelite and celluloid buttons, perfect for coats or hand knits.

Clearly, whoever said blue and green should never be seen was crazy.

New vintage French ribbons in lovely rich russets, burgundies, black and a perfect shade of barely lilac grey.

Then there is the new velvet leaves and vintage stamens, it's very hard to get work done when everything is so lovely, it's very tempting to just paw over it all day.

New l'uccello Collect rosettes made with Victorian French silk ribbon and special covered buttons including some covered in a fragment of an antique flag and others covered with 19th century metallic lace.

And finally this gorgeous old chocolate box is full of delicate antique lace, divine!

What is on your must do list?

Have a great week, hope you are enjoying some of the lovely early Spring sunshine X

Fabulous & French

2011-08-25T02:25:00.000+10:00

It has been a fast and fabulous couple of weeks, lots of packing wholesale and mail orders and lots of un packing of deliveries of new stock. Most fabulous is this lovely old cabinet, already stencilled with mercerie (French for haberdashery.) The other fabulous French arrival is our first delivery of textiles from Artiga. Brilliant woven stripes in the most gorgeous colours, traditional in the south west Basque region of France. Our first shipment is espadrille fabric, 15.5 cm wide, it is perfect for all sorts of projects. Our second shipment due in a couple of weeks will include regular width fabrics in the same woven stripes

So of coarse to accommodate the new cabinet I had to move every piece of furniture around and around and around, until finally deciding to put it where I first thought it should go. And you know how it is, especially as it seems spring is here, I then decided everything had to tidied up, rearranged, cleaned etc. So two and half very long days later I have finally put the store back together and I must say it is looking fresh and lovely again.

These sweet little vintage Czech forget me nots arrived late last week, so charming.

I finally have managed to restock nearly all of the l'uccello products including some of these lovely vintage greeting cards made with original antique post cards.

There are a few new vintage Kokeshi dolls, this is my favourite.

Just a few shots of around the store

Vintage Cutie Doll kits are back in stock at last, this one looks like she may have had a little tipple too many before putting on her lipstick.

This is the third rainbow I have seen in about 10 days, I can't remember the last time I saw so many or seen them so close, this is looking up Collins Street towards the Paris end. I have switched to regular unfiltered photos for the last few photos so you can see the fabulous Artiga Fabrics more accurately.

Delicious don't you think?!

Have a fabulous sunny spring week x

Bravo!

2011-08-12T02:21:00.000+10:00

Well bravo us, it has been a huge couple of weeks and everyone has been working very hard to get everything done. We have been busy getting our samples for Christmas ready and into production, Spring orders have rolled in and are almost finished and lots of new stock has arrived.

More of these fabulous cockades and rosettes arrived this week and we are just putting the final touches on them. Many of them are made from French antique ribbons, this one features a Victorian period French passementerie motif.

We are so excited to announce the arrival of the very first pieces of a collaborative range of jewellery created exclusively for l'uccello by jeweller Vikki Kassioras. Titled l'uccello collect, this range of jewellery is made up of one of pieces, made from various pieces of my collection of antique and vintage beads, charms and other fixings.

Beads collected from different periods are carefully strung, some of the pieces feature knotting between the beads and all clasps and hooks are sterling silver, each piece is unique.

Each piece is presented with a hand made card made from Victorian period paper ephemera with a brief list of each unique piece's components on the back.

We have also had a lovely big shipment of these gorgeous paper goods arrive, vintage style reproductions - so charming.

New Sajou stock is also in, including these divine new designs in their range of thread winder cards.

We stock the original antique linen thread by the company Conscrit featured on these new cards, the box on the left is part of our collection.

Most exciting of all we are now the exclusive Australian stockist of this brilliant book on vintage French thread cards and reels by the creator of Sajou, Frederique Crestin Billet. It is full of the most wonderful images of an extensive array of antique packaging, a must have for collectors of these type of things.

If you happen to be around today you may see us waving a few yellow ribbons from the balcony, it is the parade for Cadel Evans at lunch time, we are so excited and can't wait to wave our ribbons and call out Bravo!

Sophie Digard Handbags

2011-08-03T01:10:00.002+10:00

Bag No. 1 SOLD

We received another delivery of divine Sophie Digard bags today, please forgive the badly styled photos but the colours are pretty close. We completely sold out of the others last week before I even had a chance to photograph them. I loooove them all but especially the one above, I don't know if I will be able to resist taking it home.

Bag No.2

Bag No. 3

Bag No. 4

Bag No.4 other side

If fact I love them all, if you want one be quick or I might give into temptation with the lot!

Hope you are enjoying this prelude to Spring that is suddenly upon us, I will blog about other things at the end of the week X

somewhere under the rainbow

2011-08-02T00:12:00.003+10:00

After a frantic but fabulous week filling orders, installing window displays, sprucing up for open studios, and general shop duties Sunday was spent catching up on the dreaded bookwork. This is my reward, just about the most wonderful rainbow I have ever seen.

