Humor Me

I can pretty much guarantee that there exists only one other person in the whole world who will find this post about fabric scraps even mildly interesting and that is my Aunti Ann. And that is because a great many of these fabric scraps came from her fabric scrap bin, oh let's see, maybe 40 years ago??
It's sort of like a fabric guessing game. Can you remember what you made out of that squirrel and acorn fabric (I know, I know!), or the blue and gray check (Ched looked so cute in it!).

It's funny, right now my mother is sadly shaking her head and wondering where she went wrong and how could I have possibly spent an entire afternoon photographing 3-inch rectangles of 40 year old fabric and just why did I save them anyway and no wonder I never had boyfriends.

But there are some very cool designs and textures here. And these were originally going to be made into a Double Wedding Ring quilt. For my wedding. Yeah, I didn't get that quilt done.

Anyway, these pieces below came from a dress that belonged to my great-grandmother (Grandmom Clark).

The paisley below is from a dress I made in 1969 - a mini dress with cap sleeves and round collar, so short it barely covered my bum.

I'm sure my mother WILL remember this black daisy print. We were going to make mother-daughter matching shifts. At least I cut my pattern out. I'm certain Mom still has her fabric scraps tucked away somewhere, too. Probably on her bookshelf. With her book. (Love you, Lo!)

I can barely bring myself to even look at this flower-printed orange stuff because I made a maternity top out of it and to this day it makes me feel vaguely queasy.
I believe Aunti made me a dress out of this blue - and maybe Beth got one in red?

Another mini-dress of mine.

The following few designs are so Sixties, aren't they?
I'm feeling like pulling out the hip-huggers and going to a go-go.




And now that I have Smokey Robinson in my head, you might as well, too:

http://youtu.be/sWt4Hz1KGcQ
--cds

1973

It was a pretty good year, yes?

Thirty-eight years, baby!

Not too bad for the Jersey Girl and Vermont Boy. --cds

Some Hand-Quilting.

Well, to be precise, these are machine pieced, but all hand-quilted. My plan is to have one of these going at all times when I just want to relax with needle and thread in my hands and my feet up on a cushion. These blocks are about 12" by 12", so the piecing is smaller than I'm used to.

What I'm loving is the fabric that I'm currently enamoured over. Most of these prints came from a collection of reproduction "Civil War" prints. These collections have a huge following, I know, and I don't understand why I've never been all that interested in them before.

The colors are definitely darker and more muted, I guess that's why. As somebody who started sewing in earnest in the 70's, I've resisted like mad buying anything that smacked of dusty rose and blue or sage green.

But I'm so loving these tiny prints all of a sudden, especially the grays, golds and blacks.

Anyway, more fun stuff. --cds

Autumn Yet?

I've been absent because I'm cleaning. I'm officially declaring that it's time to do Fall cleaning because my Vermont roots are telling me that mid-September means 50-degree nights and cool, sunny days. 'Course my Florida reality is 70-degree nights and 90-degree days still, but in fact, the summer steaminess has disappeared for the most part.

Anyway, we bought a new sofa and you know what that means. Yes, one must hand-wash and dry all the glassware in the china cabinet. I actually rearranged the living room so I had to empty the cabinet. I love to wash and dry the glassware. So shiney and sparklely.

I lead a very exciting life down here, don't I. Suits me, tho. I'm also knitting Ruthie some winter socks for her new snow boots (pictures soon) and Bella Skypes me every afternoon when she gets home from school and we do her homework together. Evie wanted to Skype yesterday before she went to pre-school, so I sat reading to her while she was coloring. Suddenly she just packed up her crayon bin and books and left me announcing she wanted to go watch Alice in Wonderland. A grandma must be prepared, I guess, to be abandoned and left talking into an empty computer screen. It's a new world. --cds

Swim For Health

Mum and I have been hitting the pool lately - very early in the morning at the crack of dawn-thirty in order to avoid the mid-day crowd of pool socialites. We are focusing on the healthful benefits of swimming laps, underwater kicking and arm exercises and dog-paddling (some of us do not like to get our hair wet). It's very peaceful to swim in the early mornings, watching the birds and the pretty sunrises. I may even break one of my cardinal rules and post a picture of me in a bathing suit:

