Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Zip it

It's All Workshop, All The Time as I get ready for NCFF. I'll be teaching all 3 days (starting Friday), and blogging as I can (with pics).  I look forward to this weekend all year, and I am excited to reconnect with everyone. I fear my Fiber/Yarn Buying Moratoirum may experience a hiatus.

I took a short break from the work yesterday to have smoothies at Carol's with my friend Susie, who had business in town. We carted our drinks (in my case: Chai Smoothie, which tastes like liquid pumpkin pie) over to the Antique Mall to poke around. I found these:
They're not official Barbie zippers, but they were surely geared toward the Barbie market- those are actual Barbie outfits depicted on the package. I distinctly remember sewing doll clothes with tiny zippers like these, back in the day (circa 1964). Even more amazing than the fact that the mall had two of these unopened, take a peek at the price! If I remember correctly, these things cost about $.79 new, which isn't much of a markup considering they're over 40 years old. Here's a link to actual Barbie Brand zippers, and the price difference is pretty amazing.

I'm not sure anyone makes 2" zippers now, though Tiny Zippers does sell 4-7" zippers, including separating ones. I think you can probably sew across the bottom of plastic zippers to shorten them if you need some shorties. As tempting as it is to do some vintage-style sewing, these are going to stay in the package. They'll join the rest of my collection. 
 Well not the rest because most of it is packed away, but these dolls are on permanent display. They're not my childhood dolls (I only had a single #5 blonde ponytail) because I was silly enough to give mine away when I thought I outgrew her, but I cherish these just the same- and I did own all of those Barbie outfits once upon a time.

Note the naked doll- she's a Growing Up Skipper. If you twist her arm, she gets taller and grows boobs.

1 comment:

Nancy said...

I have bought doll zippers from homesew.com. They have 2" zippers; cost 3 for $1.80. The shortest separating zip they carry is 4".