Scorin' Up a Storm in Sacramento

Yesterday Suuzi and I drove down the hill to Sacramento to do some vintage shopping. It was definitely the most lucrative day trip I've made for re-stocking the shop. If I do say so myself, I am a master at turning very little money into giant piles of gorgeous vintage :-)

We hit up the new Goodwill by-the-pound outlet off the 80. An hour of digging through bins later, we had a shopping cart overflowing with goodies and had made a handful of new friends. It seems that scoring new old items on a Sunday afternoon for dirt cheap really brings out the happy friendliness in people. (Two people even told us we could go through their carts and take anything we wanted!)

Suuzi dug up this beautiful Russian dead stock scarf.

We were both quite excited about the containers we found, which just happened to be the perfect size for toting all our stuff outta there! I love this Norway coloring book that I got for Mycelia, it has lots of neat info as well as lovely drawings of Norwegian peasant garb.

I found this corset front, smocked back, vintage floral dress in the first bin. Think I might be keeping it, along with the sweet little white sweater.

This winter Suuzi cultivated a newfound love for silk (while I was going crazy over cashmere), so she was thrilled to find this huge piece in a forest green hue.

Another triumphant pose! And for good reason. We had just made our 5th stop of the day at Bows & Arrows. The boutique is transitioning to a new space and all clothing was 75% off!!! We came out of there with armfulls of killer vintage. Suuz spotted this orange tree across the street and we went to check it out. The citrus trees are producing beautiful fruit in Sacramento right now, but we decided not to risk ruining our pretty dresses climbing the tree.

Our next stop was Thunderhouse Vintage (aka Thunderhorse Interzone Conglomerate!).

Suuzi is the kind of open-hearted person who you are proud to introduce to your friends and family, and who always engages strangers in warm conversation. Rather- strangers engage her in warm conversation. At least three people yesterday struck up conversations about her turban. Turned out she had a mutual friend with one of them (through the NorCal Kundalini yoga teacher network). And it turned out that the guy behind the counter at Bows & Arrows almost just bought a moped from her husband Spencer. And that she knew one of the girls working at the FreeStyle Clothing Exchange (where I also ran into my dear friend Kerry of Fashion, Farms, and Freedom!).

Lindsay here, working at Thunderhorse, was one of the kindest of strangers to engage Suuzi in conversation about her turban. She was genuinely fascinated in the historical and cross-cultural use and significance of head wraps. And she was sweet enough to hand sew up the hem on a dress for me after I pointed out that it was coming undone! Hanging out with her, and stretching out all the excited tension from our muscles, was the perfect ending to our day.

(For more on all these shops, see my related post The Vintage Scene in Sactown)