I used to love playing with the spirograph when I was young. I never knew at the time that there was so much math involved.
It is fun to get it out once in a while and play with it. P thinks it is great.
What are your favorite childhood toys or games?
Today am trying to make the house shiny and bright! I need to clean up so that we can put out our non-tree decorations.
Have I told you lately how much I love a good rummage sale?
I stopped at a sale on my way home from the grocery store yesterday at noon. I got this great little suitcase and a fun yellow check tablecloth. P LOVES the suitcase. It is like one that I had when I was little but this one is bigger. She uses my old one for her doll clothes and is eager to use this on a trip.
The table cloth has a hole in it but I am hoping that we can use it with a strategically placed flower vase on the table.
The crafting department was filled with treasures.
Someone had cut out some projects and had them bundled with the pattern jackets. I love that old flannel print.
I pawed through boxes and boxes of fabric and found some real winners.
Lots of vintage pieces, even some large pieces made with narrow width.
And some great old searsucker!
Here is the fabric haul all washed and folded.
The best part of all is that the total for all of my purchases was $3.70!
Three dollars and seventy cents!! And I even got a a few things that were not pictured!Can you believe it?
I recently added to my vintage needlebook
and button collection.
Yep, sometimes it really is the little things that make me happy.
I thought you might want to see some vintage fabric yardage.
I found these long forgotten pieces of fabric yesterday while looking for something else in the sewing room. There is at least three yards of each.
I love that they are all the old narrow width- and just look at that lovely selvedge. Sigh.
Summer has arrived but I still don't spend much time outside because of the mosquitoes. I am eagerly awaiting the day they blow away.
In the mean time I am trying to be productive with my time in the house. I have decided that one of my summer projects will be to finish as many unfinished projects in the sewing room as I can. You know, cleaning up the slow way. I am determined to get some of these piles cleared up.I am on my way with these star blocks that I made today. That is all I need to finish a queen size quilt that I started at Beaver Island Quilt Retreat in 2004!!
If I hadn't put four of the blocks in this quilt and mailed it away I would have only needed to make three more blocks. Three. That was all I needed to finish a queen size quilt.
That is what I get for not finishing it at the time. I have had the unfinished top and fabrics to finish it in a pile for almost SIX YEARS.
Yes, its time has come.
Is anyone else up for a summer of Project UFO? Let's get those projects finished!!
Some of you may know that we live in an old farm house. We have s-l-o-w-l-y been renovating it for over twenty years.Shortly after M was born the tiles in the shower of our only bathroom started falling off the wall. We had made plans to put two bathrooms upstairs so we decided not to spend the time to fix the bathroom that was to be torn out and turned into our mudroom.
Well, M is now 16. And we still have no bathrooms upstairs. We are still not using the shower in the downstairs bath. Sixteen years of baths. The sink has started leaking into the basement. So it goes.
Now is the time. We are putting in the upstairs bathrooms. We have adjusted the plans and are getting ready to make some progress.
The flooring in the upstairs bath areas was removed years ago and used to repair the floors in the other rooms of the house. The next step is to remove the temporary plastic ceiling that has been in my sewing room for 18 years so that the plumbing can be installed. There will be lots of dust and debris.SO yesterday was spent cleaning in the sewing room so that everything does not get buried in debris. I am starting at the construction end of the room and going through everything. I found many piles of vintage patterns that I have picked up at sales. In sorting them to file them by size and style I found that I am TOTALLY prepared in the doll clothes department.
Any size doll and any style of dress. I now have half a copy box of doll dress patterns... It's a sickness.
Have any of you ever seen a looping needle? Well here it is! After looking at the directions it appears that someone has developed a really complicated way to crochet. I could be wrong but really, that is how it looks. If all of my crochet hooks break or get lost I am ready and even have 22 EXCITING patterns to make! This is just one of the many strange and quirky sewing/crafting items I have accumulated.
I found this partially made smocked dress. It is a size four. If I hurry P might be able to wear it. I didn't check to see if all of the pieces are there.
I think it may be too late for this one. It is a much smaller size but I really like the fabric. Someone even started the smocking.
Do you think these hat designs will be coming back? Bow ties might already be back in. Didn't Martha demonstrate how to make them on her show recently? Those rick rack flowers are pretty special -that is an idea I think I can use.
I am telling you. It is a jungle in here. Look what else I found. Yes, I wore that on my head when I got married. It looked a bit fresher then.
I had better get back to work. That ceiling is coming down on Friday!
I wonder what treasures I'll find today.
P and I had a play day today. I got to wear my fantabulous vintage apron that was in my stocking while we prepared a tea party with some of P's new (vintage) tea party stuff.
Ack. I can hardly stand the cuteness of it all --the "Three Little Kittens" dishes, those little ice cream bowls, and wood handle utensils. And don't you just love that tiny cake holder???!!!
We set out this morning making some tiny shortbread cookies.
After the first tray which only held four tiny cookies we switched to a slightly larger play tray. The tiny cookies bake in about half the time of the regular cookies.
We also made a tiny layer cake to fit in that little cake holder. With the cake, ice cream, cookies, and milk it was a fun party! And the servings weren't so big that they spoiled dinner.
Actually, the boys said that you could accidentally inhale one of those cookies and never even notice!
Boys.
What do they know? I guess that is why they were not invited to the party.
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