This is really just the other half of the last post with photos of the recent Sophie Digard arrivals, there should be more hand bags this week.

New No. 1 sold

I have tried so many times to capture the beauty of Sophie Digard's work in a photo but it is allusive, I kind of like the idea that you have to see them in real life to totally get how truly beautiful they are.

New No.2 SOLD

New No. 3 sold

I will do another post later in the week when I have recovered from last week and the new hand bags are in.

Have a splendid week X

Open Studios

2011-07-28T00:56:00.000+10:00

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

2011-07-17T13:59:00.001+10:00

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!!

2011-07-05T00:50:00.002+10:00

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

2011-07-03T12:49:00.000+10:00

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!!

J'adore dior bleu

2011-06-22T01:48:00.003+10:00

All our ships have come in and there is now so much new stock the cabinets may burst! My favourite is these wonderful vintage German silk leaves, they are the most exquisite shades of Dior blue, paler than the photo suggests. I stayed back late tonight to try and get it all priced and put away, so the photos are a just a quick peek, I will shoot more detailed photos of all the new flowers, lace, braid and trims as soon as possible.

Looking through the front glass of our display cabinet, piles of the most gorgeous vintage straw braids and veiling.

Beautiful big blousey double magnolias in the crisp ivory, perfect with bridal wear.

Speaking of weddings, we have only two of this fabulous vintage Czech crystal tiaras.

Lovely old sparkly trims with sequins, beads and pearls.

More flowers through the counter top.

More vintage flowers

Vintage guipure lace

Yayyy at last some shelves for all of our fabrics

Have a splendid week X

Stamen Alive!

2011-06-17T00:12:00.000+10:00

No.1 Red Berries

I must apologise for the appalling pun in the title of this post, but I couldn't resist. We are so excited about the arrival of all these fabulous vintage stamens it makes us feel like dancin'. Just be very grateful I can't work out how to upload music to the blog or your could be humming along to a Bee Gees tune or two, (and you know how those kind of songs get stuck in your head over and over all day!) So whether you're a mother or whether you're a lover...... you know the rest.

I can't even begin to tell you how much stock has arrived this week, we have some of the most fabulous vintage Swiss millinery braids we have ever had, lovely new petite feathers in the most gorgeous colours (perfect for men's hats or making your own feathered decorations.)

New ribbons, fabrics, flowers, vintage silk veiling, French vintage buttons by the box full (very very big boxes.) I have been sticking prices on like a crazy woman and there is still a mountain to go. We have finally signed off on our new business cards, they are gorgeous, and hopefully will arrive from the printers at any moment.

I have promised a few lovely ladies to post pictures of all the new stamens in catalogue form for easy perusing, phone/mail ordering. I have started to photograph the stock for the online store (seriously, I have just bought a camera tripod and a copy of Photography for Dummies!) Thank you for your patience, I promise it is on the way.

No.2 Left: lilac with white stem Centre: double lilac Right: Mauve with white tips

No. 3 Top: Tiny sea foam Bottom: Hot pink with a touch of green

No. 4 Left: Pink with black tips Centre: Bright coral Right: Pink pearl

No.5 Far left: Fuzzy grey and red Centre left: Pink with red tips Centre right: Red

Far Right: Black stems with white and red tips.

No.6 Left: Large aqua pearl Centre: Large Sea foam pearl

Right: Delicate greenish grey and pale pink with green stems

No.7 Left: Large creamy yellow pearl Centre: Large soft yellow pearl

Right: Medium soft yellow pearl

No.8 Left: Flat white tips & black dots, ivory stems Centre: Flat black tips & white dots, ivory stems Right: Round black tips white dots and white stems

No.9 Left: terracotta Centre: Bright citrus yellow

Right: Yellow stems pale apricot tips & black ends

No. 10 Long lily stamens in white or fuchsia pink

No.11 Left: Large metallic grey pearl Right: Medium mauve/bronze pearl

No.12 Left: Large flat pearl Right: Small round pearl

All of the stamens are of really lovely quality and condition, please note the photos will vary from their actual colours. I apologise for the odd out of focus bits, the light was fading and I had to get it done quickly (hence the copy of Photography for Dummies) Please feel free to ring or email with any questions you have regarding availability and and prices, stock of some items is quite limited.

Hope you have a bit of Saturday Night Fever this weekend, how hot was Travolta in that white suit?! Sharp.

Sophie Digard scarves are in!

2011-06-08T03:01:00.009+10:00

No.1 sold

At last our stunning collection of Sophie Digard scarves has arrived, and they are even more divine than we thought they would be. This is a very quick catalogue of our collection for customers who can't make it into the store. Please ring the store if you would like to arrange a mail order. (Another exciting piece of news, we have started to put the online shop together, it should launch in a few weeks!) Please note these photographs do not do justice to the beautiful colours and they may vary depending on your monitor.

These stunning scarves by master of color and pattern Sophie Digard, are all handmade by exceptional artisans from the softest superfine pure wool. Enjoy browsing these beauties and be inspired.

