Needle in a Haystack

This weekend I had one of those rare experiences in shopping that I'm sure many vintage sellers live for. I found an ad for an estate sale, which turned out to be a yard sale. You can imagine my disappointment.

Now I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with yard sales, but fantastic vintage clothing is not something you usually find at a regular yard sale. There were piles of clothing on tables and in bins and the temperatures were reaching 95 plus degrees and for a moment I felt completely overwhelmed, but for those of us who love vintage we know that one of the thrills is the hunt. It's what I call hunting for treasure.

I went to work and my perserverance paid off. I found the needle in the haystack, a beautiful 1950's negligee set at the very bottom of a bin of purses. I could hear the trumpets sounding! To top it off, when I got home and starting researching the label, I not only found the label but the original ad for the very same negligee that I bought! I couldn't believe. I would say that this ranked as one of my best vintage shopping days ever.

Here's the ad straight from 1951.


And here's my treasure. Can you believe it's in mint condition!? I'll be posting it in the shop later today.

deoma's boutique

Yeah! I finally found a small dress form and was able to photograph several of the cute Summer dresses I've been collecting. I hope you like them as much as I do. I can't believe one has already sold before I even got a chance to post this blog! Hurry over to Deoma's and have a look.

iva deoma

Good morning and welcome! You're probably one of my first readers and I thank you much for stopping by. I started this blog as a sister site to my new Etsy shop, Deoma's Boutique. It's going to be a place where I can share what vintage means to me along with my memories growing up in the 1950s and 60s. I'll have a few shop updates here as well and information about the clothing and labels I find.

I started the shop last month after my daughter said goodbye to Texas. I helped her out a lot with her vintage shop, Dalena Vintage, and after she left, I didn't want to stop searching for clothing. I was hooked. What can I say, I love the hunt! When I find a piece of clothing that’s from earlier years, it’s like finding treasure, especially when it’s in really good condition. It also brings back good memories of my childhood, my mother and grandmother, which brings me to how I came up with the name Deoma's.

Let me start with a little introduction to my grandmother, Iva Deoma. As my grandmother lived a few blocks away growing up, I spent a lot of time at my her house. I don’t think I realized when I was young, but she always wore dresses, never slacks. Even when she worked in her garden, she wore a dress.

She never left the house without her pearl necklace, earbobs and her purse that usually matched her shoes. I remember her wearing mostly belted shirt waist dresses. When her clothes got to the point where she could no longer wear them, she cut them up and used the fabric for her quilting. To this day, I look at some of the fabrics in her quilts and remember her wearing the dress. I'll even see pieces from dresses my sister and I wore.

Here are a few photos taken in 1912 on the day she married my Granddaddy Ward in the community of Fairview, Texas.


I still have the gold bracelet she's wearing on her left wrist, and it's in the original box with velvet lining!


Granny and Granddaddy Ward otherwise known as Iva Deoma Glover Ward and Freddie Monroe Ward. Her dress no longer exists in whole, but my sister has a piece of the lace from the dress.


Granny and her sisters, Beatrice, Chesney and Arduro. Granny never told me, but my sister says their names came from the romance novels of the late 1800s my great grandmother used to read.