I found the construction vehicles at my favorite discount store for around 5$, and the aquarium rocks at a local pet store for around 5$ as well. The rocks are shiny and somewhat smooth so they are not "dusty" or create a dust at all...which is a good thing.
I was going to put play sand in the box, but then I saw the idea for "natural looking" aquarium rocks on Pinterest and used them instead. The box we already had along with the handy-dandy wooden tray that we use for all kinds of things.
The kids LOVE this toy! It's so popular, that I use it as a good behavior reward. Towards the end of the day, if a child has been good, he/she gets 15-20 minutes with the diggers! Woo-Hoo!
That's all for today! Hope you all have a fun day! God Bless!
One of my favorite things to collect are vintage linens and tea towels. If it is a kitchen towel, I try to imagine the kitchen that it came from and the people who used it. If it is a fancy towel adorned with needlework, I think of the time someone spent working on it. Did she find the time after all of the supper dishes were washed and put away. Were the stitches stitched by the light of a kerosene lamp or electric? Was she able to sit and stitch for a spell in the afternoons, while sitting on her front porch swing? Maybe watching her children playing nearby.
I love kitchen linens but most of all I love their untold stories.
Here are a few items I've been able to pick up recently.
These cuties are bright and colorful, but they aren't in the best of shape. I am hoping to be able to save them....somehow.
This beauty above is so precious. I'm not sure what it was used for, maybe a decorative bathroom towel...maybe a wedding gift from an Aunt who lives in Iowa. We'll never know. Below, is the flower detail.
My mom bought me the cheerful little blue and yellow serviettes below, and I think they go quite nicely with the my yellow tablecloth! These make me long for an old farmhouse type of kitchen table, white with two folding leaves that can pop up or down. I'd decorate the table with these bright linens, and set a bouquet of daisies in an old fashioned milk bottle right in the center. Instead of wishing for something that I don't have...maybe I'll try it with my little card table someday!
And finally, my mom and I spotted these at our favorite little vintage shop, Vintage City, and I just love them. Merry Christmas to me! Again, they are hand stitched and I wonder, "By whom?" And I didn't even ask if the seller knew their story! Shame on me!
Well, that's all for today. Daycare projects have been taking up a good majority of my time lately, and I'll try to share some of those ideas with you all soon. It's just so hard to find an hour or two here and there to do some blogging! So, until another time, have a happy vintage day, everyone!
The Flea market was back in town in mid-February. I walked away with a couple of goodies including this sample size of Sal-Soda. It has a tiny hole in the front of it, but is unopened! Here, it is pictured with the regular sized box my Uncle Stan gave me for Christmas a couple years back.
And this past weekend I found (actually my daughter saw it first) this neat old iron from (I'm guessing) the early 1960's. It will be a back up to the other beauty I have from the 1960's. They are the BEST irons! Nice and heavy-duty!
Soon I'll show you some linen finds from January and February! I just love vintage linens and hope you do too! Until then, have a happy vintage day!
The local craft store had a sale! Around here, DMC thread only goes on sale once or twice a year, so this time I went prepared with a long list of DMC colors I've been needing.
Once each thread was properly wound onto two bobbins per color, the next chore was fitting them into the thread boxes in their correct DMC order. That took a couple of evenings to do.
With the bobbins in their correct places, the boxes look so full and pretty.
That's all I have for you today! Have a happy week everybody!
Whew, I've been busy! Not only with work, but with some fun stuff too! It seems every bit of "off-time" I get I pick up a little Blackwork and start stitching.
I'm thinking for the month of February, I will pull something else out of the "UFO" basket. As much as I love doing Blackwork, I have to be honest and say it's hard on my eyes. My left eye has been twitching up a storm this month, and I think creating tiny stitches under bright lights is the cause of this eye stress. I have a magnifier, but it's not the most comfortable to wear and I don't always have it handy.
So, I'll take a break from Blackwork and go back to embroidery for awhile.
But here are some photos of some of the bookmarks I have done this month.
And here is the bookmark finished. I really like this one and it wasn't too difficult to do once I learned the pattern.
That's all for now! Until another time have a happy stitchy day!
Well, first I must show ya'll the cute little basket my Aunt Barb made up for me, with sweater mittens, homemade Apple Butter, and Chokecherry Syrup (which is awesome on ice cream). Love the basket idea and all of the goodies in it, so thank you to Auntie Barb.
Just wanted to share some of the groovy things my Uncle Stan gave to me this year. He's been saving these for me all summer...found them at a rummage sale, says walking through this woman's house was like taking a step back in time. Bring it on!
Hi-lex Dry Bleach! I can't seem to find another box like it online. The bottom say 1955. God bless the little old lady that kept this in her basement for over 50 years.
And I just love the neat-o clothesline graphics on the back!
