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

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.

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to...

Valerean

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