No. 2 sold

No. 3 (same as image 1) sold

No.4 small sold

No. 5 sold

No. 6 sold

No. 7 small sold

No. 8 sold

No.9 sold

No. 10 1 large sold 1 small

No. 11 small sold

No. 12 sold

No. 13 small

No. 14 sold

No. 15 (same as above) sold

No. 16 large

Sophie Digard at last!

2011-06-08T02:23:00.003+10:00

No. 1 sold

Finally our winter collection of Sophie Digard exquisite handmade accessories has arrived, this post features the necklaces. This is a very quick catalogue of the collection for customers who can't make it to the store. Please ring the store if you would like to arrange a mail order. Please note the photos do not do justice to the beautiful colours of the collection, and they will vary according to your monitor. Sophie Digard is a master of colour and these pieces are handmade by highly skilled artisans, they are are all heirloom pieces.

No. 2

No. 3

No. 4

No. 5 sold

No. 6

No. 7

No. 8 sold

No. 9 sold

No. 10 sold

No. 11 sold

No.12 sold

Waiting.....

2011-06-05T04:27:00.000+10:00

Another week already! I think time is a curious thing, it seems to speed up some days and totally expand and slow down the next. We have an old clock on the wall at l'uccello, it generally doesn't work anymore, but every now and then it fires up for a few minutes. So according to the clock it must be about 1954 at l'uccello! So on one hand we have been busy all week and time has flown but on the other, we are waiting, waiting, waiting for so many lovely things to arrive. We have fabulous new shipments of vintage stamens, exquisite silk flowers, antique paper goods, vintage lace and most exciting of all Sophie Digard scarves all in transit.

A sneak peek of part of our new range of paper ephemera, they are the most beautiful Victorian paper scraps, the colours and the artwork are divine! We will soon be stocking a wide range of authentic paper ephemera goods and some modern stationery supplies and books for paper crafts, invitation, card and journal making.

This is one of the beautiful books we have in stock, the detail in these silhouettes is astounding.

I've been busy rearranging the fancy goods, we have so many new Valdani colours I had to commandeer our gorgeous antique display box for them, aren't they lovely?

New stock in this week included these lovely old spools of super glossy rayon embroidery thread in a beautiful ivory colour.

We also received lots of new spools of antique French Conscrit linen thread, a few wooden reels and gorgeous little balls in cardboard dispensers. Most of these threads date from the 1930s and 40s.

More lovely ribbons from the East of India brand, a new range of contemporary sewing and craft products that we have recently started to stock.

We also received a delivery of these gorgeous little ceramic dogs, they are from the prestigious French ceramic workshop Astier de Villatte. Their beautiful store is in the centre of Paris and is filled with their mostly white, exquisite hand made ceramics.

And finally just to tantalise you, this lovely image from Bright Star features a cardigan by the divine Ms Digard, our new stock of Sophie Digard is due any minute but we are so excited it seems like forever.

Have a marvelous Sunday X

Hot chocolate

2011-05-27T00:29:00.001+10:00

I don't know for sure when I became a winter lover, it's not madness I suspect but nostalgia.

The lovely old gothic style pile across the road from l'uccello, St Paul's Cathedral is always more beautiful in the rain and the fading light at the end of the day. Summertime may be more buoyant and fun, but it is not nearly so romantic as misty rainy winter, maybe it is madness after all.

l'uccello is filling the halls of The Nicholas Building with the scent of lavender, rose, cloves and secret spices, we are in the middle of a big production run of our Scented Pillows for Linen and our new Seed Packet linen sachets. We have been making mountains of lovely Heat Pillows with Lavender too, this year we have used lots of French General and William Morris fabrics. This batch are about to be shipped off to Kleins Perfumery over in Brunswick Street Fitzroy, so pop in if the city is too far, they are just the thing to warm up chilly toes.

I thought you may all be feeling a bit cold and out of sorts with all this rain and early cold snap, so here is a little hot chocolate to cheer you up.

Deluxe vintage rayon millinery satin, it is so lustrous it almost looks like melted dark chocolate.

Delicious antique Bakelite and celluloid buttons and buckles, very special pieces waiting for the perfect coat or jacket to come along.

More lovely vintage buttons and buckles, made from casein, wood and plastic.

We have a large range of beautifully crafted vintage French horn and vegetable ivory buttons

Gorgeous civil war reproduction fabrics and lovely Kokka cotton/linen blends, perfect for a new cosy quilt.

More gorgeous colours from Valdani

A small selection from our collection of antique French silk and rayon ribbons, many of them date back to the beginning of the 20th century, the colours of these beautiful old girls are just superb.

Seriously hot chocolate! This great new book featuring iconic menswear pieces was supposed to be for the boys, but it seems to be very popular with the ladies too.

Finally we haven't had any words of wisdom from our Fortune telling dolls house in quite a while so we gave it a spin......

