Oodles and oodles

Something extra

Do you think you'd enjoy grocery shopping more if you could buy your flour in bags like this?

This company didn't rely just on a pretty image of biscuits. They offered a little something extra on the back of the bag.

A stamped embroidery square for spring ...

and summer. I love that they have a little girl fishing. This was pretty clever marketing on the company's part, since customers were sure to return for the fall and winter squares.

I got a stack of plain colored feedsacks, all of which were stamped with this. Cute image.

But I think this floral print would make a prettier dress.

And for ease of sewing, you can't beat buying a bag of Globe flour.

With a dress pattern stamped right on the back.

I hope we can still be friends if I do nothing but blog about feedsacks. I'm going to try to go to some sales this weekend, but I kind of want to stay home with my new collection.
 

An all-American lineup

The view from my ironing board, where I expect to spend most of the coming summer. These are feedsacks printed with a classic picnic tablecloth pattern.

Available in a range of colors. I think I'm going to hem up most of these for tablecloths - some for me, some for Etsy. Making a feedsack tablecloth is about the easiest thing in the world.

In an attempt to break this collection into manageable parts, I thought I'd try to pick a theme. Today's is all-American feedsacks.

Feedsacks don't get much more patriotic than this one. It's still sewn into a sack.

These red, white and blue drums are pretty patriotic, too.

And what could be more all-American than a soda fountain print?

A good old-fashioned quilt print. This is "cheater cloth," printed to look like a pieced quilt.

Had to show you this tag I found sewn to one of the sacks (the couple whose collections were auctioned yesterday sold at shows.) Love this kind of thing. (Somebody, quick, do the math: If 34 million tons of feed were packed in feedsacks, and a full-size feedsack held 100 pounds, how many feedsacks does that make? And where are they?) (I think it's 680 million, but I'm more of a word person than a numbers person.)

Another cheater. There were three of these, but I'm keeping one for myself. In the unlikely case that I need a project. I think quilting this would be pretty fun (not to mention easy). Both of these cheater feedsacks, by the way, are in my Etsy shop. I'll be listing others on eBay, to start tonight and Sunday night. (The link is in the sidebar, if you want to check and see how fast I can wash, iron and photograph feedsacks. Or you can just take my word for it: Not nearly as quickly as I wish.)

I'll leave you with this all-American feedsack, not for its colors but its motif.

A pioneer log cabin.

And that all-American hero, Daniel Boone. Or Davy Crockett. It could be either one of them.

 

Best auction ever

I bought this feedsack at an auction today. It might be the cutest feedsack print ever.

Unless this one is.

I don't take my camera to auctions because I'm afraid of misplacing it. If I'd taken it, though, you'd see a photo of a lovely old farm stretched out across gentle hills on a country road, with a series of Burma Shave signs posted along the way. The couple who lived at the farm collected Burma Shave signs.

Most of the stuff that was for sale was farm equipment, so there were lots of nice old farm guys there, several of whom reminded me of my Uncle Don, who's a retired farmer.

The auction was exceptionally well organized and moved right along.

There was fun stuff to look at, like an enormous collection of tractor seats.

It was a little far away, but it was a nice day for a drive, and I was there in a little more than an hour.

I'm bringing out the aprons to rate this auction, and right now we're up to five.

And another one, because I love, love, love midweek auctions.

Besides tractor seats and Burma Shave signs, the couple collected grain sacks and feedsacks. I've never seen so many grain sacks in my life. There were thousands, some flax, some muslin, some burlap. Rice sacks, corn sacks, horse feed sacks, grass seed sacks. Most of them were purchased by a man who flew in from California just to buy the grain sacks. But he wasn't interested in the feedsacks.

Lack of formidable competition is always a plus.

But a perfect auction is a ten-apron auction, and we're lacking three.

So how about an apron for a big, big box of feedsack scraps?

Also, I forgot to award an apron for the really cute feedsacks.

That just leaves us one apron short.

I think buying 190 full feedsacks merits an apron, though.

That's a ten. A great auction. I can't imagine going to one that's better. And I can't wait to show you some of these feedsacks. They're amazing. 

 

 

 

Firsts

First lilies of the valley.

First time the apple trees we planted have blossomed.

First quilt purchase of the season.

May really is a good month.

Three things I didn't expect to buy

There's nothing better than an on-site auction at a nice old house. Like an estate sale, it offers a lifetime's worth of stuff. Unlike an estate sale, you get to name your own price. This can be a good thing or a bad thing. It's a great thing when you can move out of your usual comfort zone and snap up some bargains. Like this Weller planter.

