Private Collection and Pre-Holiday Sale

We've been airing out the closets and opening those bottom drawers over here at The Little Thimble That Could!  You may remember that the purging process started a while back, HERE.  Well, we're about to have the culminating event folks.

And, the organizing has bled into our own personal textile collections and we've all decided to let go of a few things.  So, not only will there be major sale prices on things from the shop and the back room, there will be vintage quilts, vintage quilt tops, gorgeous curtain panels, linens galore, vintage bed spreads, flour sacks and much, much more price to sell and only available October 1st - 6th.  Then, it's back to the closets with them (if you haven't all snatched them up!)

In this pile and pile behind are fabulous bedspreads, 1930s quilt tops, a crazy quilted pig.

Hand painted curtain panels from the 1940's from Emma's collection

Lace bedspread, classic early 20th century peach bedding, and darling simple picnic quilts

SO MANY EMBROIDERY TRANSFERS!!

Martha Stewart Living anyone?

GORGEOUS Work Baskets from the 1930s - 1960s.  SO MUCH INSPIRATION!

Pamphlets, pamphlets and more pamphlets!  Dating from the 1930s - 1980s.  Covering everything from tatting, crochet, doilies, hot pads, afghans, sweaters - the list goes on and on!

Flour Sacks!

This picture does not do this basket justice!  Those bags have ADORABLE quilt pieces dating from the 1930s (Dresden Plates People!) to the 1960s.

A few stragglers.  Untreated raffia just in time for the holidays!

This is just day one of setting up so I'm excited to see what day two brings about!

Challenge Accepted

We here at the little Thimble that Could are on a mission. Have you ever seen "the back room" here at the shop? Well if you have you know that it's packed. If you haven't, it's full to the brim...I mean it's really full. We have zippers, snaps, sewing machines, needles, fabric, patterns, rick rack, bias tape, quilt pieces, tracing paper, hem tape, ribbon and books all boxed, labeled and stacked on shelves that literally tower over our work space. We have fabrics that are posted only online all color coordinated, shelved and organized by category. There are irons placed shoulder to shoulder in the window sill, spinning wheels, hangers and display pieces that precariously hang from the ceiling. It is, to say the least, an exquisite, creative, organized disaster. In an attempt to bridle this wondrous, mostly-vintage mess, we have began a purge of our lesser favorite pieces. Emma and I (Hannah) have been frantically posting items to our Ebay and Etsy shops in hopes of dispersing our stash of totally cool and practical items.

We love our vintage needle books. We just can't get rid of them. We think they'd make lovely stocking stuffers or gift card holders. 

Online fabric sales are just another retail outlet for our little business!

Patterns, patterns, patterns. 

For our long-term customers, remember all of our aprons in the original shop? They're making a come back!

Our personal stash of our favorite vintage patterns. 

The view from my desk. Is that safe? Probably not. A little terrifying? Yes. Do all those boxes contain awesome things? Absolutely.

200th Post and Vintage Linen Obsessions

Hannah pointed out to me that our next blog post (this post) was going to be our 200th post and wondered if maybe we should do a little giveaway to celebrate.  I thought this was a fine idea and so we set out to turn a few things from this cabinet:

into some crisp little pretties.  And these are what beckoned:

We spent the last day of Hannah’s vacation sewing and it was a good day.  All of these adorable little aprons were made from salvaged linens, vintage fabrics, vintage trims and a few vintage aprons that were in need of some sprucing.  Isn't that aqua and red printed tablecloth above BEAUTIFUL!!  It had so many holes and stains and I loved it so much!  It was wonderful to see it turned into something new and fancy!  

Here at the shop, we all have such a soft spot for vintage linens.  Especially the damaged ones.  We know about all of the hard work, stiff necks and pricked fingers kind of work that went into these linens and then to see a pile of them in a thrift store or even worse, in a dumpster!!  We love to make up happy little stories about the women who worked on the linens as we rescue them and breath new life into them.  It is always a heart warming process.

SSOOOOOO.......  the giveaway, I'm sure you're wondering about the giveaway.  :-)

Hannah and I are going to put together a wonderful little bundle of vintage linens, vintage fabrics and vintage trims to that you can be a part of the linen rescuing as well!  We hope that this little bundle will inspire you to create a little, crisp pretty for yourself!  I'm going to wait until we have a winner and you can tell me what colors you would like and we'll do our best to match!

TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT (PREFERABLY APRON/VINTAGE LINEN RELATED) ON THIS POST (NOT ON FACEBOOK) AND WE WILL CHOOSE OUR WINNER AFTER 3:00 PM FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8th.

Fabulous

Mom and I recently helped out Sunrise Community Church down if Fair Oaks with their most recent "Reminisce" event.  This time around we all jumped into the 1950's.  It was a lovely event with a great old car out front, classic (ORIGINAL!!) Jukebox in the lobby, ice cream sundaes and some great turquoise and pink to boot!  Mom, I, my dear friend Marie and a few of the teenage girls from the congregation put on a fashion show that was an absolute hit.

Marie in mom's 1962 8th Grade School Dance Dress.

Me in Grandma Betty's circle skirt.  

Classic mother/daughter shot.  

This little fashion show was a lot of work but very much worth it.  I received a call from the coordinator today and she said that that the audience of women were thrilled with the show.  It was fun for mom and I pull out all of our family garments that we've collected and share them.  I think that Auntie Eleanor and Betty Mom would have been pleased to see their skirts in the show.