Have a fabulous week and stay toasty! x

Time to get cosy

2011-05-15T22:36:00.000+10:00

How cold was it this week?! All of a sudden winter is here with chilly winds and down pours of rain, I must be mad because I quite like it. I love wearing my favourite coat, cooking big pots of soup and listening to the wind and rain when I'm cosy and tucked up in bed.

l'uccello has been busy this last couple of weeks, we are still sorting things from the move of our production area upstairs. We have been unpacking exciting new deliveries of vintage trims, buttons and more millinery. And we are finally getting a big lot of fur felt hoods and capelines priced and out on display, we have also received a new delivery of milliners grosgrain fabric and stitched velvets. Other new deliveries included Valdani thread in beautiful new colours and a new range of their silk hand dyed threads, stunning! Unfortunately we are still waiting on the colour range muddy Monet, hopefully for those customers waiting for their arrival it will turn up soon.

So when the weather turns nasty the best thing to do is stay inside and get crafty, here are a few lovely things to get you inspired.

Gorgeous big buttons perfect for coats and cosy knits

We had lots to choose from.

We have very limited stock of this gorgeous vintage boucle wool in vintage coral pink

We now have Clover's fabulous bamboo knitting needles, soft touch crochet hooks and tatting shuttles. We also have a great range of vintage knitting needles and crochet hooks.

Another great book of patterns from the Made in France series, the cutest booties ever.

My new favourite book at the moment, the quilts in this book are stunning!, The fabrics in the background are from the new French General range Pom Pom De Paris.

We have some lovely vintage supplies for a little fancy work at the moment, in cotton, silk and linen.

We have lots of new supplies too, this lovely spread features Valdani 3 strand balls of hand dyed cotton and tubes of hand dyed silk. Sajou scissors, pretty thread winder cards, gorgeous reproduction needle cards with superb needles made in France and finest quality linen thread also made in France.

And of course a wide range of felts, including hand dyed wovens and European pure wool felt by the sheet (over 60 colours!), felt rope and a smaller range of colours by the metre.

So it is definitely time to get cosy and crafty, have a great week! x

Just arrived

2011-04-29T03:10:00.000+10:00

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

2011-04-17T22:11:00.000+10:00

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

2011-04-15T23:49:00.000+10:00

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!

2011-04-09T04:47:00.000+10:00

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.

Behind the times........

2011-03-30T03:49:00.001+11:00

Well here I am at last, I'm at bit behind with everything at the moment, including the blog. I decided that it needed a bit of a makeover and as you know I'm not very techy, so it will take a while to finish. We have also been very busy filling wholesale orders, trying to keep on top of the mess, making lots of hot air balloons for the Klein's Easter window, developing new products and most exciting, working on our new packaging and branding. According to my significant other I have taken on a resemblance to the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, I'm late, I'm late for a very important........

This is our lovely new range of Lavender heat pillows, hand made by us with pure cotton fabrics and natural ingredients, including fragrant Victorian lavender.

Sneak peek, they are not quite finished, these gorgeous cockades and rosettes are mostly made from vintage ribbons and have a pin back so they can be worn as a broach. They will be on sale shortly.

I don't have a picture of the hot air balloons yet, but if you are in Brunswick Street Fitzroy and want to have a look at them they are at Klein's Perfumery (313 Brunswick Street)

Basket full of happiness, waiting for the tram, South Melbourne.

We have so much lovely new stock, including these glass pearly coated buttons

Fab new stock of vintage coat buttons in great colours

Balls of silk yarn, spun from the threads left over from silk sari production

We have some great pieces of recycled vintage cloth from Nepal at the moment, lots of cross stitch and indigo and authentic Nepalese dust. Perfect for a gypsy caravan!

New stock of Sajou thread winders and needles including a couple of lovely new designs

This is Kookie, he popped in last week to say ciao, clearly he feels right at home at l'uccello, maybe he speaks Italian.

One of my current obsessions is the work of this French artist, Isabelle De Borchgrave, magnificent! This is from an article in Selvedge, issue 34 May/June 2010.

I have finally seen Bright Star, this image on the cover of Selvedge is from the film. How beautiful is this film!!? I was enthralled, the costumes are so wonderful, the textures and colours, the art direction of the whole film is just so beautiful I couldn't speak. The actors are lovely and moving and Keats poetry is like a dream. And Sophie Digard scarves and cardigans! If you love textiles and haven't seen this film, you must see it.

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."

John Keats from Endymion

Speaking of Sophie Digard, our winter collection is not far away so stay tuned, the colours and patterns are more beautiful than ever.

Finally a brief word about the passing of one of my favourite movie stars, Elizabeth Taylor. One of my favourite films is Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, if anyone thinks petticoats aren't sexy they haven't seen that film. I loved her style, her passion, her extravagance, her acting, her beauty and old school Hollywood movie star glamour, she was an inspiring and courageous woman.

