The past couple of months I’ve been doing a few garage sales. I’m not a regular visitor of yard sales and flea markets, but I’ve been thinking about it more and more lately. Seeing all the gems people find at such sales (especially in the US it seems) has motivated me to go and look for old sewing related things. I was lucky to have several of such sales organized where I was spending time during the week-ends. My first “hunt” was on French Mother’s day, on May 29th. We went to have lunch with my mother, and just as we arrived in her town we saw a big sign for a yard sale happening just that day. We did a little family trip there after eating, and I have to say it was an excellent idea, as I came back with two wonderful items!

Wonder n°1

This engraving (which I got with the frame) is from the old French magazine “La Mode Illustrée”. The frame isn’t in the best shape but it’s useful as a protection for the plate. I’ll see if I keep it or not. I think this would be lovely hung on the wall of my sewing corner. ^_^

Wonder n°2

This is a collection of magazines called “Le journal de la beauté” (“Beauty magazine”) going from November 28, 1897 to November 1st, 1898. The binding is a little damaged and some pages are folded or have small rips, but it’s a real gem!When I saw this big book with its unusual size and the year engraved on the edge, I instantly thought of the old fashion magazines collections I had seen at antique bookshops. And I was right! I was so happy when I opened it.

It was love at first sight. All those drawings, the old-fashioned texts and pieces of advice, it’s just perfect! I intend to take my time and fully enjoy this book, picking little bits of texts here and there, savoring the insights of what life was at that time and the wonderful outfits.And as if this wasn’t enough, I found a small bonus hidden at the end of the book: a piece of paper taken from “Le Petit Echo de la mode”, which seems to be from the 30s (although I’m no specialist of this time period, so I could be wrong). I don’t have any picture of it yet, I found it afterwards. I’ll show it later.The best part of this is that the whole lot cost me… 3 euros! Since I’m used to prices on Ebay or specialized shops in Paris I just couldn’t believe it. I’ve been so lucky!! I’m really happy I found those items. The only problem is to find where to put this wonderful but huge and fragile book. ^^; Of course this got me totally hooked on yard sales and I after that I wanted to go to more, even though I knew I probably wouldn’t get that lucky each time. We have an expression for this in French that says it’s beginner’s luck. I’ve done other sales since this first one and for now I’ve always found something interesting, although I have to admit not as impressive and uncommon as this book. But this will be the subject of a future post.