Indulge Your Shelf

I went to a very fun estate sale yesterday, and I love every little thing I bought there!  Here's a peek:  Three antique lithographs of The Flowers of Shakespeare like the one above; these came complete with... certificates of authenticity from a couple of decades ago, when the previous owners bought them in England. I'm not exactly sure what the use was originally for these letters and numbers; they are yellow metal and come in columns of 3.  Does anyone know?  Of course I couldn't pass this little guy up...  or this one: it's a tiny stork scissor pin!  It will look so cute in a fabric journal, someday!  I tend not to buy antique photos, because I always want 25 or so and it gets expensive.  But, I loved all of these ladies so they came home with me.  Four place mats; they were marked "baroque linen" and they smell divine (if, like me, you love the scent of old linen!)  You know I have a thing for hydran...

Welcome, 2014.  I am happy to see you! As always, though, a bit sad to be putting Christmas away for another year. ( bye-bye, birdie ) Santa Baby, it was all over too soon, wasn't it? We awoke to a new year's day dusting this morning. My Christmas cactus has one tiny bloom today (not pictured), and my paper-whites are going to bloom soon, too -- see? This week I finally finished one project: the embroidery above, which dates from the 1970s...I decided not to do the sunshine at the top because it's a little too 1 970s, even for me. And then I began another: this one I have decided to do all in red, like a red-work piece. Last night, I wrote works 3 and 4 toward my goal of 50 writings this year.  I also whipped up this camera cover for my trusty Sony.  I was inspired by my latest issue of Somerset Studio, with lots of Bordeaux-colored creations, so I made this with fabrics in those tones, lace, and a little bit of...

I worked on a special project while I dreamed of Spring: it's a banner designed by Charlotte Lyons.  I bought it here, from her Etsy shop . sampler by Charlotte Lyons It was so much fun to have a project to embroider in spare moments over the last few months.  The little birds are so simple and so cheerful! When I finally finished, I cut out slightly larger pieces of different fabrics -- one cotton and two kinds of burlap, fine and coarse -- and sewed the little birds onto them. Although Charlotte's design came with six pennants, I used just five of them for my banner.  I always like to work with odd numbers. Then, I sewed a transparent pink fabric with a floral print as the back of each pennant, and linked them all together with a length of vintage lime-y green trim I've had for a long time. The final step was to hand sew tiny crochet doilies as an accent to the pennants. I'm sorry but I'm never very successful with photographing my banners -- e...