Busy Quilting

Few things beat sitting out on the deck, overlooking my little flower garden, and stitching, whether it be embroidery stitching or quilt stitching.  Luckily, there have been a few nice evenings to do just that.

I'm coming along quite nicely on my Dresden Plate quilt.  For my birthday I treated myself to some fabrics from Quiltin' Gals, a website from Texas that is AWESOME. http://www.quiltingals.com/ They were having a wonderful sale.  I picked up 1/2 yards of fabrics for just a few cents more than what I pay for a 1/4 yard here in town.  But, so as not to leave my favorite local quilt shop out of my birthday treating, I bought a few 1/4 yards there too.  I really can see how collecting quilting fabric can become a sickness  hobby.  I'm learning that if you LOVE a fabric, you'd better buy some, because only too soon, it may be retired forever.

Darlene Zimmerman's fabric designs are fast becoming some of my favorites.

These are not ALL Darlene Zimmerman fabrics, but some of them are.

First, these are the fabrics I ordered from Quiltin' Gals.

 

 

Here is a close up of the little animal print with its pigs, birds and ducks.

 

 

And then there were these quarters that I picked up at our local quilting Bernina shop.

 

The pink one at the bottom is my favorite one of these four.

 

 

That's all for today, until another time, have a happy stitching day!

As I was researching steel kitchen cabinet makers, I came across this really corny, 1955 film about "dream" kitchens, full of modern conveniences.  This goes along with my idea that we've come such a long way with household chores.  How easy it has all become!  The film is a little long and I think the audio is a bit off towards the middle, but it's kinda cute.  I especially LOVE the tour of the kitchen!  Oh, and if the dad in this film looks a little familiar to you, it might be because he was the dad in the movie A Christmas Story.

Until another time, have a happy vintage day!

Vintage Hats at the Millinery Shop--Kenmare Pioneer Museum

Today, we visit Cindy's Millinery Shop at the Kenmare Pioneer Museum.  This building had a large collection of vintage hats on display (non, actually for sale).

As much as I love vintage hats, I can't pull them off fashion wise.  I'm finding that you have to have just the right hairstyle to make a vintage hat look "authentic".  I'm working on the hairstyle, and maybe, if I can find just the right hat at an antique store somewhere, I will, once again, attempt to wear a hat .  Until then, here are a some 1940s gals who know how to wear hats!

Photo found at http://missamethystspowderroom.blogspot.com/ Miss Amethyst loves to live, and dress vintage!

Here is another interesting hat.  I like hats that sit off to one side.  And I'm not sure, because this photo wasn't labeled, but I'd swear that is Lucille Ball.

If I were to ever wear a 1940s hat, I would want it to be like this one that Meg Tilly wore in Bomb Girls.

I liked this red and black hat with what look like plastic cherries?  It reminded me just a bit of the hat Jeanne Crain wore in the move State Fair.

 

Jeanne Crain in State Fair with her red velvet hat with cherries attached.  I love this movie and all of its vintage goodness including dresses, hair and hats...oh and Dick Haymes isn't too tough to look at (or listen to) either haha!

If it were really shopping in this store in the 1940s I'd pick this up for my husband. 

 

 

He'd look good in a hat like this, but I'd have to glue it to his head in his sleep.  Sadly, he doesn't have a vintage bone in his body, and wouldn't be caught dead wearing a vintage hat unless it was Indiana Jones'.  

And I LOVE that vintage suitcase.  Vintage suitcases seem to be everywhere now and stacking them for decorative purposes and storage seems to be the popular thing to do (thanks to Pinterest), but there's something about this single suitcase I really like!

I like this hat box, below.  The graphics are interesting.  Hat boxes are quite large, and closet spaces back in the 30s, 40s and 50s were, from what I've seen anyways, quite small.  So it makes me wonder, did women put a number of hats in one box, or did they have a box for each hat?  I keep thinking the hats must have been worth it considering all the space their boxes took up!

Well, that's all for today!  Until another time, have a happy, vintage day!

Kenmare ND Pioneer Village

Whew!  It's been a busy summer already!  School ended late for us this year (went into June).  So to kick off summer vacation, Autumn and I met up with my folks in Kenmare, ND and took a tour of their pioneer village.  We enjoyed a picnic in the "windmill" park and did some city wide garage sales. 

What a fun treat this trip was!  The 50 minute drive was beautiful, and Kenmare's pioneer village is one of the best I've seen, with its 22 buildings chocked-full of wonderful artifacts from yesteryear.  There was so much to see that between Autumn and I we took around 900 photos.  There were a few duplicate photos, of course, but she snapped quite a few photos of things I didn't catch.

So here are a few pictures from our wonderful trip and I hope you enjoy them.

