Busy With Black Work

In early September I got out my black work project book and stash of black work items and spent a couple of weeks catching up, fixing old mistakes and finishing some UFOs (Un-Finished-Objects).

 

The first bookmark had a pretty big mistake in it.  When I made the mistake back in January or February, I didn't have the patience to rip it out and fix it.  But after giving it a few months I was able to patiently fix and finish it.  I guess it just goes to show ya that sometimes you just have to walk away from a project for awhile and come back to it when you are ready again. 

This is like the fifth bookmark in this pattern that I've done and once I get going I don't need to follow a paper pattern, which is nice. 
 

 

Here is a new design I'm trying out.  It's not finished yet and I hope to have some time to work on it again soon.

 

 

 

 

There's a stray string hanging out at the bottom of the last one...oops.

 

Picking up the black work again was fun but once again it bothered my eyes.  They started twitching and "wigging out" on me just as they had last January, so I am hanging it up again for awhile.

 

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

Dresden Quilt-Color Dilemma-Yellow

The Dresden quilt is coming along!  I've been working on it all summer and fall.  The flowers have been done for some time, and I've just been waiting for the right color of yellow to come along for my frames.  (Frames?  I'm not sure that's right.  Maybe rails?  I don't know.)

 

I'm not following a pattern, so there are a lot of papers in my quilting stuff that look like the ones below.  I know what is in my head, it's just sometimes hard to transfer my ideas to paper.
 

 

I've been looking for just the right kind of yellow.

The photos below show the two shades of yellow that I have.

 

The first is a lighter yellow made by Moda.  I purchased 3 yards of the stuff at a local quilt shop thinking I had FINALLY hit the jackpot.  Now, I'm not so sure.  I think it might be too light.

 

 

The next is an older piece of fabric from Hobby Lobby.  As much as I love Hobby Lobby I have to be honest about this fabric.  It's not the best quality I'm sad to say.  When you hold it up to the light it's a little more "transparent" than the "Moda" brand of fabric. But I like the color.  It's a little darker and just looks better than the lighter color. 

 

 

Oh, and I know one of my flowers has a "rainbow" pattern to it.  That one is one that daughter set up for me.  It's a little too "happy and bright" for my taste.  I've noticed that the whole quilt has swayed from the vintage 1930s feed sack look to the reproduction, candy store, pastel look that I was trying to avoid. 

 

Here is what I mean...

The photo below is of a real feed sack quilt.  It's more of a primary colored hodge podge and there is not a whole lot of matching going on with it's bright colors and patterns. I love it.

 

Next, we have a quilt done in reproduction fabrics that is still very cute and pretty, but also very "pastel" looking.  To be honest I was going for something a bit in-between.  (both photos are from Pinterest, therefore, I have no clue who to give original credit to).

 Looking at my quilt flowers, I should have thrown more black and white, primary prints, and bigger prints into my mixes.  But like folks always say, hindsight is always 20/20.

 

I did see a BEAUTIFUL quilt, earlier this fall, while visiting my folks out west.  We went to a local quilt show and I LOVED this quilt!

 

 

The quilt was made by a gal named Ruth Olson of Williston.

I love her choice of yellow for her borders.  I have a snippet of that pattern in pink but not in yellow and can't find it online.  I wish I knew who designed and manufactured that particular yellow pattern with little white ball flowers on it.

 

 

I could stare at this quilt for an hour!  It's total eye candy.

 

 

I like the pastel look with this one.  It seems fitting.

 

Well, that's all for today.  I'm going to keep chugging along on my quilt, and I'll keep ya'll posted on my progress. Until another time, have a happy stitching day!

 

Beaver Creek Rummage Sale

The folks and I stopped at the Beaver Creek rummage, bake sale and lunch a few weeks ago.  The drive in the country was beautiful!

 

 

 There were some great little finds at this sale!  One of my favorites was this ice cream (excuse me, Ice Milk) container that someone had used to store all of their cookie cutters in for many years.  The cookie cutters didn't interest me as much as the container did so I transferred them all to another  basket.  The nice, elderly ladies watched me and were a bit surprised that all I wanted was the container.

   

As luck would have it there was also a box full of vintage jewelry, some of them quite old.

I picked out two pairs of earrings to add to my vintage costumes.

 

  

 

I also found this sweet, little, green pill box.

 

Daughter and I went gaga over these vintage wrapping papers! I'm guessing they might be from the the late 1960s...maybe early 70s.

Luckily, there are still quite a few days before I need to start thinking about Christmas!

That's all for today.  Until another time, have a happy vintage day!




 

Woman's World Magazine 1935

Also found in the little antique shop in Williston (way back in September) were these two Woman's World Magazines from 1935!  You know how I am about vintage magazines, I couldn't pass them up.  AND as an extra bonus, they were owned by a lady from my hometown area of Epping, Esther Long.  I can't find any information about Esther Long, but give me time.

 

 

I think the covers are adorable, especially the second one.  (Notice the dog is eating the little girl's lunch).
 

 

These magazines are full of short stories like the one below.

 

And small/tall advertisements like this one.

 

 

Most pages (in fact I think all pages) are black and white except for the front and back covers.

And there are sections of clothes patterns one could order!

