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Friday Review: Three Buckets Full

Published by The Dreamstress

Three Buckets Full

509 High Street
Boulcott
Lower Hutt City
Wellington

Pogey bait extravaganza

What it is: an antiques and notions store with a focus on textiles, sewing, and beading.

'Traditional' antiques and sewing goodies: drawers full of textiles

Three Buckets Full is the Wellington areas best-kept secret: everyone who has ever been to it raves about, and loves it, but the shop does no advertising, isn’t on the internet, doesn’t really even have a phone line, is in the most unpromising location, and has the most inconspicuous, uninteresting shopfront.  If you don’t hear about the place by word of mouth, you are never going to find or visit it.

The unpromising neighborhood reflected in the inconspicuous outside

Luckily, word of mouth in the Wellington textile world is alive and well, and once I discovered it, Three Buckets Full became my favourite store ever.  Or at least, one of the more dangerous stores ever to take me in to.  It carries all of the most delightful and drool worthy pogey bait types: vintage jewellery, beads, buttons, lace, antique trims, old sewing notions, fabric, vintage textiles.  The only thing I don’t care for is the dolls.  Dolls are icky.

Drool worthy beads, buttons, and lace

Icky dolls

The Good:

Three Buckets Full is probably the only place in Wellington where you are guaranteed to find a huge selection of vintage buttons, beads, buckles, trim, ribbon and lace – everything that a historical costumer needs for trimming frocks.

Drawers full of buttons, all sorted by colour and type

I’ve used resources that I could only find at Three Buckets full on a number of projects: for Jeanne Samary’s belt clasp, on Carolyn’s dress, for the lace on my nougat corset, and to trim innumerable fluffy white undergarments.

An extravagance of beads and jewellery

Drawers full of vintage lace

The selection is extensive and delightfully scattered, as an antiques store should be, but the proprietor knows her shop, and can generally tell you instantly if she has what you need.

Lace, trim, and motifs, all carefully sorted

Among the many things that the shop carries that you might need are: silver buckles, diamante buckles, 19th century steel-cut beads, early 20th century seed beads, silk ribbon (the ribbon embroidery type), silk and cotton thread, a large selection of lace dating back to the mid-19th century, trim ranging from Victorian jet  to 50s nylon embroidery, old brooches, old buttons of every variety, vintage ribbons, antique jewellery, and even a bit of vintage fabric.

Mmmm...jewellery...want!

The shop also carries old books, old postcards and cards, old glass slides (generally of tourist attractions and artworks), a bit of old crockery, watches, bone crochet hooks, old shoe horns, quite a lot of dolls (ick), and a thousand other covetable bits and bobs that I have forgotten to mention.

Antique glasswear and crystal

The prices for most of the stuff in the shop is very, very reasonable.  There are a few categories of things that are a bit pricey, and one or two items that are downright exorbitant, but the vast majority is priced quite fairly.

Very reasonably priced hatpins

The Bad:

It’s all the way out in the Hutt Valley.  I know, I’m so spoiled having all my other favourite stores within walking distance, and a half an hour isn’t a bad drive, but I still don’t go out there just for the fun of it!

I shouldn't have to travel so far for all this goodness!

The other bad is that the shop sometimes has irregular hours.  Three Buckets Full is run by the owner, without staff, so if she is busy or not well, it simply isn’t open.  And the only number for the shop is a mobile phone, which frequently doesn’t pick up , so sometimes you can drive all the way out, and find the shop closed.

Finally, the shop only takes cash.  This is good and bad: I always pull up and remember that I don’t have any cash on me (I use my debit card for everything), but the cash only policy does help to limit my spending, which is good.  If you find yourself with not quite enough actual money to pay for your purchases, there is a Pak’n’ Save grocery store with an ATM just across the street.

So much temptation to buy too much (especially with my weakness for thread!)

The Ugly:

The dolls, and this one particularly.  Really what is going on with her body?  What’s with the cone thing around her waist?  And the weird bulbous torso that doesn’t match up to her top?  Uuuugh.

I don't understand!

Other stuff I really must show you:

The cash register (ah!  I want it!  So much!)

So pretty!

Her keychain.  Isn’t it fabulous!?!  In a y’know, creepy way

Big blue peepers

The best set of filing drawers ever.

Oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh, nom nom

OK, possibly to be the best set of drawers ever the bottom draw should have a ‘Chocolate’ label instead of a ‘treacle toffee’ label, but still, there is some total awesomeness going on there!

Jewels, sweets and money - definitely a girls best friend!

Exotic Mexico meets Kiwi Housewife

Published by The Dreamstress

Carrying on from the Mexican theme of a few Thursdays ago, here is the final Mexican themed textile from my stash.