50,000 things

2011-03-12T01:16:00.000+11:00

I can't believe it is Friday night already, how did the year get to be so fast already? I feel like I have 50,000 things in my head, and that is about 49,995 things too many! I have wasted at least a whole work day on emails, our connection at the shop is the worst ever, can I just say telephones are wonderful inventions! You pick them up, dial, talk, hang up - easy. As apposed to try 5 times to connect to the server, open the mail, loose the connection, connect again, take 10 minutes to load, then horror of horrors, attachments. Anyway sorry about the diatribe, telstra man is coming soon to put the cable on.

So to rid myself of such pointless angst I spent yesterday creating a couple of vignettes with various props that I am collecting to decorate the shop for our rapidly approaching first birthday. We also have had some lovely new stock arrive so a few hours of arranging and patting them all did the trick.

Today I was happy as a lark, it was the perfect big sky day, endless blue that goes on forever and the golden sunshine of autumn. I have lots to catch up on, but some times you have to remember to breath.

We are having a gorgeous range of cockades and rosettes made using our lovely vintage ribbons.

Too much is never enough.

Fabulous new paisleys have just arrived.

More beautiful Valdani hand dyed threads.

Heavenly bullion tassels, made from real metal, they date from the early 1900s

More trims for my circus girls, a new project starting next week, too exciting.

I have started pinching the art work from home, this lovely old print is perfect behind the counter, don't you think?

PS Dear Fabricfantastique, apologies! I went to post your comment last week, but accidentally deleted it instead, thanks for taking the time to send it.

Happy Labour Day/Moomba have a great long week end x

Autumn already

2011-03-03T02:38:00.000+11:00

It seems like all of a sudden Summer is over, it's kind of melancholy at first, this last flourish of Butterfly Bush from my garden is so lovely and fragrant. But then I start to think of cosy scarves and lovely new boots for winter and it makes me quite cheerful. I also find I am much more inclined to get crafty in the cooler weather, suddenly felts, pompoms and crochet seem so appealing. I have been especially happy because I have been able to wear my new Sophie Digard scarf, it is just so beautiful.

The crazy filter that I like on my iphone doesn't do the colours justice, they are heaven!

The big news of the week is we are hosting our first Crafty Hens Party on Saturday - craft, afternoon tea and girlfriends, it is sure to be a relaxing and fun afternoon.

Because of this l'uccello will be closing early this week only, at 2 pm. We hope this doesn't cause anyone any inconvenience.

Saturday hours 10am-2pm

this week only

These fabulous old magazines from the 1930s arrived today, I'm thinking this could be my look for the season, a little hunter chic!

How glamorous are these dames?!

These fabulous baskets from Ghana arrived today, beautifully woven in lovely patterns and colours, perfect for storing crafty stash or for carrying your supplies to a class or two.

Gratuitous cotton reel shot

Have a great week, don't forget about early closing this Saturday x

Open Sesame

2011-02-26T00:17:00.000+11:00

You may remember our post just before Christmas regarding this delightful door, and that in order to meet council regulations we must keep it shut for the time being. Despite it's awful appearance, and the fact that it makes us look closed, despite it being quite heavy and that it closes with a bang, usually frightening the uninitiated, most of our lovely customers have made it in anyway. But we have certainly being missing a few people who have thought we are closed or that it looks a bit intimidating, which is a shame because the shop is looking lovelier than ever. Some days this makes me very frustrated and a little cranky, so I decided this week I had to do something to make the door look a little more lovely.

So I patchworked it, what do you think?? I am quite pleased with my handy work, it certainly looks a little less institutional, I'll have to try and redo the signage tomorrow.

One of our lovely customers was interested in a green ribbon that we have sold out of, and I decide to take a few pictures of our range of green ribbons for her. As usual I got a bit carried away and ended up with pictures of all things green.

Lovely dark forest greens, all of these ribbons are French silk and are about 100 years old. They include from the top left a satin picot, moire, satin boarded mousseline, satin faille wide and similar satin in the centre. The old satins are not highly shiny, rather they have a wonderful deep delustred sheen.

This picture features more Victorian silk and also some younger silk and cotton grosgrains. Starting top left is a spectacular silk moire, extra wide and a beautiful soft green, next are mint and olive green grosgrains, next is a luscious green very fine grosgrain or possibly a faille and finally a lovely deep emerald green satin with undertones of brown created by different coloured warp and weft fibres.

These ribbons are generally rayon and date from the 1930s through to the 1950s approximately.

These ribbons are also dated 1930s -1950s and are also mostly rayon. The bottom ribbon has different coloured warp and weft, one is white and the other is green. The centre ribbon is a magnificent moire with a woven check boarder. The top ribbon is a luxurious heavy delustred satin. it has wonderful body and is one of the heaviest weight ribbons that we have seen.

Just for good measure, we have Valdani hand dyed 3 ply thread, in beautiful shades of green, solid colours and variegated.

Lovely piles of vintage stamens,

Gorgeous French and English vintage buttons,

Pretty pure cotton fabrics for various sewing projects

Millinery braids, Swiss straw and Italian trimming's.

