Happy Halloween, from me and Robin Hood

How messed up is it that my seventeen year old daughter gets to wear a Halloween costume to school, but when she was in grade school, they wouldn't let the kids do anything? We just happened on a 99 cent pattern sale a few weeks ago, and she picked this out for me to make. She says she does want to learn to sew, we just haven't taken the time to practice yet. I love the way this turned out! The moccasins are mine, and the fedora came from Goodwill. Seriously, who on earth owns a green fedora that they can donate to Goodwill??

I've done a little Halloween stitching too, just on a cheapo Dollar tree towel, not the best for getting perfect stitches.

My favorite Halloween decoration, I love these little s'more guys!

Hope everyone has a fun holiday, however you celebrate!

Rainy Day Sewing

I think all it ever does in central Illinois anymore is rain, then maybe you get one sunny day, then another week of rain. So when your husband decides it's time to start destroying the bathroom a little more (our toilet set on the deck all day yesterday, really!). I needed a project so I wouldn't be following along behind him, cleaning up every little speck of dirt. Oh, if it was only nice outside, I could just leave and forget it all!

I've been meaning to make this purse for quite awhile (nice fall colors, right?). Only thing is, I didn't have quite enough fabric, so I had to shrink it down a little, do a little patching on the lining, and worry about my people's heads going the right direction. I like the way it turned out, and my daughter (oh teenagers!) tells me, it doesn't look at all like a granny purse since it's so small and cute! The pattern is from the fall 2008 magazine Quilts and More, designed by Monica Solorio-Snow of the Happy Zombie. And just in case your interested, this will be our new floor when it's finished, isn't it perfect for our 1941 house? I love it!

I'm Back! (With Lots of Pictures!)

Wow! It's been a long time since I posted here! I was having a great end to my summer, we had our annual Steam Show and Flea Market, which I had really been looking forward to. When almost as soon as I walked in the gate, I saw this toy stove, I had to snap a picture for Carol over at Old Glory Cottage. She posted about her childhood toy stove here. The stove is the only picture I actually took at the Steam show, I hate it when I do that!

I was starting to have a really bad backache that weekend, and spent most of the next week in the recliner on a heating pad. It got worse, moved around to the front, so off we went to the emergency room, and I ended up having to have my appendix out. I feel great after about a week of recovery, but my goodness we've had yucky weather! Rain, then colder, then more rain. The sun finally came out today, so I jumped on the chance to take some pictures.

First, is an adorable little sewing box (a child's?). I plan to use it to store some of my vintage sewing notions.

Like these, I've picked these up here and there this summer. I just love the old images! The one that says Happy Home, I've seen several places online, does that mean it's a reproduction? Or were there really just lots of them? Anyone know?

This batch below was all in a Fire King bowl for $1, at the first booth I stopped at. That funny looking red thing is a needle threader. The airplane card is out of a pack of cigarettes during WWII. My Mom told me that she had two aunts with boyfriends in the service, and they would send them cards just like this in their letters home. Click on the picture and make it big so you can read what that little kit is for at the bottom.

Three! Yes, three lovely vintage aprons! I love these! I know I could make them, but I truly love to find one of the old ones, I like to imagine the ladies who wore them.

And, just as my sister and I were leaving the grounds, someone living right across the road (aren't they smart?), was having a garage sale. Still in the shopping mood, we stopped. I was going through some old patterns and the lady asked if I sewed, well yes, some I said. She told me to come over to her truck, she had some fabric she hadn't even bothered to unload, didn't figure anybody would want it. Lookie! Brand new scottie dog fabric! Two to three yards of each, all for five dollars, along with a couple of unused purse patterns. I won't make purses out of this, but I love it! Maybe an apron. . .

Here's another scottie, the only embroidery I've done for ages. It's on one of Aunt Martha's red striped towels, from a pattern I picked up at a quilt shop this summer

Embroidery and Thrifting, Together!

Last week at Goodwill, I was lucky enough to find two books on embroidery, both are older, but both are filled with wonderful information! A few projects, some out of date (see picture below), but definitely worth the 75 cent (paperback) and $1.00 (hardback) price tag.

There's great pictures of lots of stitches, some I know, some I don't, but they're all very clear and easy to understand

Who knew you were supposed to separate your threads like this?

I don't know what to say about this, other than you sure can tell this book was published in the early eighties.

On to real embroidery (but not my own). A lovely tablecloth, so much work, it's big! 25 cents at a sale last week.

