New old...

My country farmhouse has always been a blend of new and old... antique quilts and china and furniture are my favorites. A Grandmother's Flower Garden from the 1930s has hung on the wall for almost twenty years, but today I decided it was time for a change.

Yesterday a blue and white oval platter arrived from eBay, and today the armload of forsythia branches burst into bloom. So I went upstairs to go through my antique quilts, and found the perfect replacement:  this red and yellow quilt that I bought at my guild's quilt show last summer. 

Antique quilts and traditional patterns drive my own quilting passion. I love knowing that the patterns I make have been made for decades, some for more than a hundred years.

Yellow... for August's Scene & Story

I have a love of yummy, buttery yellow.  It isn't my best color to wear, to my deep regret. But I am drawn to it anyway.

The day my boss came into work wearing a beautiful yellow wool blazer is a day that sticks in my mind with vivid clarity. With a white turtleneck and blue jeans and her blond hair, it was perfection. I fell in love instantly with that jacket. Soft and warm, incredible color on a cold winter day... yummy. (I later asked if she'd leave it to me in her will. I completely expect to receive it one day.)

In the late 90's we bought property on a lake, and spent the first summer cleaning up the place and dreaming about building a cabin. One day we were out floating on the lake after a hard day of work, and our neighbors invited us over for a beer. As we walked into their cabin, the door to the deck was open, and the lake was spread out in front of us. But all I could see in that moment was the vintage yellow Formica table in the kitchen, surrounded by mismatched wooden chairs. I felt immediately at home, and knew that one day we'd own this cabin. A year later, Bob and Lois sold us the cabin they'd built in 1968, and she gave me the table as a house-warming gift. I've treasured it ever since.

My passion for yellow hasn't changed, not in all the intervening years. Yellow roses, yellow kitchens, yellow Depression glass, yellow quilts, yellow transferware. Right now, I especially love vintage yellow suitcases, and am searching for graduated sizes that I can stack, to serve as a nightstand in my guest room.

Linking today with Sarah and Lee's Scene & Story.

Vintage...

The guest room is full of country charm... antique quilts, a brass bed with marble finials, and a stack of books on the nightstand. It's quiet and peaceful, with a view over the lawn to the old orchard and well house.

I bought this 1940's quilt from a quilting friend, and it's a perfect addition to my guest room. And though I wish it was in perfect condition, I never turn down a beautiful old quilt. I can always find a way to display them. The green and white quilt on the corner table has a bad stain that ate through the fabric, but it's hidden underneath the white cloth on top. The teddy bear was made from a Grandmother's Flower Garden cutter quilt. And with careful handling, the floral quilt made from tiny hexagons will be beautiful draped across the foot of the bed.

There are other antique quilts in my farmhouse... perhaps I'll pull them out for some photographs on the next rainy day.

On display...

Last March I joined a quilt guild, my first. Then I joined another. It's such a pleasure to spend time with other people who share my interest in quilting. Today we're setting up for the annual quilt show which starts tomorrow. I didn't have a specific job, but got there early in hopes of being able to hang the quilt entries. That worked out well!

My favorite spot was the display of antique quilts and sewing machines, and all the crocheted aprons, pot holders, and doll clothes strung across the top. My mom made a lot of potholders, and wore them out to threads. But there were a few to keep, and I buy them when I can in thrift and antique stores.

The show starts tomorrow, and I'll be here early to shop in the bazaar... there are fabric pre-cuts in my favorite colors for just a couple of dollars.

Channeling the 1940s today...

When I went down to the basement to start the laundry today, I realized that the best light in the house (for the next half hour, at least) was in this corner that gets light from two sides. So I turned my back on the laundry, and brought down a vase of red roses and a couple of favorite things from my farm kitchen.

WayRite kitchen scale (in my favorite 1940s Nile green) : Screen-printed vintage tablecloth 

Vintage...

One thing I love about the blogging world is discovering other writers who have the same interests. I discovered Cheryl through another blog I enjoy reading, and loved her writing style and her photographs. She shared a story about friendships gained through blogging, and photographs of her friend's bowl of treasured silver flatware.