Lots of shades of green in pure wool felt.

And beautiful muted shades in hand dyed, woven felts.

So don't forget to check our hours before visiting the store, and don't be put off by the beast of a door. Thank you for your patience and have a splendid weekend x

Look what I found!

2011-02-23T02:08:00.001+11:00

I have been in Sydney for a few days, sourcing lots of fabulous new stock for l'uccello. I managed to fit a little retail therapy in along the way. Mad as it may seem most of the things I bought are vintage trims, thread, buttons and ribbons.

Essential fuel for a shopping expedition, this fine looking coffee was at the Tropicana Caffe in Darlinghurst, they do great breakfasts too, just make it snappy when ordering.

First I headed to Paddington to Society Inc., what a fabulous store full of treasures vintage and new, I went a bit mad on these antique Indian trims, they are going to be perfect for a project that I am about to start. (PS if you are looking for somewhere great for dinner in Kings Cross/Potts Point, try Fratelli Fresh, delicious!)

Beautiful trims from Society Inc.

From there I went to Woolahra to visit No Chintz, they stock l'uccello Vintage Cutie Dolls, Vintage Sewing Collections and our line of Vintage buttons. Sadly the photo is too blurry. I really had to stop myself from picking the frangipani along the way, such beautiful perfume.

Then to Surry Hills and the fabulous David met Nicole store that stocks all sorts of wonderful vintage industrial and domestic items.

I just had to have these old French chemist boxes, the broken porcelain dolls are from early to mid 19th century, they were found in the ground where a doll shop had once been, and of course a few buttons.

Across the road is another great store Bird Textiles Emporium, they print all of their own designs on organic cotton, and make a range of clothing, soft furnishings and craft kits. I bought this one for my niece, it makes a cute little bird purse. The shop was for many years a chemist shop and still features the full set of original cabinetry, just lovely.

Then down the road and around the corner to Ici et la, Aladdin's cave full of rolls and rolls of French striped fabrics for furnishings and deck chairs, in the most divine colours. They also have all sorts of antique furniture and curios. They even have a few old buttons, ribbons and threads, of course I had to get some!

I also found a supplier of these beautiful antique African beads but that's a whole other story.....

On my way to the airport to come home I heard the terrible news coming from New Zealand, to our New Zealand readers we are thinking of you and hope you are ok. Our thoughts are with all of those concerned with this tragic and devastating event.

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T23:06:00.002+11:00

We're feeling a little lovey dovey here at l'uccello, so happy Valentine's Day, we thought you might like a little eye candy to celebrate the occasion.

A few rolls of ribbon from our collection, they are mostly French silk, and around 100 years old.

These lovely blue grey horn buttons are so simple and beautifully made, and the cards are a delight, almost too good to use.

I almost can't look at this book, it's too beautiful! And the hand tinted velvet rose sitting to the side is from my trip to Buenos Aires and is my absolute favorite ever.

I strung these reels the other day, I never tire of their simple but lovely forms.

Vintage bling, hand sewn vintage sequin, glass bead and pearl trim in the prettiest shade of apricot blush.

Something old, some thing new, something blue... l'uccello's Love Me True wedding charms, made from pure silk and antique lace and vintage trims.

Frank & Mint pure linen bedding....

puppy love

Perfect books for stylish and crafty brides

Valentines gift to me, more Liberty for our Liberty and Linen Hearts. This bouquet of lovelies came from my favourite fabric store Tessuti

Happiness is piles of vintage haberdashery

and boxes too... hope you had a lovely day, Valentines or not. x

What's new at l'uccello....

2011-02-10T03:21:00.001+11:00

So many new things have just arrived this post will have to be mostly pictures. It has been a great week so far with the completion of all the samples for our new seasons range of heat pillows, eye rest pillows and scented sachets and pillows. I haven't quite finished all the labeling and photos so we will post images later in the week. It is always very satisfying to see a new range after a long period of development, even more so to see them being carried off home by customers ready to provide comfort and relaxation.

We have had quite a few visitors lately who are readers of this blog, it's lovely to see who is at the other end of the line so to speak, and it is amazing how extensive the blogging community has become. So our thanks to everyone for taking the time to visit l'uccello either in person or via the blog, it's great to share a love of beautiful things with you.

On with the pictures, apologies I went a bit mad and there are quite a few.....

These fabulous boxes of antique French linen thread arrived today

The only problem is they are totally complete and so gorgeous I don't think I can bring myself to break them up to sell, so I think they will have to become part of the l'uccello collection.

Even the ends of the boxes are great, I love these old fonts. These threads date from the 1940s and are in perfect condition, it's quite amazing.

Fortuneately this packet isn't quite so lovely so I will be able to part with these beautifully packaged linen threads, great for collectors.

New stock of lovely casein and bakelite vintage buttons, mostly 1940/50s.

We placed our autumn/winter order for the divine Sophie Degard accessories this week, we have a few new pieces in store including this exquisite scarf. Great news, due to the strength of the Australian dollar the price has come down yayyyy!