 

 

They are neat little magazines and remind me much of the Needlework magazines of around the same time period.

 

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

Cornbread and Milk by Gordon H. Soles

Once again I found a great little gem hiding among the stacks in our local library, a book called Cornbread and Milk by Gordon H. Soles

I’ve always enjoyed stories of life on a farm from the olden days and Cornbread and Milk really delivers a taste of what country life was like for a young boy growing up in Kansas during (I’m guessing, the early part of the 20^th century. The author mentions threshers, farm machinery and a pickup truck, but never mentions a radio.)

To be honest, the first chapter didn’t really grab my interest, but I am glad I didn’t give up on the book.  The second chapter was better and I enjoyed the remaining chapters. Each chapter is a new, little, stand-alone story much like you would find in a vintage magazine. Each story has it’s main characters, and each story is neatly tied up in the end. Each story contains just the right balance of humor, sadness, and drama.  They sometimes even brought tears to my eyes.

As I was reading the book, I couldn’t help but to picture the Walton family from the 1970s TV show.  In Corn Bread and Milk, the grandparents lived with the family and the grandmother in the story reminded me so much of Grandma Walton from the show.  Then, in the book, there was Elmer Vessler, who one night had a little too much moonshine to drink at the barn dance, and stumbled into the cow pen. I pictured him as Yancy Tucker. And our author reminded me time and time again of John Boy.

Soles would write,

“Winter around our farm usually was a fairly quiet time….I guess we all liked it best because we got to be more of a family then. Pa wasn’t off in a field somewhere and Maw wasn’t too busy with canning and tending to her chickens to be sociable.”
I could picture John Boy writing a paragraph similar to this while sitting at his bedroom desk.

Soles includes everything from his grandmother’s fear of cottonmouth snakes, to his little brothers fascinating hobby of collecting things to keep in his tobacco tins (including rabbit droppings). There are stories about barn dances, milk cows, outhouses, and even tornados. There were stories that made me cry, such as the one about the old dog that gets hit by a car and survives for a few days. The old tom cat comforts the dog during these days and brings him gifts of mice and rabbits. Proving that there is no such thing as a dumb animal.   

There was one paragraph in particular that I enjoyed very much and that was the one about family gatherings. It reminded me so much of family gatherings at my Grandmother’s house when I was younger.

“Us kids would begin to get excited weeks ahead of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Fourth of July because we knew we’d get to see and play with our cousins--not to mention getting to eat all the good things the aunts would fix up in the way of food.
Like at most farm gatherings, first the table would groan from the load of food and then the folks would groan because they had eaten so much. Somehow the womenfolks always fixed enough so there was a lot of food left over. Instead of dividing up whatever was left like they did at community affairs, the womenfolks would leave the food out for all-afternoon nibbling. Seemed like every time you looked around there was someone chewing on a chicken wing or chomping at a sliver of cake.”

Yeah, I totally remember my Grandma Lillian’s house being like that.  I can remember nibbling food all evening long, a turkey sandwich here, a spoonful or two of jello salad there.

Cornbread and Milk is a great little book to curl up and read on a cold, snowy evening.
It's certainly on my wish list.

That's all for today. Until another time, enjoy some time with a good book and have a vintage loving day!

Scotty Dog Pitcher and Pulled Thread Table Cloth

In September, darling daughter and I visited the folks out "west".  We stopped at a farmer's market, popped into one of our favorite independent book store/coffee shops, Books On Broadway,  and then walked down the block to a fun little antique store.

At the antique store I came across this scotty dog pitcher.

 

 

And even though it doesn't perfectly match my scotty dog glasses, I still love it.

 

The backdrop for these photos (that is in desperate need of ironing) is a small table cloth.

 

 

It would look real cute on an antique card table. 

 

 

The threads used for sewing are light blue, which I think makes it very pretty.  It would be a nice tablecloth to use in winter with blue and white china.  

 

 

 Yup, I'd say they look pretty nifty together.

 

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

 

 

My Tulip Bowl and Busy Busy Busy

September was a CRAZY busy month with running here and there, and October isn't proving to be much better.  So, if there are giant pauses between blog posts, it's simply because I am having great fun being busy and enjoying life...there will be plenty of time to blog once the snow flies.

 

 In early September one of my favorite stores, Vintage City, had a Bargain Blitz...everything outside 50 cents each.  I picked up a few things including this Tulip Bowl which I love!  I've had my eye on it for some time.  It has a large crack in it, so I'm using it for decorative purposes only.

Here it is in its new place above my kitchen cupboards.

That's all for today.  Until another time have a happy vintage day! 

Another Dream House

I find dream houses all over our great state.  In almost every little town we travel through I can spot at least one really cute home.  Now, I'm not going to say where this one IS, but I do want to share it with you all because it is such a PRETTY one!

 

Isn't it pretty surrounded by all of its nice trees?

 

And it is such a cheerful color!

 

 

 

Hmmm...I wonder if the people who live here like vintage things too? I spy two very vintage looking lawn chairs in the back yard.  The only drawback I can see is that there must not be central air because they have window air conditioners. 

But wouldn't it be fun to go back in time and see what this little house looked like 50 years ago?  I think so.

 

Until another time, have a happy, vintage day!