She went home and sorted through her own collection, many passed down through her family, and the memories connected with them. As I wrote a comment on her lovely story and photographs, I thought about my own collection of silver. Some pieces came down through my mother's family, but most were chosen by me at antique shops and yard sales.

I love silver, and have a few pieces that I use daily. But I've never set the especially beautiful pieces out on display. Instead, it's tucked away in silvercloth-lined boxes to keep the tarnish at bay. I don't get to see it and touch it, and admire the designs, and think about how each piece is a work of art.

So today I pulled out a few of my favorite patterns and pieces and a Polish pottery platter, and tried to capture their beauty.

My favorite patterns have grape or grapevine designs... lovely patterns like Vintage, Isabella, and LaVigne. But I also love the florals, like Wildwood and Flower, Arbutus and York Rose.

The serving pieces are the most beautiful, with extravagant sprays of blooms and vines that run along the edges and spill into the bowls.

My favorite piece is in the center of the platter: a fish serving fork in the Vintage pattern, which I found in an antique shop in Utah a few years ago. It was in the original box, and was a wedding gift to the bride from her sister, and the hand-written gift card was tucked inside the box. Knowing something of its history makes it all the more beautiful.

The Ellensburg Red Horse...

If you love gas and oil memorabilia, you will love the Red Horse Diner in Ellensburg. It's stuffed to the rafters with colorful porcelain and neon signs, old gas pumps, pedal cars, road signs, automobile signs, gas station and tire signs. There were brands I would never have heard of, if it wasn't for American Pickers on the History Channel.

And the food's great, too.

 

Vintage quilts

I've never written about how I learned to love vintage quilts (thanks to Linda), or photographs of my own small collection.

My own tale began as a child, really. My mother inherited a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt that was made by her grandmother, Katherine Lilley. She would bring it out occasionally to show us girls, then carefully pack it away again. It has a lot of damage, unfortunately. When our parents passed away, I found some photographs of me as a baby, lying on the quilt. They're some of my most prized possessions.

My friend, Linda, was the next catalyst between me and antique quilts. She started buying them at yard sales and antique shops in the 1980s, before they got expensive, and has acquired a fairly large collection. Every so often we'd spend a few hours and pull out all her quilts, spread them out on the carpet in her bedroom, and admire each one. The colors, the fabrics, the applique and traditional blocks, the amazing (and not so amazing) number of stitches per inch. All of hers are hand quilted, and I love examing the wonderful craftsmanship of these works of art. When they downsized before moving to Ellensburg, she sold a few of them to me. I've also purchased a few at yard sales and antique shops over the years, and bought a number of quilts, quilt tops, and quilt blocks on eBay in the 1990s.

My favorite is this Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt I bought on eBay, and it's been hanging on my living room wall ever since. The seller was kind enough to send along the history of the quilt, which was made by her mother and two sisters in the 1940s.

If you're interested in learning more about antique quilts, the Alliance for American Quilts is a good place to start. Besides providing information on historical quilts, they maintain an index of quilts.

Texture Tuesday... minus 43 eDition

I'm having fun with something new:  Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday. You can read more about this fun weekly activity by following the link at the bottom of this post. Kim  is an artist and Photoshop expert who designs beautiful textures you can apply to your own photos. I thought this week's texture was a perfect match with this photo of the inner workings of an antique Seth Thomas clock. I used a single layer of Kim's texture, using the multiply setting @ 100% opacity.

The clock is one of the many antiques that decorate the old Cumberland Island Inn in Georgia, where we spent a few stormy winter days in 2009.

Linked to Texture Tuesday

Hatpin flower frog as photo holder

Antique flower frogs are a favorite thing to collect. I love all the different colors and shapes and sizes, especially the glass ones. I looked for years before I found a green glass frog, and have always wanted one of the uncommon (and usually expensive) hatpin flower frogs. I always look for them in our travels, and a few years ago I finally found one in a little antique shop in Littleton, Colorado, after spending the day researching the family tree in the historical museum there.

This hatpin frog is in my favorite green, so it fits perfectly with the other antiques that are displayed in my house. Unlike the glass flower frogs, which I use all the time, I'll never use this one to hold flowers, for fear it will rust.

