Catalog Shopping for Household Goodies

Back in the day, there was no ordering items from the internet, but there WAS catalog shopping.  Here are a few miscellaneous things from my 1950 Sears catalog.

 

For the home seamstress there were pages of colorful fabrics.

 

 

I like the turquoise and gray one above, along with the purple and blue with circles.

 

Let's look at china.  I LOVE blue set with roses in the center.  My grandmother had a set of the "Nantucket".  It's very pretty too, in person.

 

Below is a closer look at the blue set and the Nantucket next to it.

 



 

Pricing in 1950.

 

 

Some lovely table cloths.  I have the fruit table cloth in blue.

 

Some CUTE kitchen curtains.  I like the red ginghams, top, third from the left, with ruffles, the best.

 

 

Finally, check out this adorable stove.  I like a white porcelain stove.

 

 

Well, that was a fun little shopping trip down memory lane.  Until another time, have a happy vintage day!

 

Red Work Kitchen Curtains Finished!

They are finally done!

And here they are hung.

 

I'd stay and chat longer, but we must rush off to the local Flea Market to see what we can see.  Here's a good jingle for Mr. Timboe..."See what you can see at the Magic City Flea".  Okay...maybe not.

 

Until tomorrow,

Have a Happy Stitching Day!

Kitchen Curtain Re-do...Again

A few weeks ago, I decided to re-do my kitchen curtains (again).  I didn't like that there was not much of a ruffle at the top. 
Here is what they have looked like for the past year or so.

As I was searching through some photos from a few years ago, I came across this cute little valance that I had captured on camera while visiting a local shop.  This valance was more like what I was going for when I made the curtains above.

I like that this valance has a bit of a ruffle at the very top.

So down came the curtains.  I turned them upside down, sewed a seam through the wider red checked border and used a seam ripper to open each end to allow a curtain rod through it.  Then I removed the seam that used to be the top (the wrinkled part). 

At this point, the curtains were a little too long to be valances and would need to be shortened.  I completely removed the small red strip at the bottom, trimmed the cloth and re-sewed the red strip back onto the curtain.

The above photo shows how far I have gotten with this project.  I've always wanted to do some red work on my valances and this seemed to be the perfect time to do so.  The small, white strip of cloth at the bottom needs to be hemmed...the bottom valance has that part pinned, but not sewn as of yet.
I can't wait to finish them and hang them!  I will snap a photo or two of the finished project to share with you all!
Oh!  If you are wondering where I found the adorable fruit patterns for the red work, they are from this WONDERFUL flickr group, "Vintage Embroidery Patterns".  Click here to visit their home page! Click here for the page with the actual "fruit" motifs.

Until another day,
Have a happy stitching day!!

Redwork

One of the things I'd like to learn more about in 2013 is redwork.  There are many websites online that teach about redwork, but I really like the site prettyimpressivestuff by Rissa Peace Root.  Rissa gives us a little background information on redwork embroidery, the best threads to use and tips and tricks. 

Last spring-into-summer I made some window valences for my kitchen with red gingham on the bottoms of each valence.  I made two cafe curtains, one for each side of the window above my kitchen sink.  I transferred some fruit motifs onto them using Aunt Martha iron-on transfer "Fanciful Fruits for Tea Towels" #3749.  I started embroidering them in red thread...so I figure this could be considered redwork.

It's a UFO (unfinished object) as I have just a little bit left to embroider on this curtain.  Oh, and one more whole curtain to embroider.  But you never know, I just might finish them this year! 

Happy Stitching Everyone!!