Pretty piece, and it's a good incentive to do a little research on Weller.

I ended up with this box of frames because I wanted one thing in the lot. You know how that is. These are the frames that are left after I pulled out the too-ugly- and too-broken-to-fool with.

This is the one thing I wanted, and it wasn't even the frame that I wanted, but what was inside it. I need a little blogland help here, though - this frame has three distinct layers and is several inches deep. Not my taste at all, but it is pretty, and I don't know if there's a particular name for this kind of style.

What I wanted was the photo inside the frame.

Complete with documentation.

The arrangement under the tree is amazing - the dolls, and the teacup and saucer, and the books and die cuts ... every time I look at it, I see something different. Marjorie's family knew how to do Christmas.

There were some other photographs, too. Talk about formidable ancestors.

My daughter took one look at this woman and pronounced her "terrifying."

The third thing I didn't expect to buy was a box of type. Most of the letters were huge (close to 6 inches) and had a beautiful wood patina. I put the terrifying portrait and some of the type in my new Etsy shop, Vintage NE. (It had what we call a soft opening a couple of weeks ago and is for the more rustic farm and camp stuff that I like but that kind of clashes with pretty vintage housewares.) Anyway, some of the letters were snapped up instantly, so I was glad I lugged (and I do mean lugged) the box home.

There was a cigar box full of smaller type inside the big box, and if you look closely, you'll see why I bought it. It was calling my name.

A pretty good day

When you read an advertisement for a sale that promises Swanky Swigs, you know there are several possibilities. One, the person could be one of those people who calls every vintage glass a Swanky Swig, and we all know what we think of them. Two, the person could be one of those people who knows exactly what a Swanky Swig is and is not going to be selling them cheap.

Or - and this is an unlikely possibility - the person knows exactly what a Swanky Swig is, but the person is moving and is more than happy to make a deal with someone who's willing to take them all. Here's a really unlikely scenario: The person will have not only a nice array of Swanky Swigs, but two of the tall 1937 Tulip #1s, which we all know are really hard to find. Because in all of your years of Swig hunting, you've found only one of them.

The person will have a bunch of the easier to find but no less lovely smaller 1937 Tulip #1 Swigs.

Not to mention a Kiddie Cup.

And the 1940s tulip from the Posy series.

And, as if you needed anything else to make you happy, a sturdy little Jadeite coffee mug.

I'm not suggesting this kind of thing happens often. When it does, it's a pretty good day. 

 

A brief tour of rearranged areas

As you well know, it's not possible to rearrange one area without needing to rearrange other areas. Once I rearranged the stuff on the little Hoosier, I had to rearrange the stuff on the big Hoosier, and on the kitchen shelves. I don't often take room views because I find the lighting tricky and I do things like think I've moved the ugly wastebasket out of view when in fact it is right in the middle of this photo. We're just going to pretend we don't see that and proceed into the kitchen.

My house is really small, so there were only about three steps involved. Now we're looking at the rearranged Jade-ite collection, with a little springtime yellow.

Another step so you can see how prominently Swanky Swigs figure into this arrangement.

Obligatory closeup.

Shelves without any Swigs but with Swig-friendly canisters.

These footed dishes have been kind of stuck in a cupboard since I got them. It was practically criminal.

 Obligatory salt and pepper shaker closeup.

Okay, now we're not leaving the kitchen but merely turning 45 degrees to look into the dining room at the big Hoosier. The canisters way up on top are not recent acquisitions but recent to the display because they were living in my garage for a few years. Some people really should not be allowed to own vintage.

A salute to the Netherlands, part 1.

Digressing just momentarily for the back story, here are two wooden boxes I've owned for quite some time but could never really quite figure out how to use since they had tops instead of bottoms. If I used them to hold things, the graphics would be upside down. Probably one of you would have thought of this right away, but it took until just this past weekend for me to realize that if I pried off the top and hammered it onto the bottom, all would be right-side-up with the world. Or at least the world of vintage advertising boxes that I own.

Imagine my happiness when the cream cheese box turned out to be exactly the right size for my only set of eight matching Swanky Swigs! I may have told you this story before, but I like telling it, so plug your ears if necessary: All of these Swigs (plus one or two more just like them) came from the same auction, but it was a poorly organized auction, and these glasses were scattered throughout the box lots, one glass per box. Fortunately they were dollar box lots, but I had to buy an awful lot of junk to get them all. Well worth it, however.

