The Only Danger: Being Hugged By Giant Pandas

Naomi sent me this link, from Ramona West Vintage. I love that applique -- so pretty and fresh.

The dress is $65, and measures B37/H43.

I wish it had pockets, because I think it would look great with these random shoes I bought on eBay over the weekend:



After I hit "Buy it Now" I realized that I didn't remember the last pair of shoes I'd purchased in a real store, which is pretty weird. (And I count discount chains like DSW and Loehmann's when I say "real stores".) I don't have particularly hard-to-fit feet (8.5, you are my friend) and I'm willing to pass along failures pretty speedily (or turn around and relist them if they don't fit). Has anyone else decided they can do all their shoe-shopping on Zappos and eBay?

Etsy's loss is your gain

Jace (at Gremly Girl) recently let me know of a change to Etsy's search that I wasn't aware of ... the new default Etsy search is for handmade items only:




So if you search, say, "fauxlero" on Etsy, without changing the default to "Vintage" ... well, you wouldn't get much. Then you would believe there are no fake boleros on Etsy, and, considering how many fake-bolero links I've been sent in the past 24 hours, that's un-possible.

In order to make it worth your while to change the little drop-down in the search box from "handmade" to "vintage" (see below)




a bunch of Etsy sellers have banded together to offer a special "Buried Treasure" promotion. They're offering 10% off through the end of May to Dressaday readers who put "dressaday" in the message to sellers. The site won't input the discount automatically, so buyers will get a revised Paypal invoice from the seller. (Some pattern sellers offer additional shipping and quantity discounts, which they'll combine with the dressaday discount.)

Here's the list of participating Etsy sellers, in alphabetical order:

Bamabelle -- vintage clothing
Enigma Vintage -- vintage clothing
Gremly Girl -- vintage patterns
Joules -- vintage clothing and patterns
Just Picked Vintage -- vintage patterns & notions
Pattern Mania -- vintage patterns
Pattern Shop -- vintage patterns
Pattern Stash -- vintage patterns
Sandritocat -- vintage patterns

I suggest you take advantage of the discount by perhaps snapping up something like this:




Or this:




It'd be a shame to let those dresses languish, undiscovered and almost undiscoverable, just because Etsy changed their search ...

Have yourself an Etsy little Christmas

Except for The Boy (who is getting a lot of Wiigames and Wiicessories, because the Wii is something we like to play as much as he does -- unlike, say, Marvel X-Men Checkers, which even pictures of Wolverine can't redeem -- and you can get a CROSSBOW for it), I'm trying to make this a books-and-Etsy-and-maybe-CafePress Christmas, present-wise.

And there is SO MUCH on Etsy, it's not even close to manageable. I had to narrow my jewelry search down to "jewelry necklace pendant red" to even get to FIFTY-TWO pages. That's a lot to choose from!

This one was one of my absolute favorites:




Isn't that lovely?

I also went through SEVENTEEN pages of stuff tagged "dictionary", of which I liked this, especially:




This made me laugh out loud:




And then there's this handy tote bag from We Are BANG (they have other letters, if your name doesn't begin with E, but if your name doesn't begin with E I suggest changing it, as all the cool kids have chosen to come right after D in the alphabet):




And this scarf, which is a bit pricey, but worth it -- handmade and so beautiful:




In addition to some Etsy shopping, I'm also going to make some custom t-shirts for people -- this one is for my little boy. He asked me to make him an "I like pie" t-shirt, so, voilà:




(Don't worry, he doesn't read the blog, this won't ruin Santa for him.)

(I know, I know, we haven't done the Dress A Day t-shirts yet; I got caught up in researching alternate t-shirt suppliers and then got overwhelmed. But soon. And there might be a special Dress A Day holiday-type thingamajig this week, if I'm lucky. Or if you're lucky. Somebody's gonna be lucky. Just you wait.)

Any other suggestions for doing a smaller-and-indie-er Christmas (or great games for the Wii)? Please leave 'em in the comments ... and remember, you can click on any of the images above to visit the sellers' pages.

GWP

Amanda at the Etsy store butterflyblue is making these dress-patterned-themed cards and offering them to people who buy patterns from her shop (and use the code "Dressaday" when doing so).

Getting sweet handmade bonuses like this is one of my favorite things about buying from Etsy shops or on Ebay or from small websites. I love it when the packing slip is an old postcard, or a piece of construction paper rubber-stamped with the name of the store, or a cut-up magazine page, and not something printed from a laser printer straight out of Microsoft Office's "Invoice" template.