We have a few pieces of these lovely old original sack cloths, they date from the 1940s. they are in very limited supply so if you are interested please ring or visit the store as soon as you can.

If you love this style of fabric then you will love this pattern book, lovely fresh designs that suit these vibrant patterns perfectly, in stock now.

They fun reproductions are also new arrivals, I'm mad for these perky 30s and 40s prints at the moment. Our next batch of bunting might have to include some of these.

If that's not your style you might love our new collection of mid weight French furnishing fabrics, great for cushions or light upholstery projects.

And finally!!! some lovely vintage polished cotton.

Have a great week x

Love is in the air....

2011-02-04T02:28:00.014+11:00

Valentines Day is not far away and I have been working like mad to get these giant love heart lollies ready for Kleins Perfumery's window display to celebrate the occasion. We made replicas of the old sherbet lollies and the packets they came in. All the lettering is cut out of card board, the big packets ended up nearly 6 ft tall.

Kleins is at 313 Brunswick Street Fitzroy, if you haven't been you should visit them next time you are in the neighbourhood. It is a beautiful store full of delightful scented treats, if you can't visit in person their website is brilliant http://www.kleinsperfumery.com.au/

Speaking of love, this gorgeous little etui arrived today,

It has a silver thimble and a tiny spool of silk inside.

We also received these gorgeous sewing tools, the little carved bone needle keep is from the 1890s and the mother of pearl cotton reel cover and thread winder are from the mid 1800s. It's so amazing that such delicate little things have survived in such great condition for so long.

We are soooo in love with these hand dyed, woven wool felts, they just arrived today and we are already planning a few new projects. The colours are just delicious, and the various textures and patterns make them irristable.

They come in these great little bundles too.

I'm thinking of doing some stitching with these lovely hand dyed threads by Valdani on the new felts, the colours seem just made for each other.

Our other big delivery this week was a great big box of precut 1/2 metre lengths from Yuwa, including lots of designs by Judy Wallace. This is my stash, I just couldn't help myself, I really must get on with my existing quilt so I can start on some others, so much stash, so little time.

Have a fabulous weekend! x

Afternoon delight

2011-01-28T01:24:00.000+11:00

Usually we only get the morning sun in the salon, but during the summer months the multistory office buildings up Flinders Lane reflect the late afternoon sun back through our windows. It is such a lovely time of day, the light mostly reflects on the upper walls and moves in drifts, with rainbows here and there from the bevelled crystal windows in the old doors. The sunlight falls in fragments through the stained glass panels, illuminating one object and leaving another in shade.

We have so many new things arriving this week, I thought I should photograph them in this lovely dappled light, a little afternoon delight.

Lovely boxes of antique French thread in their original boxes, they even have their delicate printed glassine paper intact.

We also received a lovely new stack of mangle cloths, in a great range of linen colours.

A very exciting delivery, unused antique French sack cloth, very rustic with lovely burgundy and wedgewood blue stripes.

Gorgeous new Moda 1930s reproduction prints.

Too cute! the new French General range Petit Ecole, again from Moda.

Pretty flowers on the counter.

Our new Liberty and linen hearts, they are made with Liberty fabrics and antique french linen and filled with lavender or spicy orange.

The most divine bed linen ever! Made in Portugal in the softest linen and available in a beautiful range of colours.

More great treats from Sajou, just the thing for a little fancy work.

Sajou is the reinvention of an old French company and they supply a sensational range of needlework accessories including these gorgeous cards of needles. The little balls of vintage linen thread on the right are original, by the same company featured on the reproduction cards.

The top row are little thread winder cards, great for keeping stranded cotton stored on so it doesn't get all tangled up. The cards on the bottom are cards of linen thread from the 1940s.

Finally a big thank you to our lovely friends who leave comments, we so appreciate you taking the time and hope you don't mind that we don't always have time to answer them all individually. In answer to Kapinny's question about the paper dispenser at Harveys, yes I found out today we will soon be the proud custodians of it also. Mr Harvey is planning to trade for a short time from the room opposite their current shop to sell more of his remaining stock, he will open three days a week, I'll check the details and post them next week. Have a great weekend x

Smitten

2011-01-24T01:10:00.000+11:00

I'm a bit behind in my blog posts because I'm smitten.... with our new fabulous counter. It is around a hundred years old and came from Harveys, a Melbourne institution for all things haberdashery that recently closed. Harveys opened for business around 1895 in Bourke street and traded there until about thirty years ago, then they moved into the Nicholas building, on the floor directly above l'uccello. We wish Mr and Mrs Harvey a lovely retirement and hope they have time for all the things you don't have time for when you have a business. So many of us that sew will miss them, where will we go for so many supplies? Stay tuned for the new drop off for scissor sharpening, rumour has it, it may be another business in the Nicholas building, how convenient! A quick tour around the new lay out at l'uccello.

