Legacy

I'm still in Florida, taking care of my mom who had a very brief bout with pancreatic cancer, dying only three weeks after hearing the diagnosis. We had one good week together where we had some fun together and some tears, and her calling out our names in threes "Karen, Karen, Karen!" or "Girls, girls, girls..." On her last day she had a sponge bath and got arranged comfortably in bed, quietly taking her last breathe while we were each off doing something else. It was a quiet moment to say goodbye to this world.

In taking care of her household belongings, we have found some interesting things I hope my readers would also like to hear about. While she had sold her sewing machine to a friend of mine for her daughter decades ago (I think it was a Singer Fashion Mate), she still did some mending and had a long ride with counted cross stitch projects. We did find a sewing drawer where she had spools of thread, ribbons, snaps, and all those kinds of things for minor repairs. And she had buttons, lots and lots of buttons:

Buttons, buttons, buttons!

At first it was a jar of tiny zippered plastic bags with spare buttons that come with some clothing. I opened up each bag and put the buttons in a smaller jar, keeping those little bags for other items.

Buttons from recent clothing purchases

Then we found more jars of buttons, and finally THE jar of vintage buttons. Actually, it was a box that had been covered with Contact paper but I recognized it immediately from my childhood. Wow, I knew these were dating from the 1940's so I gladly put them in a safer place.

Vintage buttons

Then my husband found a tiny tube that contained three needles. Rolled up inside was a note from when I gave it to her over thirty years ago:

Thi note was kept since 1986?

One time when we were talking about gifts she told me this little tube was such a simple thing and something she loved very dearly, saying you just never know what is going to tickle your fancy. Apparently, this one did:

Wood tube painted to hold current project needles

It just goes to show you that you never know what is going to be valuable: sometimes it's a jar of old buttons, sometimes it a wooden tube painted with flowers to hold your sewing needles. It's about making memories along the way, loving those you hold dear, and letting them go while keeping your memories alive with buttons and needle holders.

When Old Is Made New Again

Those who have been reading this blog know I love vintage. My friends know I love vintage so they sometimes pass along items they think I might be interested in. A big thanks goes to Natalie who gave me over a dozen of her husbands silk neckties. Having retired and no longer in need to so many ties, he went through them and according to Natalie "When he's willing to let go of anything I just go with it." The ties sat around for many months until the craft fairs were over and then I got going on making those ties into two items for my Etsy shop, a foot stool and a pillow. I didn't dream these up myself but found them on Pinterest. With only photos I did need to figure out how to make it happen.

Much of it depended on finding a footstool so it was my lucky day when I spied one at Goodwill for $5, plus it was seniors day and I got a further discount. Yes, I nearly ran out of the store! Once I had the base, I could measure out the circumference and decide how many ties it would take, then make a template for each wedge. I got the idea to take the wide pointed end of the tie and have it hang over the edge and that turned out to be a good decision when it came time to actually fasten this to the footstool:

I left the footstool intact and just covered over it, tacking the intersections with decorative nails. What about the center? It needed to be pulled down so it got a button and the cord through the shank was pulled through to a hole on the bottom. I had to put a small piece of metal to tie it off so it wouldn't pull back up but it seems to be very sturdy:

Now that I have cut off the larger end of the 14 silk ties, I still had a sizable length of tie left over. In comes the idea of making a pillow by weaving the short ends like a lattice pie crust:

I really had a difficult time making it square but in the end it did measure out to a nearly perfect 16" square. I mounted it onto a section of new coat lining, added upholstery fabric from the compact cabinet project, installed a zipper and it was nearly done. Although I wanted to serge the edges the ties interfacing was too thick and kept jamming the two sergers I tried. I ended up trimming first and then using the serger to provide the stitches on the edge, no cutting. I like the pointed end of the ties hanging over the edge, too, deciding that's where the zipper needed to go.

With a custom made pillow form, it's complete and in my Etsy shop. I even had to made a new category: Home Decor. Not exactly easy to do because I had to figure it out on my own, yet it was very satisfying to have them done.

A fitting post for the first day of 2016 where I used something from the past that will decorate someones home in 2016 and years to come. Welcome the New Year!

Vintage Fabrics

Lucky me, I like to go to garage sales and this past season I only made it to a few but they were productive if you like vintage fabrics. When I've had a booth at a craft fair I have been asked if I have anything out of vintage fabrics and I have to say no and even wondered what I could make out of this older and weaker fabric that would hold up to everyday use. The hot mitts surely aren't good out of vintage fabric! Then I stumbled on the calendar towels as tote bags and found I could line them with vintage fabric. Not a bad idea but I kept searching for just the right application. I kept acquiring these wonderful tea towels, tablecloths, dresser runners, and pillowcases, some for as little as 25 cents each. So here's what I've come up with so far:

This cute little square opens up to 3 pockets with tea bags

Same tea bag gift idea with vintage dish towel/cloth

Elegant with an embroidered napkin

They are a bit tedious to make, mainly because I keep trying to match colors and fabrics and that can be a never ending task, but I did have fun with them. Wouldn't they be nice little gifts for the tea drinker in your life?

With some larger pieces of fabric I thought it would be fun to make some toaster covers. Why not? One of the first ones was a cute plaid but which color for the bias trim? I sent this photo to my sister, Sue, and daughter, Kelly, for a vote:

Vote, please!

You might know it, Sue liked red and Kelly liked blue. As it turned out I liked red also but couldn't find my red fabric to make the bias tape so I had to use the blue since it was already in my supplies (so Kelly won after all). Here are four that were made for the craft fair next weekend in Elk River, MN:

Red border print in the back, plaid dish towel with blue bias, tiny red tomatoes behind, and vintage roses on the right

I still have time to make tea cozies out of the floral tablecloths and they are all easy to whip up with no hand sewing so they are fast, too. What else would you make on a vintage sewing machine besides vintage linen items?