This is Spencer #46 School.  I call it the little red schoolhouse.  It's one of the best little schoolhouses I've ever seen in a museum.  Epping's is nice too, and Rugby's, but this one had some very interesting things in it I'd never seen before.

A panoramic view of the Spencer #46 School

Oddly enough, one of my favorite things in the whole village was this lunchbox, hanging on a hook in the little red schoolhouse. 

There was just something about it that made me happy.  Maybe it was the embossed "V" on the front, giving it an early '40s feeling to it.  I'd be willing to bet this lunch box was pretty important to its owner, some time ago.  It belonged to someone named Schwartz.  Maybe the owner worked hard at a laborious job, and hearing the noontime whistle that signaled lunchtime was a bright spot in his day.  Maybe this lunchbox was like a trusted old friend, that rode in a farmer's pickup truck as he checked the cows and fields.  Or maybe it was owned by a gas station mechanic who ate his lunch sitting on an old wooden bench, out behind the garage, next to a big tree and some old oil barrels.  And maybe this particular lunch box had a special spot on the countertop at home, where it would be set down at the end of a long day, and in the morning was packed full of cheese sandwiches made with homemade bread, an apple and maybe a cookie for desert.  Of course there was probably a thermos of coffee or milk as well.  All lovingly packed by a wife, mother, or the hard working fellow himself.  OR maybe it was owned by a teacher, factory worker or...even a Bomb Girl working in a munitions factory! ha!



A "Rosie" taking lunch break at Douglas Aircraft Company-Long Beach CA. (note the cool lunch box!).  Photo found on Pinterest.

   These lunchboxes with the "V" on them were made by the American Thermos Bottle Company and can sometimes be found on Ebay and Etsy.

This next photo is of the inside of Spencer #46 School, which is the little Red Schoolhouse on the museum grounds.  Autumn noticed (and thought that it was pretty cool) that the globe at the top of the photo was connected to a string that looped through a wheel on the ceiling then was anchored by a rock at the end of the rope (hidden behind the stove in this picture.  We forgot to ask our tour guide, Bryan, why they stored the globe this way, but if I had to guess I'd say it was for space reasons, (not outer space, but desk space). 

The stove in this school was very unique.  

 

The rock.

 

 Next, we'll visit the local Bank.  It has the original teller windows form the Bank in Carpio, a small town East of Kenmare.

 

No bank would be complete without a stack of old ledgers and books.  Were they like early spreadsheets?  One of the books says 3-11-16 to 5-1-16.  Wow, 1916!  Back in the days when a 50$ loan was a big deal.

These books were used back in the day when most everything was written in cursive and with ink from a bottle.  It's a dying art, and I'm sure there will come a day when we won't even teach cursive writing in schools anymore.

Next up is Artie's Doll House, a little building filled with cute things that will bring back memories of childhood.  There are dolls, books, toys, and children's clothing.  There are also many wonderful cradles and cribs to look at.

  

I'd totally eat at the next stop...a 1950s diner!  I was half expecting Fonzie to walk around the corner.

I'm loving the little salt and pepper shakers!

 

After a hamburger, fries and malt at the diner we could all go bowling at the old Western Lanes Bowling Alley!

 

I apologize for the poor picture quality...the bowling alley was housed in a building that was temporarily out of power.  It was still fun to walk through.  After we left the museum, I had a "hand-to-forehead-moment" realizing that I'd had a flashlight app. on my smart-phone the WHOLE time and didn't put it to good use in this building!

 

After bowling we could stop for a cold one at the bar.  This particular bar is from Mott ND.  I had to look up where Mott is located and learned it is South-west of Bismarck.  That's a long way for a bar to travel.  (Seems like there is a joke in there somewhere....A Priest, a Rabbi and a bar are all traveling north in a U-Haul...)  Mmmm, maybe not.

 

 

My Dad tickled the ivories on a piano that we thought for SURE would be out of tune after being in a non-air-conditioned, non-heated building, but it sounded great!

 

 

My favorite thing about this room was the Hot-n-Fresh Popcorn machine!  I'd never seen one before. The creepy corn guy is kind of unique.

 

 

And I found it fun that the Coke machine in the corner had a button for Tab. 

 

 Remember Tab?

 

Of course I just had to quote the diner scene from "Back To the Future" when I saw the Tab button. 

 

Lou: You gonna order something, kid?

Marty McFly: Ah, yeah. Give me...Give me a Tab.

Lou: Tab? I can't give you a tab unless you order something.

Marty McFly: Right. Give me a Pepsi Free.

Lou: You want a Pepsi, pal, you're gonna pay for it.

Well, that's all for today, but we'll continue this tour another day.  Until then, have a Happy Vintage Day!