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.

January 19, 2020 at 8:26 AM

nightsmusic said…

Oooh! I love treasures and these are wonderful! That thimble especially :)

January 19, 2020 at 12:24 PM

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...

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.

Store Closing Haul

The mega Books-A-Million store over in Sanford is closing, and offered an extra 20% off on their current stock -- all sales final -- so I went over to do some shopping. Safely but sadly there was no one in the store but me the entire time I was there. The Holly Jackson novel is for Katherine, the Halloween board book is for Oliver, and the copy of Garden Spells is to keep on hand because I give that book to everyone. The rest of the books are for me. I love Anne Cleeves, and the Galbraith novel sounded interesting (the first couple weren't, but I'm willing to take another chance.) The Escape Room is by a new-to-me author, plus it was cheap. The GreenCraft mag is just a guilty pleasure. Hopefully the smaller BAM nearer to me won't close. I don't buy many books from brick-and-mortar stores these days, but that's really the last one within reasonable driving distance.

Valerean

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