1908 Sears catalogue

Cover of the 1908 Sears catalogue

I’m thinking about Edwardian walking skirts, and decided to look not just at online sources, but remembered I had an 1908 Sears catalogue on my bookshelf to reference.

Opening page of the 1908 Sears catalogue

This is going to be  a bit of a photo dump, just to be able to give some context to each of these images – since I won’t be going into it the same way in my post (when I eventually DO make the skirt…)

A cage without a bird

Little glittery bird inside a handmade rustic wire birdcage

What is it that fascinates me about bird cages?  I don’t mean actual bird cages, but rather the iconography of them; the metaphor.  I don’t even love birds.  (I like birds well enough, but I’m a dog-as-a-pet-person, not a bird-as-a-pet-person… ifyaknowwhatImean.)

Open birdcage with soaps…

When decorating my bathroom, I selected bird cages to decorate with.  There are mini bird cages holding soaps, bird cages holding make up, and bird cages perched (get it?) on the very top of my shelf too.

The bird cages in my bathroom started their lives in a craft supply store discount bin (and later I saw them at the old Inglewood Suzie Q Beads too, as part of their decorating scheme) and then they were spray painted silver, followed by a dusting of copper spray paint.  The result is something that feels vintage rather than metallic – like something that has started to tarnish rather than something new and shiny.  The copper warms up the silver too, which I really like.

A (twisted) Mad Hatter’s Hat – Complete

A Mad Hatter style hat for a costume party

Ages ago I posted the construction details for a Mad Hatter style hat for an event – however I ended up getting sick right before the event, and never finished off the last few details of the rest of the costume – and ended up not attending the event. 

Corset Class – Busking for change

Back-laced corset in purple hand-dyed dupioni silk

If you are planning to make your own corset (or shopping somewhere with lots of options) one of your considerations should be your front opening. (Assuming your corset laces in the back.)

With no front opening:

• You’ll have an opportunity for embroidery, painting, beadwork, or other embellishment.
• You can place fabric with a large motif uncut on your centre front
• No front-opening is a style common to historical corsets
• In order to get into your garment you’ll likely need to undo most or all of your lacing. This will almost always need an assistant to get dressed.

need large test tubes?

6″ long test tubes and battery-operated lantern

Although I haven’t blogged about all things Steampunk in a while, I thought I’d send out a message about a cool steampunk-y find from Michaels…

In the $1.50 section right now they have extra large 6″ long ‘test tubes’ with black stoppers or cork stoppers. The glass does have “not suitable for food” on it, though I have no idea why… unless the glass is coated with something? (If you can think of any reason, please let me know in the comments below!)

I picked up 6 of them for a possible project – but I wanted to share them with my local readers too.

I don’t know if other Michael’s will have them too, but if you’re in Calgary, I found them at the Westhills location on Tuesday.  If you think you could use them  – leave me  a message with what your ideas are!

Oh.. while I was there I also grabbed a nice lantern with a battery-operated candle. It’s kind of steampunk-y too I think, though I bought it to put with my Norse feast kit for the time being. (At least until my other project (spoilers!) is complete…)