"Cabinet" photographs - coming to a tarot deck near you soon.

Called in to see our friend Dita (please DO visit her shop if you are in Prague - I will add the link when I can find it) and picked up two incredible and very old pieces of hand-embroidered fabric. Which this time I WILL post pictures of (once it's dry - I handwashed it carefully as we try to clean everything before use). The fabric is VERY old, and maybe too fragile to use more than one section of one piece - it's SO very beautiful though. Anyway, just for interest, here is one of the cabinet cards we just bought.It's Viennese, and we've been speculating about the relationship of the two girls. They are dressed identically, but they obviously aren't twins. Sisters? Two friends in school uniform (did mid-19th century uniform look like that?) Well, who can say? We are using a lot of these cabinet photographs as one of the major sources for the deck imagery. They may end up looking very different by the time they are incorporated, but they have an authenticity that we just couldn't get by drawing from scratch. As Alex says, somehow people had different faces then (or is it different hair and expressions that make it seem so?) We nearly have all the imagery we need - I think we have plans for about 70 of the cards now. But there are always a few that are hard - and of course we tend to see alternative images as we go along so sometimes there are changes. I am loving making this deck - it has a tremendous atmosphere I think:

Bag plans, bag plots, recycling and angsting

So, now that we have a heap of local vintage folk-costume fabric (I would feel like a vandal but we only buy things that are a bit damaged or otherwise not completely usable - though this did not stop one friend from shrieking in horror at the idea that we'd cut old folk aprons for our embroidered bags - and then buying two :) ) I have to work out what to do with it. So here is a quiz - what do you think these are going to be? They are old silk on cotton folk ribbons. You can buy these nowadays, but they are always synthetic and usually the patterns are less wonderful (still nice though). But these are the real thing: There ought to be some sort of prize for the winner I suppose. Hmmm.

Elf boy in dancing skirt...

Edited to add. This bag is sold out now - but we're making more. ___________ We just made one of these for a regular customer (who may be reading this?) and I LOVE it! Fortunately we made a second, so I've put it on Etsy. This fabric was the skirt from an old folk costume. Folded away and a bit dusty, but when we washed and ironed it - it came to life! No time to put it on the shop just yet, but it's listed on our Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=5943637

Another Etsy "Treasury"

I had this one "up my sleeve" for a while so it only took a minute to do. Just as well as today is busy again - with an interview with a (very nice) vampire this evening ;) Only in Prague: http://www.etsy.com/treasury.php?id=1178264865638U5006746