Last spring, while reading through a stack of library books on country-style decorating, I saw a unique way of displaying an old photograph. They'd used one of the spikey metal flower frogs to hold a photograph, with a glass vase turned upside down over the top of it.

I didn't have a vase that was wide enough to fit over the flower frog & a photo. Best I could do was this dome-shaped vase I bought years ago at a yard sale, which hangs from a wrought iron frame. It has a flared lip and rounded bottom, and is wide enough for a small photo. Now I just needed a small snapshot to display. Searching through a few treasured snapshots of my family, I found this picture of me at about 8 years of age, wearing a pink dress with a velvet sash. It was one of the few dresses my mother didn't make for me, still, I loved it.

Featherweight

I've been quilting a lot lately, another benefit to having my days all my own. I do all of my sewing these days on my Singer Featherweight, and it was exactly eight years ago today that I bought this antique and wonderful machine at an estate sale. How I became the lucky buyer is one of my favorite stories.

I don't usually go to estate sales, especially those run by professionals. But this particular morning I took a chance on a local sale, because the ad said they had a Singer Featherweight sewing machine. I’ve been looking for a Featherweight for years. It’s very small and light, and quilters love them because they’re easy to maintain, make perfect straight stitches, and light enough to take to classes (or in my case, back and forth from home to the cabin). Featherweights in perfect, working condition sell for $300-500 on eBay, and I’ve never seen one at a yard sale.

I expect this will be a huge sale and I won’t even get close to the Featherweight. But I was surprised—when I got my number at 20 minutes before the time, I was #12. I peeked inside and spotted the machine and its case on a table in the living room. I was standing on the porch, chatting with a woman while we waited for the start of the sale, and a few minutes before they started the sale, I asked what number they were—#2.  So I took a deep breath and asked:  “Do you have any interest in the Singer Featherweight?” And when she said they didn’t, I asked if she was willing to grab it for me. I pointed it out so she'd know exactly what to look for. Her husband grabbed a roll of masking tape from the cashier's table and wrote “Sold” on a piece, plus my name.

And when they went in they went straight to the Featherweight and slapped the Sold sticker on the case, and it was mine. I didn’t even know the asking price, but figured if it was more than I wanted to pay, I’d just peel the sticker off.

In less than 5 minutes they called the next batch of numbers, and I made a beeline for the sewing machine. The asking price was $200, but I decided to buy it anyway. They’re going for much more than that on eBay, and this is the first one I’ve ever seen around here.

As I browsed through the rest of the sale, I overheard at least two women asking where the Featherweight was, and when one of the employees walked over to check out the sold sticker, I thought I should probably tell her that I'd claimed it. She showed me the bits and pieces that were in the case, including a box of attachments, bobbins, and the original owner's manual. And to my surprise, the price also included a wood-topped card table designed to hold the machine.



When I came back through the house to pay for my purchases, I heard another woman say, “The Featherweight is sold and that’s the only reason I came to this sale.” I grinned to myself, proud of my quick thinking. So, $249 later (thank goodness, they let me write a check!), I started lugging things down the hill to my car. The woman who got the Featherweight for me was outside enjoying the sunshine, and I stopped to thank her again for helping me out.

Once I got home, I logged into eBay to check out my purchases. I paid $200 for the Featherweight, which included the carrying case, a box of attachments, a few bobbins, and the original instruction book. It also came with the original wood-topped table, which was a real bonus. I already knew I had a great deal, just the machine was worth more than $200. But I was surprised to learn that the tables are quite rare… and expensive. There were two tables listed on eBay, selling for $150–175, and both were hotly contested. The tiny instruction booklets were selling for $25.

The last task of the day was an e-mail to my friend, Linda. I call her the Yard Sale Queen because she not only loves going to sales, if there's anything of value to find, she'll find it. She has a sixth sense when it comes to finding the best sales, and unerringly goes straight to the things that are the most rare or valuable. I think she'll be proud of me!


I recently learned about a website that keeps records on Featherweight serial numbers, and mine was manufactured in 1943. Researching all the different attachments that came with my machine was also fun. There's a surprising amount of information on the Internet, and you can still buy a lot of original equipment for these machines. My sister has our mom's 1940s Singer that  we all learned to sew on, and it would be fun to find attachments for her, too. I've found a few at yard sales and antique stores, and the range of these devices is amazing.

