Vintage Ribbonwork Lingerie Case

I mentioned this lingerie case a couple posts back. I bought it several years ago from my friend Joan, who owns Mormon Trader Antiques (the brick & mortar storefront) and Estates & Remainders (which is estate liquidation portion of the business). At the time, I paid only $25 for this, which included what Joan calls the "family discount" for her friends, LOL. Take a look at this beauty.
The lingerie case is a creamy satin, inside and out. The pictures make it look white, but it's definitely a rich cream color. It's thickly padded and very luxurious. Inside there are two pockets (didn't take pictures of the inside - my bad) and the condition is near perfect.

It's getting more and more difficult to find nice specimens of ribbonwork from the twenties and thirties, but with this piece, I feel as though I struck gold. Helen Gibb, as I mentioned in a previous post, absolutely raved about piece, both workmanship and condition.

The gathered rose, above, is most intriguing. Helen said she'd never seen one like it. She took dozens of pictures of this case and asked me if it was OK to try to figure out how this was done. I hope she does, because it's not as simple as it might appear. There is padding in there.

What a lovely rosebud!

The leaves and stems are all pretty basic. The ribbons are all ombre silk. I wish I had some provenance with this piece, but sadly, I don't. Still, I treasure it and have never seen another one that comes close to it, in my estimation. Of course, I'm going shopping tomorrow for another ribbonwork piece; Joan said she'd bring in her inventory for me to "play" with. My hopes are high!

CQ'ed Puzzle Pieces

This has been another crazy week, but I have been doing some stitching between madly running around. First of all, let me show you three of the four finished puzzle pieces that I'm doing for Pat's Pieces of Friendship Swap.

Here are three of the four that I'm doing. I made the mistake of satin stitching around the edges, thinking that would be a nice finish. Wrong. It was too hard to do the curves, and the fabrics - fancy fabric, muslin base, fused interfacing and backing - were too thick to allow a neat, even stitch. So, I buttonholed over it.

This first one (above) bore the brunt of all my experimentation, and I must say I'm not sure it's going to be a "finalist". I've retrieved it out of the trashcan twice. The top is not even, and I can see that I need to sew a center on the purple folded flower in the bottom left (oops!). But I like the colors, so we'll see.........

I like the colors on this one, too, but it's not perfectly even either. Ah well.... there it is. I have issues with squaring these things up. And the thread, which is lovely variegated pearle cotton (Needle Necessities) is lighter than it looked in the skein. But there was no way on earth I was going to stitch these puppies again!

This one is my favorite - love that little silkie!! The gold stitching on the vintage lace doesn't show up so well, so I may add beads there or something. And a few tiny buttons near the top (?!?)

The fourth piece is half done, but I wanted to get these pictures up tonight. Tomorrow morning I'll spend a couple hours at the antique shop I talked about in my last post. Then it's off to work a shift at Barnes & Noble from noon - 7. At least I won't have to cook dinner!

Birthday Goodies & Miscellaneous

It's been a busy and fun weekend, and the weather here along the Wasatch Front in Northern Utah has been glorious. Today it even got up to 74 degrees. Of course, I don't believe for a second that it will last - we know that even though Spring is around the corner, Mother Nature always has a surprise or two in store for us. The Ute Indians called the inevitable spring snowtorm Dewina; and even though Spring hasn't officially even started (by the calendar), I think it's certainly here meterologically. For now.

I wore t-shirts all weekend, worked in the yard (and got scratched up by my rose bushes, so THAT'S IT!! I'm ordering those gardening gloves that Allie talked about last month here.

And then to make the weekend even more wonderful, Saturday was my birthday. DH took me out to my favorite antique store, which I'm going to blog about next week. We were looking for the perfect gift, and my friend Joan, who owns the store (you will meet her) has a whole store (and house and three storage units) of yummy things. She and DH Les (whom we've known for about 25 years, since Les coached my son Ryan in Little League) are having a Big Sale next weekend........ and we're going! That is, I'm going with my camera (and wallet) and will share her fabulous shop with you. Joan is THE undisputed queen of vintage linens and laces (high end) in Utah. Some of her recent acquisitions (and I only saw a portion of these) are vintage mannequins (9 of them) clothed in old Victorian and Edwardian dresses. Never worn! French tassles and trims that came from a local historic Victorian mansion - The Walker Mansion.

