Skip to main content

Vintage Treasures

This week I acquired some lovely antique treasures:

These abalone shell buttons are circa 1900, and still on the original card. Here's a bit of button trivia: despite their country of origin nearly all button cards from the late 19th/early 20th century were marked either Haute Nouveaute or Nouveaute; it translates to "newest" or "finest" in fashion. Using French made them seem more oo-la-la, no doubt. Anyway, they'll be embellishing future blocks for my silk crazy quilt.

This wee cloisonne chest contains a lovely surprise.

A silver-plated embossed brass thimble, inscribed with the words "Recordacao De Portugal" (souvenir of Portugal) that fits my thimble finger perfectly.

This hand-pieced bear paws patchwork, circa 1880, has beautiful points and lovely stitching. The fabric is not rotted, so it probably sat in a hope chest somewhere for 140 years. There's a bit of light staining that I'm going to try to soak out, but even if I can't it will be a pleasure to quilt something so well preserved.

Comments

Maria Zannini said…
Sorry I've been absent for a while. Greg and I took turns being sick. I'm finally over the worst of it.

Congrats on the treasures. I love finding things like these.

re: stains
You might know this already, but they say milk and vinegar are good at removing stains. I think it was 2:1, milk to vinegar and let soak overnight.

For being so old that print is in remarkable shape.
nightsmusic said…
Oooh! I love treasures and these are wonderful! That thimble especially :)

Popular posts from this blog

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Goodwill Gamble #2 Arrives

My second Goodwill gamble arrived; this is one I paid ten bucks for last month. Just inside the lid was a big roll of plastic mesh that I think is for latchhook work. In the auction listing it looked like fabric to me, so that was unexpected. Someone at the seller's end was nice enough to put a note on this pinned fabric. I'll put on my gloves before I take it out to inspect it. The embroidered green fabric turned out to be 1-1/2 yards of sequinned and three-dimensional designer fabric. I'll guess this cost somewhere between $20.00 to $30.00 a yard, and it's in pristine condition. But here's a shot of everything in the lot, which is mostly crafty odds and ends with a small amount of cotton fabrics, a large amount of synethetic fabrics, and some other surprises. The original owner of these was probably a Catholic school teacher; these beads, crosses and medallions are the kind of rosary kits for kids to make at Sunday school or Bible camp (and s...

Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...