There were attachments for braids and trim, for making ruffles, for covering cording with fabric and attaching it. There's a cool piece that helps you sew a straight seam, adjustable to different seam widths. There's a quilting foot, and a piece that helps make tiny tucks in the bodice of a dress (perfect for baby clothes). Some of these look like finely tuned pieces of machinery. It will be fun to figure out how they work; maybe there are user's guides for each attachment; that would be very cool!

Childhood toys: marbles

Among the toys I still have from childhood is a large blue canning jar full of marbles. I know nothing about them, really... except to know that some are hand made, some are machine made, and most are the very common cat's eye: clear glass with a twist of color. Occasionally I come across marbles in an antique store, and if the price is reasonable, I add a few to my jar.

My favorites are the mostly white marbles, with swirls or patches of color in oranges, greens, blues, yellows. One day I'll have time to sort through them and learn more about the different manufacturers and the pattern names. For now, I'll just enjoy their brilliant colors.

Green handles

Two of my favorite things come together in the kitchen. I love to cook in my 1920's farmhouse. The kitchen is a big open room, with one brick wall and a big oak library table in the middle, and an 1860s sideboard and 1940s jelly cupboard to provide extra storage. It's not a modern, glitzy kitchen with granite countertops and maple cabinets. But it works, and it's mine.

My antique house led me to another passion: collecting old kitchen utensils and tools. Because I have a thing about not owning anything I can't use, I've test-driven all of them. In the process, I discovered that many of these 1930s-1940s utensils work circles around their modern counterparts.

I got a rolling pin as a wedding shower gift. No matter how much I dusted it with flour, my pie dough always stuck. Years later, I got a marble rolling pin for Christmas. Same story. The weight was nice for pastry, but everything stuck to it. This beautiful 1940s green-handled rolling pin cost a couple of bucks, and nothing sticks to the hard maple roller. I like it so much, I bought another one for the cabin, and a red-handled one just for fun.





I rarely need a sifter, but when I do, this is the one I choose. It has two pieces: the bowl where you put the flour, and a wire handle that ends in a loop of wire next to the screen of the bowl. All you have to do is grab the handle and shake the bowl back and forth, and the wire loop sifts the flour for you.







This little jar opener is probably my favorite kitchen utensil. Always on the lookout for green-handled kitchen stuff, Dave bought this for me. It was one of many "I've never seen one of these before" finds. This little guy is called the 'Top-Off,' and I've never found the bottle cap or jar top it can't remove with little effort. If you're tired of handing a jar to someone else to open, you need one of these.






Some kitchen tools go out of style (when was the last time you julienned carrots?). Some justifiably get replaced by a better model. But time and time again, I find something my basket of 60-year-old tools that will never lose its place in my kitchen. Sometimes, older is better.

Primitives

I've been looking for old hand-turned, shallow wood bowls… used for dough rising, and often painted on the outside. I’d like to build a nest of them for my country kitchen.  It would be very cool to find some of these dough bowls outside of eBay. The ones I prefer are either naked (no paint), or painted only on the outside. That way you can sand and oil them, and be able to actually use them. 

I’d also like to finish up my nests of old yellowware bowls (I'm working on nests of dark brown, and green). These are heavy earthenware bowls with rims, in graduated sizes so they nest together (thus the name given to a complete set). The smallest is about 4 inches across, the largest is 12 inches (a guess; I don't have the largest size). Nests are usually 6-7 bowls. I was way behind the 8-ball on these—by the time I started collecting them, prices were pretty high. This is the McCoy ivy design; one of the more expensive bowls. Mine are simple, with a striped glaze.

But a lot of primitive wood dough bowls are still affordable, although really large bowls that are signed with the maker's mark are really expensive. I've seen 20+ diameter bowls going for $650+ on eBay. Both of these fit right in with the decor in my antique farmhouse kitchen.

I sure miss antiquing expeditions with Linda...  there are shops near Yelm in the old backroads towns that I’m just itching to visit, and it's so much more fun with company.