I'm personally looking for some wonderful piece with vintage ribbonwork to add to my collection. I bought one piece from her years ago (hmmm..... I'll have to photograph it and share) that Helen Gibb fell in love with when I brought it along to a retreat at her home a couple years ago.


But I did get some wonderful goodies in the mail (above). My dear friend Judy remembered me with a lovely piece of rose fabric. It matches a scrap I had last year that I used in a rose-themed block I pieced and had embellished by some very talented ladies in a round robin last year. With this fabric, I can add a border and back it. And then Judy included a lovely felt floral brooch that she'd made. I've been noticing in catalogs and blogs that floral brooches are quite the accessory item this year! I'm anxious to wear it! And finally, Judy included two lovely skeins of pearle threads, in lovely bright colors that I adore. Thank you so much, Judy!!

And in the same day, as if it had been timed that way, a package came from my friend Heather in Canada. Heather is the sweetheart who redesigned my blog header and signature for me. The gifted me with a sweet lavender-filled hanging sachet in beautiful, soothing colors. The little friendship plaque she included has touches of bronze in it, and matches the bronze accents in my kitchen perfectly. I will treasure this every time I see it hanging there! And then, to give me a reason to be IN the kitchen, Heather included some wild rice and her recipe for fixing it.l DH and I are big rice fans, and I have the ingredients on hand, so we'll be fixing her recipe this week! Thanks for your thoughts and gifts, Heather, you are so sweet and generous!

Lastly, iff you're thinking of opening an online shop, you NEED to check out ArtFire. They're offering a $7/month lifetime rate to the next approximately 500 sellers. After that, it will be $20/month. The good news is that they take NO commission, regardless of how many items you list or sell. You can check out ArtFire here. If you sign up, you may use my name as a referral (with 10 referrals, I get a free account).

Well, I'm closing for now. Tomorrow (Monday) is a non-working day for me, and my DD Megan is taking me to lunch for my birthday. And then I'm going to Curves to join up. Other than that, I plan to stitch all day (will have progress pictures later this week) and load some things into my new ArtFire shop.

Hugs,

How the Mighty Fall

This is a sad story, I'm telling you up front. A good friend to us - and to countless others - has, quite literally, fallen. It was our sad choice after consultations with experts..........
This is our spruce tree in the front yard. It was planted by the former owners of this house when the house was built (in 1963), and was several years old at the time. It was truly a sheltering tree and home to many birds whom we could hear chirping from spring to fall.

However, with its shallow root system and immense size, as well as the windy conditions we experience regularly at the mouth of Big
Cottonwood Canyon as storms come and go, well, it had become a potential hazard. Had it toppled, it would easily have crushed our home or the neighbors'. Nevertheless, it was a very sad day yesterday when it was time to have it removed.

At about noon, the tree removal company arrived with their trucks and equipment. In the first picture (above left), they've just begun cutting off some branches. To the above right, the picture shows the tree as it looked as they prepared to fell it. In addition to stripping the bottom half, they'd also cut branches out around the power line running on the near (west) side of the tree. It's pretty tough to see the tow line connecting the tree to the truck in the far left corner, which will pull it down. But you can see our house in comparison, as well as the neighbor's house and our beautiful snow-covered mountains in the background. It was a beautiful sunny but cool day.

Final inspection of everything before it comes down.

Timber! This became quite the neighborhood spectacle. Everyone must have been starved for entertainment.. I thought I was prepared mentally, but emotionally I wasn't. And I hadn't prepared for the noise......... the groaning, cracking, and thud........ It was over in a few painful seconds.

Not even much dust to speak of........

DH walked over to the stump....... And we counted the rings. 58.

Under its skirt. I asked them, as they were cutting up branches, to watch for and save any birds nests they came across. Either they forgot or there weren't any, because they didn't save any.

So the neighbors returned to their lives while the crew spent the next few hours chopping up and chipping the remains of the tree, as well as splitting logs for firewood. Our front yard looks bare. Ugly, even, because nothing has awakened from winter. The lone green sentinel is gone. But spring will come, and we have plans....

We'd like to fence in a small area and grow a garden. Yep, in the front yard (we already have one in the back). Check out this idea from Mother Earth News from a 2008 issue.

Ours would be smaller in scale with a minimalist arch for an arbor to support some climbing roses. The outer area will be planted in drought-tolerant native plants (xeriscaping), and the interior will house vegetables and herbs. And hopefully some of the birds will forgive us and return...........

