Gone To The Beach: 11.06.2015

Friday, November 6, 2015

The Flea

Hi guys! We woke up today to dense fog and very warm temperatures. (70*) I'm back to wearing shorts. As I walked Mo the sun was warm on my shoulders and it felt like June. If the fog burns off it may be a beach day! I'll bring my wool applique, It's a Crock and enjoy "Indian summer".

Meanwhile here is a look at last Sunday's flea market. The Halloween/ first weekend of November flea is often very good, with real antiques and primitives, not just garage sale junk. This weekend the flea did not disappoint.

At the very first booth! ---who buys at the very first table? yeesh---was a wonderful dealer with good antiques. I was fast and beat out a woman who was also reaching for the stack of antique doll clothes on the front table. [she settled for perusing a set of pillow cases with nice lace and embroidered blue eyed kittens.]. Look! Great finds.
A chemise, perhaps not antique:

A lovely petticoat, handmade eyelet lace and a teeny tiny button and handmade buttonhole. All finished inside with french seams.

And exceptional pantalettes!

They too have good fine lace and a tiny button, but the best thing is they are made authentically with an open crotch.

Ladies in hoop skirts c. 1860s couldn't slide down their underwear to go to the bathroom [outhouse?] and instead their underpants were made with wide open crotch seams. Again beautifully finished, tiny stitches, french seams.

I was very pleased and surprised to find out that the pantalettes....

...and the chemise fit my antique 18"? china head doll perfectly.

Also this petticoat from a awhile ago, worn by a rag doll in progress, also fits the big china doll.

The new petticoat fits no one, but well worth the small price. Shown with a miniature doll 5" , who is the big doll's own dolly.

I am hoping someday to find an authentic dress for my doll / dolls. Though making repro dresses for them is always on my to do list. Maybe this find will inspire me.

Then, buttons and bells, from a guy with what looked like someone's great granny's sewing stash.

The buttons are maybe for my Flag quilt. I am gathering vintage eagle/ military brass buttons for one of the flags.
[later: ugh. No.]

The bells may be for Christmas stockings, or angels...

and I have a notion to open one to see if it will make a good topper for a sewing strawberry, like this one.

Antique Gorham sterling silver strawberry sewing pincushion.:

And a good haul of thimbles.

Three sterling. $3.oo/ 3,oo/ $5.oo.

One is junk, center.

T he nicest of the silver ones, here---

---is marked inside, and also possibly monogrammed. In the days when ladies sewed together in church or charity or social groups, they'd bring their own thimbles of course. Many thimbles are marked with names or initials. It wasn't vanity, It was a way to keep track of an important and valuable tool. [click to enlarge/ for details].

And one interesting odd gold colored, very worn thimble. On close inspection it says TOLEDO. Huh. Toledo Spain, or Toledo Ohio? Definitely a souvenir, but much used, bent into oval to fit, the top dimples worn nearly smooth. I found similar on the Internet; it's from Toledo Spain, made in the technique of their famous steel swords, with gold wire inlay that forms the word and flowers. The rest of the thimble is yellow wash--gold vermeil?--worn mostly away, over some sort of white metal.

It was very cherished and well-used.

Here is my collection so far:

What I didn't get---there was one booth that seemed to be a shop from Pennsylvania, judging by the license plates on their van. The dealer had some very appealing antiques, like blue painted wooden grain boxes and crocks and jugs, plus a great selection of antique / vintage pinkeeps / sewing make do's, and modern but charming primitives--cats and birds, crows, a tiny hen pincushion, quilt block pincushions, etc etc. I went to that booth and lingered FOUR times and in all my visits there was never once anyone manning the till, or overseeing the booth. Too bad.There were a lot of fun things, either to inspire my own prims or to share on my etsy space. Maybe next time?

The lady in that first booth gave me a little shopping gift bag for my doll clothes purchase and as I walked through the market, some of the dealers were offering Halloween candy, and would toss a treat into my little bag, along with the thimble or buttons I'd buy. It was so fun. I haven't trick or treated in many many years. And after walking the market for hours that mini Kit Kat bar tasted mighty good.