This wonderful old counter comes with so much history, there are grooves worn in the wood from the measuring of various lengths along the old yard ruler. There is this little hole and groove for the string, and a little wooden box underneath the counter for the ball of string. I can't help but think of all the supplies sold over the years and the wonderful garments they were used to produce. Mr Harvey has been kind enough to share some of his memories of the industry over the years, of delivering supplies as a young man to Melbourne's couture houses and of the tables of ladies doing all the hand finishing, how much things have changed in such a short time. So thank you Mr. Harvey, we will take very good care of your counter and hopefully add a little history of our own.

Fly girl fly

2011-01-15T03:26:00.000+11:00

This is the cover of a fabulous new book I bought myself for my birthday, it's title is Circus and it is published by Taschen. I have always wanted to be the girl who rode the white pony, spangly leotard and feathers on my head, standing on the pony's back as it galloped around the circus ring. I also loved the flying trapeze, it is such a leap of faith to let go and fly. This has been our inspiration this week, we have had to make a few big decisions about the l'uccello's direction this year so we have decided to swing high and fly, all we need now is some fabulous outfits.

Something like this, what do you think?

It really is a fabulous book.

We have had some gorgeous new stock arrive this week, luxurious ribbons, hat pins, lace and lovely French linen threads.

Moody blues, heavy delustred satin ribbon in navy blue, it's almost like a duchess satin. Lustrous jacquard and the the most beautiful shade of dark blue moire taffeta ribbon. More of these fab French hat pins, and in the background is a grey and white stripped extra wide milliner's grosgrain and black silk velvet, both suitable for blocking.

Prettiest French blue and champagne colours.

More of the delustred satin, this time in this stunning shade of green, and this beautiful stripped ribbon, both are over 10cm wide, too delicious!

Cotton seam binding tape in sunniest yellow, this makes the loveliest soft bows.

Beautiful antique Calais, Bedfordshire and Irish lace in a lovely range of colours.

We especially love the new straw hat pins and the sea shells are perfect for the season.

These lovely old French cards of linen thread are surplus from the 1940s, they would have originally been for soldier's uniform repairs. We also received some hanks of DMC lace making thread in ecru and some great Bakelite buttons also probably from the forties, made in England.

I have cousins in Queensland cut off by the floods, one of them has a new baby and the other a number of beloved horses, thankfully their properties have been spared so far, it is such a nervous time. If you have loved ones affected by this disaster our thoughts and best wishes are with you.

Cottage Industry has a great offer of support, if you buy one of their fab tea towel cushions featuring Queensland Miss Pen Pen will donate all of the money to a worthy cause, check out the link to her blog for details.

Have a great week and remember the motto this week is Fly Girl Fly!

Bright and shiney and new...

2011-01-06T01:31:00.000+11:00

Well Happy New Year lovely people, it's the first week of 2011 and it is amazing how the beginning of the year feels so bright and shiny and new. Although I have to say my resolutions are already out the window, that would be: not being late, not staying at work too late, not staying up too late there is definitely a theme here.

We have been busy little birds cleaning and painting and rearranging l'uccello, everything is starting to look refreshed and order is being restored.

The little desk that houses our vintage stamen collection has had a quick make over in palest antique pink, it's called China Doll, the stamens look so much more vibrant.

I still have the other half to finish tomorrow, but this side of the studio area is looking a treat, it makes me want to get started on our new projects, amazing what tiding up your workspace can do. I am so loving the cosmos, such brief but exuberant prettiness.

The centre table is loaded up with baskets full of lovely new fat quarters, fabric cigars (16ths) and charm squares. How divine are the delphiniums! I have mixed them with snap dragons, carnations and this gorgeous vibrant lime green foliage, they look so English summer garden.

These are some of the new fabrics, lots of Judy Rothermel civil war reproductions, new French General and Moda's new range based on William Morris designs.

This sweet little lady is an early 20th century french pin cushion doll, originally she would have been attached to a pin cushion that would have been concealed by a skirt.

Possibly the most divine antique sewing collectible that we have ever had, this delicate little silk covered shoe is circa 1820 and is most likely French or English, the silver thimble it contains is hallmarked.

The antique French quilt remnant I have used under the shoe is also too beautiful, circa 1880.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Christmas at our house

2010-12-28T00:18:00.000+11:00

So another Christmas has been celebrated and it seems everyone has suddenly realised how tired they are. It's always such a race towards the end of the year thank goodness for Boxing day and left overs in the fridge. We have all been laying low with a nasty cold that I so kindly shared with everyone, so I haven't ventured much further than the couch, sleep sleep sleep, heaven!

As promised I have a couple of snaps of our Christmas table, while I was at it I took a few others around the house.

Roses from my sister's garden

My favourite baubles stay out all year round, I can't bare to put them away.

I must shamefully admit our tree is still up from last year....

I love it so much I may just leave it up permanently.

Christmas seems to have infiltrated every nook around here.

This is my favourite icon

Post Christmas reading list

I'm watching..

I'm listening to...

and eating.......

Hope you are relaxing too.