hrj

A reasonably nice haul from the Oakland Museum White Elephant Sale today. Like last year, I went mainly for the clothing this time, in the interests of working some more on overhauling my wardrobe. (Especially my work wardrobe.)

The general goal was to pick up some more nice tops, find one or more medium-weight wool suit-type coats that I could wear at my desk when it’s cold (rather than huddling in my fleece jacket all day), and try my luck on finding some pants with a good fit. I succeeded in all of these, although I found out how many different ways pants are capable of not quite fitting right.

I came out with three assorted knit silk tops, one silk blouse, two button-down shirts, one a rust-colored linen, one a pinstripe bronze silk. I sorted through half a dozen wool suit jackets (the final decisions were made with the advice of scotica) and ended up with two: a dark plum from Sag Harbor and my favorite of the lot, a light brown herringbone tweed from Ralph Lauren.


The pants were more boring. Despite trying on several nice wool pairs (and one black velvet), the only ones I ended up with were two black cotton and one tan/khaki of the same. One will need to be hemmed, which I’ll try to get to tonight or it won’t get done for ages.

I did my usual scavenging of the odd table linens. A very nice thing about the OMWES is that when they have something in the linen department marked “linen”, you can be confident the fiber is actually linen. When they only have partial sets of napkins (or only napkins and no matching table cloth), they pretty much price them at a dollar a pop. I’ve found that the lighter weight “cocktail” napkins in linen are just about right for handkerchiefs. And then, of course, if you get a nice plain lightweight linen tablecloth (or large napkins), it’s about the only reliable source of that quality of linen for small sewing projects like coifs and whatnot. So I picked up the following:

3 light blue “cocktail” size napkins (which match some linens I already have)
6 white “cocktail” size napkins in a perfect handkerchief weight to restock my handkerchief supply. (When you actually use the things and launder them regularly, they do wear out.)
8 white in-between-size napkins – not a set, but they all have the same plain hem-stitched edging; just on spect, no specific plans.
4 white dinner-size napkins with a small rather ugly Battenberg lace decoration in one corner; picked up for the quality of the fabric to use for small sewing projects.
1 white tablecloth ca. 30”x30”, plain hemstitch edge, no decoration; probably for SCA use as veiling or general headclothage.

Oh, and also a ¾ length black leather coat. But only for creative reuse – it has a rip on one pocket, so it was marked down to $6. And given that it’s the perfect weight for the medieval-inspired-modern purse I’ve been designing, you can’t beat that for leather yardage.