Job Warehouse, Melbourne

I didn't bother to go out of my way to fabric shop while in Melbourne, but couldn't help but notice the sign in the window of Job Warehouse ('specialising in vintage fabrics', or something similar). Job Warehouse, as I'm sure Melbournians know, is a freakish anomaly. It's right in the CBD, next to an extremely popular Italian espresso bar and a couple of doors down from one of the city's finest Italian restaurants.* It is a store that by all odds should've gone the way of milk in bottles.


Here is what Job Warehouse looks like. From the back of the store looking towards the door. What you can't see is that there are several doorways on the left of the photo, into rooms filled with more fabric. Unfortunately I couldn't actually get into them, because fabric bolts were stacked chest-high across the doorways.


There are no labels, and no prices. Apparently the gentlemen that work there price according to mood. Well they liked me well enough, because I paid on average $10 p/m. For three metres of 1970s tartan acetate taffeta, two metres of (80s?) striped cotton and five metres of printed panels.


That's just half a panel I've photographed. I have no idea when these are from - ideas, anyone? The full circle skirt suggests 50s, but the print and colourway to me looks more early 80s? And the best bit - look around the panel. Along one selvedge is a printed band - for a waistband or matching button-band on a blouse. There's collar panels, and two kind of pocket panels. Pocket panels! Two kinds! I bought enough for a full circle skirt for me (too much? Should I make it only a half?) and the half panel over will become an apron.


* For those that can't afford to eat at Grossi Florentino itself (we didn't), I completely recommend the Cellar Bar - the cheaper, more casual restaurant on the side of the building also run by Mr Florentino. Most meals under $20, and absolutely fabulous. Same quality ingredients, just simpler food (spaghetti bolognaise, osso bucco, eggplant parmigiana, minestrone). Most of those dishes are under $20. Best. Value. Ever.

It's a helluva town.

Alright, it's been a little quiet round here recently. But rest assured that as soon as we get home and can download all the pics I've taken on BCB's iphone there will be some Very Interesting Posts. Get home? you say. Yes, my friends, I am in Melbourne.

Be prepared for images of the World's Most Astonishing Fabric Shop ($10 p/m for genuine 1950s skirt panels in pristine condition; $10 p/m for bird-poo stained calico; priced according to how the owners feel that day...); possibly the World's Largest Vintage Store (also selling, oddly, a stack of berets knitted to Ysolda's gretel pattern...); photos of some Very Lovely Handspun at Extremely Reasonable Prices ($6 - $8 per 50g sound good to everyone? Yep, good). Oh, and I bought the Cutest Vintage Dress Ever. 1940s, black velvet trim, fabric with little pink birds singing all over. Tres Black Apple.

Just hang on a day or two more.

edit: If customs have a tantie over my suitcase (they shouldn't - I was talked into not trying to take cheese and fresh pasta on the plane) my cover story is that I'm a fashion designer, okay? There is no other way to explain how yarn and fabric takes up over half my suitcase. Back me up, okay?

Vintage knitting

I went down South for a couple of days, to visit Badly Coloured Boy's mum. We rode horsies and fed orphaned possums and met the new dog and were offered an unwanted kitten (see orphaned possums above) and I saw a very interesting frog in the lettuce patch, so it was an excellent visit all round. And of course when we went into town we did a run of the op-shops. I was really disappointed that someone has cleared out all the vintage sewing patterns. Last time there were heaps from the sixties and seventies. Now they're all late eighties or more recent. I did get some fabric remnants and some excellent vintage knitting booklets. These are my favourites.


A beginner's knitting guide for teenage girls, from the 1960s! But what might a teenage girl make?


Why, a sweater, to catch a beau! (Guess the boyfriend sweater curse is a fairly recent superstition). There was a pattern for a hat and booties 'to show off baby' a couple of pages earlier, so methinks knitting wasn't the only things the girls were doing to snag a guy! Which is a pity, because


in ten years time those women will look up from their needles and realise the handsome beau they snagged/ married with the aid of a shotgun and a baby bump has turned into one of these four men. Hirsute, wearing clothes too tight and apparently interested only in other men (I do like the brown and yellow number on the far right, though).

knitting post-war

i recently picked up a vintage knitting magazine off ebay, attracted by the variety (vintage magazines actually tend to have quite repetitive, often boring patterns).
this has some astonishingly fashion-forward pieces, for 1947. like this 'jumper with apron front'.


sadly, as far as i can tell, there's no unique constructions. you knit a jumper, then sew that panel over the top. then wear your knitted belt over the whole lot.


now, if anyone ever tries to blame the 1980s for spawning the batwing silhouette, you can point them to that. in fact, it is actually referred as a batwing jumper.

and while i may have designed a drop-stitch scarf for your knitting enjoyment, the AWW are way, way ahead of me when it comes to the elegance and glamour potent in dropped stitches.


hehe. i find the cravat kind of funny.