It’s an embroidered apron, made by a Kiwi housewife, probably during the 1950s.

I’d been collecting mid-20th century Mexican themed textiles since my interest in them was first sparked as a teenager by all the Mexican textiles in my Grandmothers stash.

When I moved to NZ, I assumed that was the end of my collecting in that area, because I didn’t think that Mexico would have been a popular theme for fabric escapism so far across the world.

You can imagine my delight when I found this apron in an op-shop a few months ago.

The musician, the dancing senorita, the cactus, I love it all!

I figured it was an anomaly, made by a talented embroiderer who had become tired of all the usual apron embroidery patterns.

The apron was made by a skilled embroiderer.  It uses only a few stitches, but they are expertly executed, and the choice of stitches for the different textures in the design, such as the delicately scalloped senorita’s skirt, are very tricky.

The scallops! The roses! Her scarf! Darling!

It turns out it is not an anomaly though: I shared it with the Wellington Quilters Guild, and some of the more senior women reminisced about how they had made Mexican themed dressers scarves and tablecloths when they were young.  Mexico’s exotic allure stretched across the Pacific!

After all, who wouldn’t want to be serenaded by this dashing senor?

I wonder what song he is singing?

There are a few stains on the apron, and one or two design choices that bug me.

I really wish that brown had been used for the coconuts instead of grey!

Mostly though, I’m just intrigued by the popularity of Mexican textiles in the mid-20th century, especially since the fad even spread to NZ.

Pretty prickly pear

Happy Ayyam-i-Ha, and what I’m doing

Published by The Dreamstress

Today is the last day of Ayyam-i-ha, the four (five in leap years) day Baha’i holiday of festivities, gift giving, and charity work.

Ginger gorgeousness

Ayyam-i-ha has some similarities with shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras, as it is a period of celebration before the beginning of a period of abstinence.  Instead of Lent, Ayyam-i-ha is followed by the 19 day Baha’i fast, in which healthy adults abstain from food and drink between sunrise and sunset.

Ayyam-i-ha is also comparable to Christmas, as it is celebrated with gift giving, and acts of charity.  Luckily commercialism has not yet cottoned on to Ayyam-i-ha, and tried to steal the true meaning away.

I usually mark Ayyam-i-ha by cleaning my house and treating myself to fresh flowers to decorate it with.  I cook all of Tim’s favourite foods as my gift to him.  I also bake cookies and other treats, and take them to the neighbors and to friends.  Every year I pick a charity to make a monetary donation to, and a charity to donate goods and time to.  Most years I throw a party to thank the people in my life for all they have done for me.

Ginger flowers: my treat to myself for this year.

This year things will be a little different.  Sadly, in addition to all the usual charities that need money, support, and goods, there is a specific cause that desperately needs donations.  While I tidy my house and fill vases with flowers, hundreds of thousands of people in Christchurch are homeless, their houses too damaged to live in.  This year I’m focussing my Ayyam-i-ha efforts on Christchurch.  Some of it will be simple and not that interesting, but one brilliant person had a fantastic idea which combines celebrations and charity.

The Great Sunday Bake Off organising people in Wellington to make delicious baked goods, and if they aren’t handy in the kitchen, to donate toys and canned food.  On Monday they took the ferry and drove down to Christchurch with a huge van full of all the yumminess to give to people in Christchurch.  Isn’t it the loveliest idea?  When I am upset there is nothing more comforting and cheering than home baked goods.  The opportunity also allows us, the bakers, to give something of ourselves: our favourite muffins, the cookies that our mother let us make when we had sleepovers, our grandmothers famous custard slice.  Whatever it is, a lot of love, hope, prayers and well wishes will be travelling in that van, along with the sugared goodies.  They extra goodies were sold in a bake sale, and (matched by donations) raised $14,000 for relief efforts.

I made  ambrosia macaroons (ah, the deliciousness!  I could eat a whole container myself!), and plum cake.  I’m sure there will be people who are gluten intolerant in need of cheering up.

The last piece of the plum cake I made for me, the other was for giving away

The macaroons that wouldn't fit in my container

Despite the tragedy that is unfolding, I won’t be foregoing all of the festivities that usually surround Ayyam-i-ha.  I think it is important to celebrate all the good that has happened this year, and to thank all the people who have already made my world a brighter place to be in.

As I celebrate, I’ll be praying that next year, come Ayyam-i-ha, everyone in Christchurch, in New Zealand, and around the world, will be able to look back at the year that was and celebrate all the wonderful things that happened to them.

Happy Ayyam-i-ha to everyone reading this.

The perfume of the ginger reminds me of home