Another cool box, Niagara Instant Laundry Starch! I get a kick out of the fact that is says "No Cooking" at the bottom.
I know nothing about starch but found this informative little video from 1936 on you tube.
And again with the cool graphics on the back. My guess as to a date would be 1956-1959. The woman's dress style with it's rolled sleeves and high collar just scream June Cleaver.
Stan also found some GREAT magazines! This April 1948 Better Homes and Gardens is super thick at a whopping 290 pages!
And the McCall's below is from March 1956
And a Country Gentleman from November 1949....I love these old farm magazines with their Case IH and tractor advertisements. Can't you just hear the grain report playing on the old transistor radio in the farmhouse kitchen as the farmer's wife gets lunch on the table? Reminds me of my grandparents when I was little...we always listened to "Ask Your Neighbor" on the AM station during lunch. I can remember creamed green beans from the garden, chicken patty on a bun and always homemade bread. I imagine it's possible that at some point a farm wife out there once made a lunch like that for her family. But I digress...
Here's another Country Gentleman from December of 1949.
I can't wait to get these scanned. Or at least photographed. Maybe I'll photo some sneak-peeks until I can gain access to a large scanner again.
Until then, here's a fun little Studebaker trucks ad from one of the Country Gentlemen Magazines. That's a pretty cool little truck...I'd drive it.
Well, thanks Uncle Stan for another batch of vintage goodies.
And until another time, have a happy vintage day everyone!
The Blackwork bookmark is finished! Monday evening found me stitching the final stitch. I have about 9-10 hours of work into it. Once the pattern was stitched onto the top half of the bookmark, I no longer needed to follow the book's pattern and I cruised along much faster.
The diamond on the left is an example of the Holbein stitch that is suppose to be used when stitching Blackwork. Sometimes I just couldn't make it work and did a lot of back stitching. Therefore, the backside of the project looks a little messy, but I don't mind.
With the Holbein stitch you stitch one direction skipping every other stitch, then turn around and stitch the stitches that you skipped. This seems like it would be fairly easy to accomplish, but I just can't seem to get the hang of it yet especially on the more "organic" and detailed patterns. The diamond outline was easy though haha!
Here is a photo of the whole project. The thread cutter is another Christmas gift from DH. It is so handy! Unfortunately, I don't have a long enough chain for it yet, so I improvised with a bit of floss.
Here is the project completed! Yea!
I realize that it's a bit off-center. I am going to cut along the left side to center it and trim the top and bottom as well. Am thinking about finishing off the edges somehow, but will have to read-up on how to do so.
That's all for today, tune in tomorrow to see some new vintage goodies!
Until then, have a happy stitching day!
This Christmas Darling Husband bought me the blackwork book I've been drooling over. This book is crammed full of beautiful examples and patterns of blackwork, and a some history about the craft as well!
So I dug out my scraps of Aida cloth and chose an easy pattern to start with.
I quickly found out three things.
The first thing I learned is that you definitely need good lighting. I moved my flexible lamp to the side table, and directed the bright light onto my cloth.
The second thing I learned is that blackwork is addictive. I had a really hard time putting it down. "What's that honey? You made lunch? Okay, just a few more stitches dear."
This is a type of stitching that requires a bit of attention. There is counting and following of a pattern. I like to work with the radio or TV in the background, but this is not the time to watch something new....or something complicated like the Mentalist, Hawaii Five-O where if you blink you miss something. I threw some old episodes of Frasier I'd seen a thousand times and stitched away for 5 hours!
The little project above was my first attempt at a bookmark. unfortunately, I found a mistake and couldn't seem to fix it. It was good practice and taught me to double check whether or not my stitches and pattern line up properly.
One of the fun things I love about blackwork is that a person can use different elements and designs and create their own pattern!
Saturday evening I started a NEW project (much like the one above) and I will show you the outcome of that very soon! So far....no mistakes!
Now that Christmas is over, I can post some of the gifts I worked on in November and December. One of the gifts I gave to a few special friends was this needlepoint tree.
The pattern for this tree can be found in the November/December Stitch-it Today magazine on pages 44 and 45.
I hadn't tried needlepoint before I found this project, but my daughter had done a little bit. She showed me how to start and stitched a few pieces herself. It was so easy to do, and now I love needlepoint!
The easiest way to transfer the pattern onto the plastic canvas, was to use a permanent marker, then cut out the pieces.
These are the little yarns I chose to create the ornament French knots.
After the pieces are finished I traced the pieces onto felt and trimmed the felt to fit the back of each piece (mostly to hid all of the stitching mess). I hot glued the felt onto the back of each piece. For a moment, I thought of gluing sheet magnet onto the backs of each piece, so that they could be put on a refrigerator, but didn't do it. Maybe next year.
It was a fun project!
Until another day, have a happy stitching day!
