Sweetheartville: Supplies For Vintage Living

Hello, Dollfaces! I've been hard at work over the last several weeks on a project that's been in the works since long before Sweetheartville the Blog even began. It has consumed hours and hours of my time, but it feels so great to be able to finally say that you can now visit Sweetheartville the Shop on etsy.com. I plan to stock my own vintage-inspired handmade creations, as well as lots of vintage crafting supplies, patterns, and how to's. I will also offer a variety of vintage guides to aid you in your pursuit of a vintage lifestyle, including decorating books, cookbooks, gardening books, and more. Some of my first handmade offerings are these delightful pincushions I created using vintage planters, mugs, and other ceramic pieces.











Of course, in addition to handmade goodies and vintage craft supplies, some extra special home goods and accessories, such as this kitschy vintage basket purse, will also be available from time to time.



I hope you'll stop by the shop and have a look, and then come back here and let me know what you think. And do check back often because I plan to update the shop frequently, and will be adding my own Sweetheartville handbags, magnets and buttons made from vintage ephemera, and other one of a kind vintage-inspired handmade goods.

The "Open Baby" Blanket

Here is the solution I came up with to remedy the damage our special "Open Baby" fabric sustained in The Great Dryer Fire of Aught Eight. I briefly debated cutting out squares and pairing the fabric with another to make a simple patchwork top, but eventually decided to just applique a rather giant, sleepy-faced nesting doll (complete with embroidered apron) over the two patches of burn holes.


I used a combination of machine and hand applique, cutting the body from a pretty yellow calico covered with pink apples, and the face from a scrap of flesh toned fleece I had. A length of pink rick rack serves as her apron tie and her "crack", if you will. No, not that kind of crack. The one around her middle where she opens to reveal more and more Matryoshka inside. The whole thing is backed with a soft, fuzzy piece of dark pink fleece, and hand-tied at intervals with yellow embroidery floss. Here is the big girl on the first day of school posing with her special blanket.


It must be a hit, because the teacher tells me she naps for an hour and a half each day, snuggled underneath her Open Babies.

Vintage Tile and Linoleum Looks

Blogger and I have a love/hate relationship, so if you would like to revel in the full, large size glory of these rooms, click on over to my "Vintage Rooms" set at Flickr.

Disaster!

One week from today, my little Sugar Pea starts a part time early childhood enrichment program, or "Big Girl School", as I've termed it. Many exciting preparations have been made, including the purchase of her very own Hello Kitty lunch bag, which she calls her "kitty purse". Daily, she stands at the back door, kitty purse in hand and asks, "Ready go school?" After nearly two years of non stop, round the clock Mama/Baby time, the change of pace will enrich the both of us, I think. The transition is, naturally, bittersweet for sentimental ol' me, so to mark the momentous occasion, and to foster more excitement and positive associations for my little girl, I decided I would sew a super duper extra special blanket for her school nap times, made with the fabric of her choosing. Now, my little dumplin' has grown quite fond of Matryoshkas, also known as Russian nesting dolls, or "Open Babies", if you will, ever since I purchased a set at a garage sale several months ago. Since then her Nana has thrifted another set for her, and she is becoming quite the Open Baby aficionado. Well, we searched high and low for some fabric printed with these little dollies to no avail. When my search took me online, I was equally disappointed with the lack of Matryoshka themed fabric currently available for purchase, especially considering their recent popularity and crafty interwebs fad status. I finally tracked down some pretty cute yardage by Heather Ross for Free Spirit over at Sew Mama Sew. I called Sugar Pea to look at my computer screen, not saying a word. To my delight, her little eyes got wide, and she smiled at me saying, "Open!" Well, you know I ordered a yard and a half, and would gladly have ordered her up a couple of ponies too, just to see that look on her sweet little face. My intention was to create a simple "quilt", backing the fabric with a piece of fleece and then hand tying it at intervals with embroidery floss.
Fast forward to last week. After prewashing our special fabric, the fleece, a yard of some yummy polka dot fabric I was hoarding for something special for myself, and various pinkish clothing items, I threw the whole mess in to dry and didn't even think about it until the next day. Walking by the dryer later, I noticed a little piece of something odd on the floor. It looked black. It looked burnt. It looked like fabric. I picked it up and turned it over, and to my horror saw my delicious pink and green, now black, polka dots staring back at me. My heart sank as I opened the dryer to find this:


...a blackened, twisted, god awful disaster. The fleece had melted, fusing itself to the charred polka dot fabric and one of Sugar Pea's nightgowns. My new favorite summer blouse had three irreparable burn holes, a pair of my pjs had bits of hardened plastic from the fleece stuck all over, and, while mostly unharmed, our precious Open Baby fabric had several burn holes smack dab in the middle.


I'm torn between being sick over the loss of fabric and clothing, and being eternally grateful that the house didn't burn down. We're still not sure what caused the incident. I have a feeling it was a combination of our old dryer's "low" setting routinely reaching 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit and some fleece of inferior quality. Not wanting to drive the fifty miles to Tulsa to a proper fabric store, I was forced to settle for the baby pink offerings of the mega corporate retail giant we all know and hate. One more reason not to shop there. I have since ordered some fleece in a much more pleasing shade of fuchsia from a delightful etsy seller, thankyouverymuch. There are no further dryer incidents to report. Now I'm off to attempt to salvage the Open Babies and craft something resembling a blanket from the uncharred parts of our special fabric. Wish me luck.