Dude, the Republicans in Utah are NUTS

Not just nuts, but batshit crazy.

Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for the Utah County Republican Party, had submitted a resolution warning that Satan's minions want to eliminate national borders and do away with sovereignty.

In a speech at the convention, Larsen told those gathered that illegal immigrants "hate American people" and "are determined to destroy this country, and there is nothing they won't do."

Illegal aliens are in control of the media, and working in tandem with Democrats, are trying to "destroy Christian America" and replace it with "a godless new world order -- and that is not extremism, that is fact," Larsen said.

It must be some fun to live in Utah.
The whole story can be found here.

Personally I think my cat Nico is one of Satan's Minions....

Everyone Needs Bunnies and Poodles

So, I am not into cute.
Normally.
And though I like purses and have a nice little collection of vintage ones, I usually like to buy very utilitarian black bags with no style for my everyday use.
That is why it is so strange that I am actually dying to own this purse:













Not only that, I am thinking about spending money I DON'T HAVE on a damn purse.
I'm sure the purse snobs out that are all "what? it is not a Fendi or Gucci?"
Or whatever is the cool purses now.
Who cares? Do you see those gold rivets?













Bunnies and freaking poodles!
Bunnies and poodles on a great navy leather satchel bag.












I'm dying.
I refuse to tell you who has it or what vintage shop in Iowa it might be residing in.
Not.
A.
Word.

There Might Be Patterns

The other day I got a call from my friend who has a brick and mortar Vintage shop here in town.
She was going on a "house call" to a home where a woman had passed, her brother was trying to clean the place out to sell while caring for his elderly Brother-In-Law.
"There might be Patterns" she said.













So of course I said "yes"!
The deal is that she gets most of the clothes on these trecks, but she does share the pickings with me nicely and I get first pick on the patterns and sewing notions.
The gentleman's sister was a compulsive shopper.
Lots o' clothes that had NEVER been worn, I got a few items.
Not only was she a compulsive clothes shopper, she also was a compulsive pattern one. She saved everything from about the time she moved into the house in 79'. If only she had never moved. Who knows what we would have found.













And she bought almost ONLY Vogue.
And she did not use them.
AND she remembered to get the tags!
So there were about 300 patterns.
A number were too new, some had been used and the patterns just balled up and put back in the envelope (I weep at the loss of a Pucci and a YSL Russian) and they could not be saved.
In the end I have about 100 large format Vogues (Vogue Paris Original and the like) most uncut and with tags from the 60's-to late 70's along with about another 80 or so small vogue and other maker patterns.
Lots of Dior, Lanvin, Molyneux and more.













I've started listing them at Sew-Retro Vintage Patterns.
Stop by and take a look.

I Love The Pope

I love his red shoes, I love his cool hats, I love that has name is actually Ratzinger, I love that he was head of the Office of the Inquisition (how cool is that?), I loved Cardianl Ratzinger so much that I have a coffe mug that says:
The Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club "putting the smackdown on heresy since 1981."
I love bizarre "Pope Facts".




I'm a good Catholic...luckily I have a sense of humor since I just read this over at mimi smartypants:

DISAPPOINTING TESTICLE RESEARCH

I recently read a book about transgendered teenagers on the West Coast, and one of the chapters gives some superficial background on transgender history, mentioning the "Pope Joan" myth specifically. It also states as fact that Popes used to sit on an open-seated chair during their elevation while a cardinal felt around for testicles. You do not know how sad it makes me that this is probably not true. However, in the course of my fact-finding I did learn that the Camerlengo used to have to job of hitting a dead Pope in the head with a special ceremonial hammer. Which is so awesome it almost makes up for the lack of papal ball-handling.

Reading that gave me one of those "laughing without making noise" moments where you can't catch your breath and tears are running down your face.

(I guess I could have said ROTFL and LOL, but except for OMG! I really don't get into netspeak and I'm over 25.)

*
An OPEN LETTER
Dear Ebay Seller:
I'm a great buyer. I pay right away, leave gushing feedback and am not hyper picky so will not freak if you missed a flaw and demand a partial refund. Unfortunately I did not bid or did not win your item for the reasons below;





Seller #1:
That is a lovely set of 40's PJs you have there.
I would LOVE to buy them except I can't.
Why? you may ask.
Well I refuse to pay $10 for an item that will cost you $4.50 (less if you go 1st class) to mail. I'm more then willing to pay a bit of a "handling" charge. We all have those built into our shipping costs, but that is a bit much. Plus you do not say how you actually plan to ship..."flat shipping rate" does not tell me anything.
Sorry you missed out on a sale.

Seller#2:
Wow what a coat! I would LOVE to own it, but you don't have a shipping charge listed and there are only 10 min left in your auction.
There is not enough time for me to "email me if for a shipping quote".
Sorry 'bout that.

Seller #3:
I am so happy with the cool leopard cape I bid on and won. I have taken a chance on you even with your crappy feedback AND no shipping cost listed
'cause I only bid the opening $4.99 bid and won.
$14.00 for shipping is a bit high, but that is still cool as long as the
cape is in the "excellent" shape you have said it is.
What really chaps my hide is the lack of response from you.
I emailed to ask you if that cute swimming suit had a metal zipper.
I emailed to ask you how much extra that dress would have been over the cost of the cape to ship together.
I emailed you from both of my ebay IDs.
Nothing.
Nada.
No peep. Just my invoice.
Guess what?
I did not bid on your other items.
They pretty much sold for the opening bids too.
THAT is sad. If you had just emailed me back you would have made more money.
Pity.

Seller #4
I wanted that dress soooo bad and even bid on it though your $10 shipping cost required me to go do all kinds of brain gymnastics to justify the purchase. Luckily you started the bidding at .99. The sad thing is if you had just started the bidding at a reasonable amount and NOT tried to make your money back on shipping I would have gone higher and YOU would have made more money.
Your Loss.

Sincerely,
A "just want to spend my fucking money why do you make it so hard?" ebay buyer.

ETA: I just came back from getting the mail. Today I got a lovely 40's sheer nylon dress folded in a manila envelope and mailed for $1.75 (I paid around $6.50 for priority shipping) and another dress rolled into a ball and stuffed into a way small box for which I DID pay $10 for shipping.
Sigh.

If you are a buyer do NOT take this as an indictment of all eBay/vintage sellers.
I never ship like this.
I have a ton of friends who sell on ebay and/or have websites and NONE of them ship like this. I hate, hate, hate that there are sellers out there who give the rest of us such bad names. And these items with the high shipping and crappy packaging could just as well been books or buttons or patterns or any number of items I have shopped for or bought on eBay.

*I just put Lucius up there cause he is so pretty and it makes me giggle thinking of Mr. Malfoy shopping on eBay for a new pimp cane.

For the War Effort

A few days ago I got this WW2 era booklet in the mail:

During the years for World War 2 it was considered your patriotic duty to sacrifice
and make due. There was rationing in food, gas and even fabrics for clothing.
One of the ways women could help with the war effort, besides having Victory
Gardens, was to be frugal with their clothing. Taking an old item and making it
new was all the rage and this pamphlet is one of many produced during that time
as a guide to help the home seamstress remake her boring clothing into
up-to-date fashionable garments.