Hahaha. I believe this is 1953 or 54, probably Townsends Inlet, NJ. I don't know if this was taken before or after I tried to eat the dead seagull. Frankly, I don't believe that story at all; but really, what mother doesn't bring crackers or something to the beach for her kid to snack on?? --cds

New Stitching Book

Well, it's a second-hand new-to-me book I bought a couple weeks ago. It includes all sorts of cool stitches I've never heard of before. Like shisha stitching.

And leviathan stitching!

The people I live with don't get too excited about stuff like this, but I find it pretty fascinating. You may think otherwise.

I've been doing some more traditional hand-quilting this week and now I have my quilting calluses back (yay!). I'll post some pictures tomorrow. --cds

Happy Birthday Brother Doug

I did say September was a busy birthday month in my family. This is brother Doug celebrating his first birthday. Mother clearly wasn't able to get out to the birthday candle store and had to resort to using a dinner taper candle from the dining table.

Don't you just love the 1950's style child-proofing on the cupboard doors?

Doug is younger than me by three years and two days and I think there were years when we shared birthday cakes.

We were just so darned cute, huh? I wanted to include this picture, Doug, so your boys could check out that hat Mom made you wear. Love you, Bro! --cds

Lazy Sunday

James and I strolled around the Magic Kingdom yesterday morning and then went for lunch at Downtown Disney for my birthday. I discovered this sweet little fountain behind Cinderella's Castle that I've never noticed before. If you stand in front of it just right, a reflection from the water makes the crown sort of glow and glimmer right over Cinderella's head. I wished I had a granddaughter with us to stand in front of the fountain for a photo shoot. I'm working on that.
So we came home and I finished up a baby quilt for our newest little cousin in NJ.
It's pretty big, almost crib size, so it'll be too large for him right now. But it's soft and cushy for a tiny baby to lay upon and look cute.

Today I'm cleaning up and organizing the sewing room (again). Dinner tonight is fried shrimp, roasted potatoes and salad. Sound good? Come on down! --cds

Birthday Guilt

I went back to the 1950's photo archives to dig out some of my old birthday party pictures.

My Mom used to throw some pretty cool birthday parties for me, didn't she?

Usually held at our little family picnic spot, "the fireplace."

What a good mother - I really don't deserve her.

Because on HER birthday this past July, I sat talking with her for a couple of hours before even remembering to wish her a happy birthday. And that was only because she went into the house for another cup of coffee and came out carrying a teeny whoopie pie with a candle in it singing happy birthday to herself. How bad of a daughter could I be???

Damn good thing mothers do not hold grudges. I think she's baking me a chocolate cake today. Thank you, Mother, for suffering through a hot summer pregnancy 59 years ago in order to pop me out today! --cds

Time To Landscape

These benches are pretty neat, huh?

I took these photos outside our local Lowes thinking they would look great on our own patio and also thinking how easy they would be to construct.

So I showed the pics to my contractor and he sort of turned up his nose at the idea, as he does to many of my landscaping and remodeling ideas. Wait until he hears I need him to repaint my deacon's bench (again) - this piece of hand-me-down furniture was originally painted black, then green, then off-white, then blue, then white again, now black again. Now it needs to be red. I'll have to do some bribery baking, I guess. My contractor's motto is "Will Paint For Apple Pie." --cds

September

I've always had a fondness for the month of September since it's my birthday and wedding anniversary month, but also because it meant new school clothes, a new school year, the beginning of autumn--my favorite season, etc. etc. Here in Florida it seems to mean the start of these really pretty sunrises. This is the sky at 7:00 am this morning.

Now if I weren't so lazy, I would have pulled on my exercise clothes and walked around until I could take a better shot of the sky (this is the view from my front porch), but... (I have a million and one excuses NOT to exercise; just insert one here).

So Happy September to all. It's going to be a busy month. --cds