Indulge Your Shelf

This is my great aunt Delores, and she is a family jewel. We call her "Auntie"; she is the youngest of my grandmother Caroline's sisters, born in 1926 in Kansas. When she was 2 months old, the family moved to a one acre farm in Nebraska where Auntie still lives. Auntie's prowess as a hunter, fisher, farmer, horse trainer, cattle handler and more is the stuff of family legend. She had her first job -- thinning beets -- when she was 5 years old, and has been working ever since. She was never able to go to school and still cannot read. When times were tough she worked as a chauffeur to a wealthy land owner, and for "Uncle Sam", making weapons in a factory, where she suffered an industrial accident that burned her face and much of the front of her body. Auntie never married; she was betrothed to a man who went to war and never returned. After that, she says, she was too busy to notice she never married! The happiest days of her life, though, were when she w...

When we arrived home from visiting my great aunt in Nebraska, I had a surprise: my pin cushion had arrived from my swap partner, Angela ! It was such a treat, as Angela is an accomplished quilter, not an amateur like me! She noted that purple and green are my favorite colors of the moment and created this beautiful heart-shaped, quilted pin cushion. I love it! For the swap, we were also to include some sewing notions, so Angela sent these sweet antique quilt appliques, snow white snowflakes, green trim and purple and green floss. I felt so spoiled! To see more of Angela's work, visit her wonderful blog, Quilt at Home , and her website ! This was the second swap I joined but the first one I've ever received a swap package from. What a great experience! My swap partner is someone else (not Angela), and I'm still working on her pin cushion. I must get it in the mail in the next 9 days, so I'm planning to work on it this weekend! Here are a couple of small sewing pro...

I am dying to share my completed sewing projects with you, but I've been working on gifts an don't want to spoil the surprise. Instead, here are some more thrifty finds if you'll humor me: That new thrift store I told you opened up in my town? They recently had a half price day, and I also discovered that if you look at the date on their tags and the item has been in the store 14, 21, or 30 days, depending on the color tag, it's 25% - 50% off anyway! It's a complicated rule, but worth learning, don't you think? Does anyone know if this showboat is McCoy? Here was a pile of fun stuff: two vintage tableclothes (look at that pomegrante on the one on the bottom!), a plastic powder box, and a set of never-used coasters that look like lily pads, in the original box! I couldn't resist the ferns and the coral colored accents with the black on this '70's needlepoint! Up the street at another thrift store haunt, I found a Peanuts milkglass cup for my son, ...

Thanks to the Country Register , I found out about an event in Littleton, north of me, called A Paris Street Market; it happens once a month May through October. I grabbed my neighbor and we took a day to go up there Saturday. Oh, there was so much to see. Next time, I'll bring my camera. It was a warm, beautiful day in the 70's, with a little too much wind for the poor vendors under their tented awnings, but just enough for us shoppers not to overheat! This was my favorite find: a little teapot for $5, with a surprise inside... ...when you pull up on the little ball atop the lid, it lifts up the attached tea strainer! Of course I also went nuts on the antique laces and trims... and linens... There was a ton of beautiful shabby stuff, painted wood galore, and antiques and glassware, but I had to be good as it was of course, at market, not thrift store, price! Mostly, I reveled at the being in the sunny, outdoor company of so many like-minded shoppers! My town really needs ...

Okay, so I promised you photos of the fun stuff I found at our annual community garage sale: Two cloches, one better, with etching around the lip and a fancy handle, and one larger and plainer; and a whole box of beautiful old glass Christmas ornaments! This fancy shoe, which I picked up for my mother-in-law but am now in love with...I think I may have to keep it for a while! This beautiful book of wallpaper modeled from antique textile paintings -- I had coveted one such book in a gift shop in Mendocino, CA about 15 years ago! It came back to me now -- brand new! Each painting has two pages of tear-out gift wrap, so you can use one page and keep the other. This quilted runner is long enough for my long counter over my kitchen sink, and that's where it will be this summer. I also found the great little cufflinks made from antique men's buttons, showing a fishing scene, complete with Labrador Retriever! And this cute little brass pill box! I also bought an iron, new in the bo...

If you look at my Shelfari (on the right sidebar) you'll see that I've been reading Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles by Margaret George. It's a novel about Queen Mary, so much of it is fictionalized; still, there is fact interwoven and it's an engrossing story, full of tragedy. I don't know if this anecdote is fact or fiction, but there is some very compelling imagery of Mary planting a "moon garden" of fragrant white flowers, some of which bloom at nightfall, at one of her palaces, and of wandering among the flowers by the light of the moon dressed in the mourning color of the time: white. The moon, June, wedding white and pearls have been on my mind. I've never owned a string of pearls of my own. For my wedding, the pearls were my "something borrowed" from a dear friend, Jan, who was married later in the same summer as I. Two years ago in June we vacationed in Orlando at Disney World, and my son searched for a pearl in an oyster on ...