I think this is a child's apron, it goes around me, but no room left to tie it! I stared at the embroidery at the top forever, it made no sense at all, but in the picture you can clearly see it says Juarez Mexico, 10 cents.

And no, this isn't embroidery, but it was too cute to leave out. Small pyrex refrigerator dish, 10 cents. I'll find a lid for it someday. Potholder from sometime this summer.

Playing Catch Up (the garden keeps me busy)

Zucchini, what can I say, if you've ever grown it, you know you end up with waaay more than you need! We've eaten it fried, under the broiler with nutmeg and parmesan, in bread (tons in the freezer for that this winter, yum!), in casseroles, on the grill, and it's even good on homemade pizza!

Corn, as far as I'm concerned, is the whole reason for the garden. I've never understood what they do to that stuff at the grocery (canned and frozen), it doesn't even taste the tiniest bit like fresh Illinois sweet corn. There's 50 quart bags in my freezer right now, enough to take us to next summer when the corn is fresh again.

Broccoli, this stuff amazes me! You think it's never going to do anything, then boom! You get the most wonderful heads! When you cut one off, sometimes another nice little one will form (that's what this is). I can't imagine how much money I would have spent to buy all the broccoli we've eaten this summer.

Onions drying in the sun, think we have enough?! Note to self: pick up the onions before you mow the yard, geez!

Okra, I think people either love it or hate it, we love it :)

This was the first year we planted potatoes (yukon gold), and I had no idea when to dig them up, but we ended up with a pretty good crop. I don't have a scale, but I'd say probably 7-8 bags like you would buy at the grocery.


Way too many of these to count.

Next time I'll either post some of things I've made this summer, but never got around to taking pictures of, or some of the fantastic things I've found at garage sales. I think the sales are winding down around here, but that's OK, I'm starting to get a little bit burnt out.

Twenty Years Ago (yesterday)

This is what we were up to twenty years ago. . . could it really be that long?? And yes, we were happy in this picture, but I think we were having a good laugh too. One of my husband's work buddies was standing right next to the car (my Dad's brand new Cadillac) and saying "he ain't going to let you drive that thing is he Gravy?" This comes through loud and clear every time I watch our wedding video. You have to know, that around here, if you're male, you MUST have a nickname (Gravy is my husband's). I don't think my Dad thought my dress would fit in my little Camaro, or that it would be fitting to drive away from the church in my husband's truck, nicknamed The Mud Dog (was the truck a male too?). He drives a truck that's not quite so high, and doesn't have huge tires now. A little further into the video, you hear my husband telling the photographer "you better put her hand on top, it's prettier than mine".

I like how I hear my husband asking "How 'bout a Big Red kiss?" And he still does that occasionally. It's our gum of choice and anything that comes out of my purse smells of cinnamon. I like that we still go to the church we were married in. I like that I can still fit into my wedding dress. I like that my husband can still fit into the same size Levi's. I like that my husband still tells people "she let me get married in my boots!". I don't like that one of our best friends that stood up with my husband died last year, but I like that we have pictures of him with us on our special day. I like that I married into a wonderful family, that treats me like one of their own. And yes,

I still like my husband, and love him even more.

Smoky Mountain Memories

We went on a vacation last week, drove through Kentucky then on to Tennessee to the Smoky Mountains National Park. Beautiful! We looked at Mountains.
Shopped in Gatlinburg, a very busy town, but it had a neat mountain village shopping area.

We went through several old time settlements in the park.

We stopped to play in the river, this was also almost exactly the same view as from the room where we stayed, we could hear the roar of the river all night!

Saw some beautiful flowers, I need to get out the wild flower book to look this up. Anyone know what it might be?

We were silly too, I look pretty proud of my figure here, don't I?

Also in the shopping area, boy I wish I could remember the name of that place!

And somewhere in the middle of Tennessee, my husband got tired of driving and pulled over at a sale (I don't know what got into him). I scored so many old potholders, 25 cents each! I don't even know what this was supposed to be, we'd seen so many signs for flea markets, but I was good, knowing hubby and daughter would be bored to tears, this was just tents set up along the road with goodies galore.

How cute is this guy?

I wanted to include a picture of my first trip to the Smoky Mountains, I think I was eight or nine, but I can't find them, grrr, I know they're somewhere in my house. We had a wonderful time, but it's good to be home, except for all the laundry, and getting back into cooking supper every night, the yard needs mowed, the garden needs weeded, and so on and so on. Back to regular life :)