A Vintage Find, Literally

I have mentioned my house before—old, small, and quirky, but home just as well. Our upstairs has a tiny unfinished room within the pitch of the roof. We use that space for storing all the junk we can't find a better place for (cast off toys, old paint cans, crates of books...).

Ever since we moved to this house six years ago, there has been a box shoved in the crook of that room, where the roof meets the floor. It was partially covered by loose insulation and other debris so I put off pulling it out and tossing it for another day (year), and finally got to it yesterday.

I pulled my turtleneck over my mouth and nose (OSHA standard procedure, right?), went in and came out with this old hat box:

On the lid is the name of a old millinery shop with all of it's locations, which included one in my home town.

I blew the dust off the top and gently removed the lid...

In it was this incredible hat! Just like the ones those glamorous women in old-time movies wore, complete with a veil. The tag read: C.Crawford Hollidge.

With a little research I found this blog where I learned that C. Crawford Hollidge was a high end women's specialty store in downtown Boston. It was a shopping landmark for almost 60 years until it completely burned down in 1967.

I called my mother to ask if she remembered the store and she was thrilled to be reminded of it. She told stories of shopping there with her mother as a child. My mom couldn't wait to call my aunts and ask them if they remembered C. Crawford Hollidge, too.

And to think! ...that hat has been sitting in my house for decades. Finding that hat made my day. We all had fun trying it on, recalling the glamour of a time long ago.

Good Neighbors

It's been a while, I know. We are back online, after a complete computer meltdown, all thanks to my sister who loaned us her old CPU. Whew! It's a crazy feeling, being shut off from the world like that (chuckle chuckle). But I have to give a shout out to my kind neighbors who, as soon as I mentioned our computer died, called and emailed to say that not only did they have an extra computer we could use, but also let me know I could go on over and use theirs whenever I need to. Seriously, neighbors don't get much better than that.

Speaking of good neighbors, I had the pleasure of being assigned the booth next to Little Garlic Press at last Sunday's Design Hive Market in Cambridge, MA.

Little Garlic Press is a Portland, ME based operation featuring clothing made from re-purposed vintage fabrics, cotton t-shirts bearing antique botanical illustrations, and beautiful paper products. The creative force behind the shop is Nikaline who, aside from her 4 (four!) other jobs, finds time to design gorgeous scarves, skirts, dresses and shirts from vintage clothing and fabric she cleverly sources.


She has gotten her hands on so much vintage fabric over the years that she sells that, too. I couldn't resist this piece of mushroom print polyester fabric she was selling, so I scooped it up before anyone else could buy it. I can only imagine what was originally done with this fabric in the 70's ( think: women's pantsuits and men's shirts a la Travolta). What will I do with it? I have no idea. I just know needed it. Polyester mushroom print fabric doesn't come along every day, folks.

You can find Little Garlic Press at Material Objects in Portland, at Design Hive during the holidays, or at her Etsy shop (her shop is currently empty, but check back soon as she'll be adding new items).