Salute to the Netherlands, part 2. This concludes our little tour of rearranged areas. For those of you wondering about what happened to the other box, it became part of a project that required multiple trips to the hardware store, a new drill bit and a Band-Aid. I'm not quite ready to talk about it yet.

Evolution of a little Hoosier

The little Hoosier started out looking a little rough, as demonstrated here. And even though its reconstruction was a success, I have to admit that it was used primarily as a) pet supply storage underneath and b) clutter collection on top. Stuff that I would bring home from a sale would sit here until I took it upstairs. Sometimes I pretended that it looked OK - the stuff I was bringing home was mostly vintage housewares, after all - but instead of looking eclectic and fun, it mostly looked just jumbled.

When I found a 1950s plate rack at the thrift store last week, it landed, naturally, on the little Hoosier. I had planned to sell it (they're usually worth picking up when you find them, because they're usually inexpensive and usually sell well, and yes, I know I qualified this sentence with an unusual repetition of the word 'usually.') But that 50-cent purchase ended up encouraging me to make better use of the space.

The bottom is still devoted to pet storage. (Yeah, they do have a lot of stuff!) But the top shelves look a lot more organized.

I built the shelf unit for the top all by myself last summer with scrap lumber from the shed, except for the trim piece on top, which I bought because it was a near match to the trim on the original Hoosier. One of the proudest moments in my life occurred last fall when my brother visited and remarked on the Hoosiers. "Did you buy these together, or did you just happen to find ones that matched?" he asked. My brother, who has remarkable do-it-yourself and repair skills, was stunned that I built something.

It's nice to have the little Hoosier clutter-free, with all my ducks in a row. Or birds, as the case may be. 

Friday the 13th finds

I wondered if Friday the 13th was going to live up to its reputation of being unlucky when I went to a barn sale this morning and found only a dish full of keys. The keys were OK, but I was hoping for more. I wasn't expecting more, but I was hoping.

On my way home, I was overcome by an urge to bake. Specifically, to bake raspberry streusel muffins. This required a detour to the grocery store. Oh, happy day, there was a moving sale set up directly across the parking lot from the grocery store.

I first spotted a Swanky Swig. This always makes me happy. What makes me even happier is when the person selling it wants a quarter for it.

I also found some planters and a pitcher. The matte white planters will go into my collection. The pitcher,  with that windmill scene, really needs to be filled with a bouquet of tulips.

Even though I'll probably sell it, the deer planter is my favorite of all of the pieces.

I deliberated over buying a shipping box filled with vintage Christmas ornaments, which was marked $25. I was *this close* to buying it. It's hard to leave ornaments behind. But once I looked through the box, I realized there weren't really enough great ornaments to justify the price. Close, but not quite.

I saw an individual box of ornaments that wasn't marked. "That one?" said the woman having the sale. "A quarter."

Sold.

After the sale, I walked across the street to my original destination, the grocery store, where half-pints of raspberries were selling for more than I had spent for everything at the sale, so I passed on them.

I came home feeling virtuous and thrifty, and less convinced that Friday the 13th brings bad luck.

My pillow problem and how I solved it

I really love pretty pillows.

So does Carson.

Carson's favorite way to greet people he loves is by bringing them a pillow. It's been very hard to break him of this habit, because it's cute and people say things like "Oh, Carson, did you bring me a pillow? You're such a good puppy!" Instead of saying things like "No! Put that down now!"

For this reason, I have, for the past six years, lived in a mostly pillow-free zone.

The alternative to the pillow-free zone was a heavily pillowed zone, which is what I tried to create over the weekend. Carson is the happy recipient of 10 pillows, five in a basket downstairs and five upstairs. I'm hopeful that if there is a convenient supply of dog-friendly pillows, he will leave ours alone.

He was very excited when I gave him the first pillow. When he's very excited, his nose wrinkles up and he grins and his whole body wags. He was pretty excited about the second pillow, too. By the time pillow No. 10 rolled out from the sewing machine, he merely lifted his head from his favorite pillow and weakly wagged his tail.

As you can see, it was an overwhelming experience for him.


(The upstairs supply of pillows, to coordinate with the decor.)

A problem I had not foreseen was Patch's interest in the pillows.

Happily, she was quickly repelled by the thin veneer of dog slobber already on the pillows.

Better on his pillows than on mine. If I see that little crazy quilt pillow anywhere near his mouth, I'm going to ask for a refund from the Brittany rescue people. Or, more likely, return the house to a pillow-free zone.