If you're looking for something to buy to get the card, may I suggest this?




Isn't this the dress the über-competent 1950s mom would wear? I think so ... casual, yet trim and neat, and with that lovely collar. It would make a great summer office dress in pique -- cool for the street, but easy to throw a cardigan over in the Land of Air-Conditioning. And when someone wearing this calls your full name (first, last AND middle) out across the neighborhood, you know she means business.

It's Alive!

A long time ago I posted about this pattern, McCalls 5147:



And now Toi has found it all made up, for sale on Etsy ($40, B36, click on the image to visit the listing):




I love it when I find handmade vintage for which I can identify the source pattern -- it's like CSI: Sewing, isn't it (except with fewer splatter marks)? And it really helps when I'm trying to decide which of the embarrassingly large number of patterns in my sewing room should be worked up next -- look how well this one worked out! I love the rick-rack, and the orange & plaid combo. How fancy would this look in plaid taffeta and velvet? (It'd also look about six years old, but I don't usually let that stop me.)

Has anyone else ever found a dress and known what pattern it was sewn from? (It doesn't count if you found it in your own closet ...)

Elegance *and* pockets!

Reader Elizabeth sent me a link to the Etsy store that has this pattern -- it's called, unsurprisingly, patternshop. Some nice stuff, but what really caught my eye was this dress. I love the lines of it.

Despite the fact that I usually wear big ol' skirts and vintage-y details, I have a secret hidden Calvin-Kleinesque minimalist buried under the novelty prints, hoping someday to escape into something like this.

My inner minimalist wants this in gunmetal-gray textured silk (and she doesn't want the jacket, thanks for asking). She doesn't want the hat, either, or the corsage, but she might, possibly, maybe, after careful consideration, put some black silk piping at those shoulder seams and around the neck. Nowhere else. And of course, since this dress has pockets, she wouldn't carry a bag. She wouldn't wear an armful of bangles, either, but instead one large blackened-silver cuff, gorgeously grotesque and almost Giger-like in design. (I haven't figured out the shoes yet, but when I do, I'll let you know.)

Of course, since my inner minimalist almost never gets to come out, she'll continue to think about this dress while reading philosophy and listening to aleatory music in her cell, hidden behind the bolts of silly fabric. She doesn't mind. She likes the quiet.

I only wanted 2 see u laughing in the purple rain

Jennifer (of the excellent Naughty Secretary Club) sent me the link to this dress, which is by her sister Hope (of Hot Pink Pistol).

It's hand-painted, obviously, although I would like, for a moment, to entertain the notion of a world where the image of Purple Rain-era Prince is omnipresent and heavily marketed, sort of like all those Che Guevara t-shirts.

It's such a short leap, isn't it, from finding a purple satin dress to thinking "I should paint Prince on this dress! That would be awesome!"

And lo, it is awesome.

If I had this dress, I wouldn't wear it ... I'd put it on a mannequin and keep in my living room (or, if my husband objected, the bedroom, or, if he REALLY objected, my office) because, as a work of art, it would make me happy every day.

Even better would be to have one of those recordable greeting-card sound chips stuck inside it, hooked to a motion sensor, and then, if people got too close to it, BOOM! Purple Rain would play. (The really climax-y "I only wanna see you" part, naturally.)

I think paintings on dresses are the new dogs playing poker. Ever-so-slightly cheesy, but cheerful in a way that you can't really explain.

Whether you'd display this, wear this or just admire from a (very long) distance (I admit no other options), be sure to check out the link to Hope's other stuff -- the David-Bowie-in-Labryinth-dress is equally fantastic, if slightly scarier. (Bowie was terrifying in that movie, was he not? Sure, half of it was the known fear-inducing quality of spandex, but still ...)

Another Biased Opinion

Hey folks! Remember this dress? Well, Anna of Booty Vintage (large sized patterns!) offered to scan and send in her similar pattern, for people who wanted to see the back of the envelope, as well. And here it is! Wasn't that kind of her?

Here's the back. Such a lovely dress ... so hard to put pockets in it ... sigh.




I really love the brown version. I don't know why, but I think that shade of chocolate brown is so chic ... especially when (as you can, in an illustration) match your accessories so perfectly.

I'd also like to make myself crazy by trying to work out how to do this with stripes. Thin, pencil-width stripes, arranged so that they looked solid at the gathered parts. Nutso, right? But oh, so worth it if it worked!