Op Shop luckiness!!!

And one for today...
My Best Sister has been ringing me for days asking if I had received the parcel she sent me.

Today I got it!

She has been hitting the Op Shops...with a vengeance!!!!!!

Here is the first of her finds.
A salwar kameez with beautiful embroidery on what looks like a hand painted floral on white background and THEN beaded, with a green silk
scarf bordered in silver hand dyed to match the green trousers.


The beading and embroidery around the neckline is gorgeous.


I have LOVED salwar kameez ever since I worked in Banda Aceh after the awful tsumani on Boxing Day 2004. Fabulous to wear in that 45* temperature and 95% humidity, where we had to cover up a bit more than we would have at home.


At the end of my work there I bought a lovely salwar kameez to wear to S2's wedding.

Mother Of The Groom and all that...

It has a silk hand dyed scarf that fades from mauve to lemon with splashes of embroidered flowers, and the top is hand embroidered with silk thread.

The top and pants are lined fine cotton. Just gorgeous to wear!

It cost 3 months pay for an Acehnese. There were very few shops surviving after the tsunami hit (check the link above for photos and stories) and it was a pretty good feeling to be able to contribute to the economy in this small way before I left (and it WAS small - this outfit for all of being 1/4 of a year's salary was about AUD60...).


And the other two outfits Noela sent me are also stunning! I don't know why ever someone would put these in the Op Shop.

This one has a top in tumeric gold self patterned silk with hand embroidered black shadow zigzags and sprays of flowers. All hand embroidered...
The pants are a wonderful sort of batik black background with white stems and ochre, rust, turqoise, etc flowers that look like they are hand drawn by a child.




And the third and last salwar kameez is also most very wearable!
Rather plain - and ugly - black fine (very fine) cotton trousers with a most gorgeous lined self patterned turquoise silk - maybe, difficult to tell as it is so fine - the lining is cotton - embroidered long length top.
The top has been taken in under the arms which has made the sleeves looking far shorter than they should be. That needs to be unpicked for me anyways...
The embroidery is gold tambar work with splashes of orange/red in the flowers.
You can maybe see the self weave in the detail of the flower embroider if you click on the picture and check it out in close-up.

PS Saturday morning.
Now that I have loaded and published this the photos are VERY dark - they look better if you click on each one and open them separately. You can at least see the detail then.
Dunno why the photos are so dark. I'll iPhoto the next lot to white death before I put them up...

Off to try them on now - it was far too cold last night.

And to celebrate May Day I shall endeavour to make a video magically appear here!!!
Botheration - I don't know how to make a video magically appear. I tried embedding and all that. Hmm, someone will have to help me.
In the meantime, just look at the link...