Puzzling

I've signed up for Pat Winters' Pieces of Friendship Swap. We're all asked to make 4" puzzle pieces with our technique of choice. When they're sent to Pat, she'll swap them out and we'll get pieces from others who've signed up from all over the world. Pat provided the puzzle piece pattern (is it just me, or are there a lot of "P"'s??? Pat's Perfectly Pretty Puzzle Piece Party!).

Anyway, I thought about colors for a minute, then it struck me how small 4" is. Why not use something already pieced? Or scraps? So out came my trusty bin of tiny fabric scraps (and some that were not so tiny but were lonely leftovers).

Some of these were already sewn together from when Martha Green taught us her chaining technique back in May-June of 2006 at the John Campbell Folk School. And these pieces were very bright and cheery, so I figured it might also be a good way to use up some snippets of thread, lace, etc. I officially made it my goal to use only bits and pieces and leftovers for this project. Those puzzle pieces might be small, but they tricky little buggers! My sewing machine was giving me fits trying to satin stitch over fancies on tight curves (I cut away the outside fabric after the satin stitching was done).

The color is way off on this picture (that background fabric is gold and everything is much more saturated and bright). I just couldn't capture it with the camera nor fix it with my photo editor (time for lessons?). So now I'm off to begin embellishing.........

Hugs,

DRAWING WINNERS!!!!

Of course, you're all going to skip this part (at least at first) and look ahead to see if your name was the one drawn. But I'm going to pretend you're reading this patiently, (yeah, right, LOL!).... The day after the deadline, I listed all the entries, checked links and tallied up all the "points" for each person. Some entrants had left no contact information, so they were eliminated. Word to the wise: make sure someone can get in touch withf you if you enter a contest!! There were 123 valid entries!! Whew! Those names were printed out (some only once, some up to six times, depending on how many times they qualified), and I got carpal tunnel cutting them apart. (Another word to the not-so-wise - that would be me: Use you d*** paper cutter next time!). So, this is what it all looked like when we were ready for the drawing on Friday night: Now, isn't that the cutest bowl you've ever seen? I bought this fired pottery basket, made by a wonderful artisan at the Salt Lake Farmers Market, a couple years ago..... But, I digress..... Here is Bruce, my DH, reaching in for the name.......

And whose name did he draw??? The Winner is SHARI IN COLORADO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations, Shari!! Please send me a private email and we'll arrange the details, OK??? BUT WAIT - there were so many entrants, that I decided to have a second place goodie bag (smaller, but still nice) for someone. So, DH dove into the names again and came out with...

Second Place is Karrin Hurd !!!!

Karrin, please email me too to arrange details!

Thanks to everyone for entering the contest, or mentioning the drawing on your blog. I truly appreciate all your congratulations and good wishes on my 100th Blog Post Milestone. I wish it were practical to give everyone goodies, but unfortunately it's not. But I've met many new people and discovered some wonderful new-to-me blogs. And I hope you all stick around and pop in to say hello now and then!

With appreciative hugs,

100th POST!!!!!!

Hi - this is it! My 100th Post. It's been so much fun and so rewarding to discover so many wonderful people and blogs during the past 10 months. Thank you all for your kind words.

This is the last post before the drawing. For rules and a picture of the goodies you might win, see one of the previous two posts. The deadline for entry will be Wednesday Feb. 25 night at 9:00 p.m., Mountain Time (8 Pacific, 10 Central, 11 Eastern). That will give me the rest of the evening to verify that I've got everyone's name down correctly and prepare the drawing slips. I'll have DH select the winning entry on Thursday or Friday evening from a glass vase.. The winner (and I'm thinking of picking a second name for a second, smaller prize) will be announced on Saturday morning, Feb. 28.

In the meantime, I have something to share. I bought these at an Arts Festival on an Indian Reservation (can you say "Casino"?) in Arizona. The woman and her sister who make these items first collect leaves. Then they send the leaves off to someone who soaks them in a "top secret solution" that leaves only the veins and membrane.

When they get the leaves back, the sisters coat the leaves in a metal and apply heat for coloring.

These are my oak leaf earrings.

My husband picked this out for the colors. I think we'll probably give it to DD; it's a barrette.

After the drawing, I've got pictures to share of some CQ'ed puzzle pieces that I'm working on for Pat Winter's "Pieces of Friendship" swap. What a fun idea that is!

Until next time,