Oodles and oodles

Banishing the plastic bins

 

My work space/attic/storage area was due for a big post-Christmas clean-up, and a single sentence kept popping into my head: "I must end the tyranny of the plastic bins!" This is just one more reason why parents should never let their children major in English: They turn items on a to-do list into snippets of Elizabethan drama.

 
  
But old sewing notions are so pretty, and it's tragic to store them in plastic. They need to be out where they can be seen and admired and possibly even used. I got rid of the stuff I didn't want, like half-used packages of gray bias tape - some things are vintage but just not pretty - and sorted out what I wanted to keep.

 
 
And now everything is out where I can see it, and the trims are arranged in pretty planters and boxes, and the plastic bins are gone.
 
 

I'm using an old metal bread box to hold more notions. You'll notice two other things in the picture: a vintage umbrella, which is just for decoration or if the roof springs a serious leak, and the guard cat. Nobody can get to the notions cabinet without getting by Polly first. It's possible that Polly has concealed a weapon in the umbrella, a la James Bond. I don't ask a lot of questions. I just let Polly do her job.

 
 
Polly also keeps watch over the drawers of Christmas trims.

 
 
The new work area required spiffier seating, and so I did a quick remake of the world's most boring chair. It's sturdy, but you could fall asleep just looking at it.

 

A thrifted bedspread provided the fabric and a ready-made skirt.

 
 
The skirt is just tacked on the seat, with another piece of fabric tacked over the center to cover the wood. This part is concealed underneath the cushion, so it doesn't show, but it just looks a little neater.

 

Then I made a quick cover for the cushion and a simple cover for the back. The most satisfying part of the project was sewing on the red pom-poms. Since I had just sorted through all of the notions, I actually could find them, and there is almost no project that a row of red pom-poms can't improve.
 
   

Things I don't collect, and there are a lot of them

 

Marbles! I don't collect marbles! That was the answer to the question in my last post, and honestly, I don't think I've ever enjoyed comments more. First of all, nobody guessed marbles, and so I won't be sending them off to anybody. Sorry. But really, all of you had such good and interesting ideas. Things that I don't collect but that seemed like they'd be nice, like napkin girls and pie birds and curtain tiebacks. Things that I don't collect and don't really want to, like bells. Bells have always struck me as kind of a weird thing to collect, but really no weirder than anything else, when you think about it. Things that I never even considered could be collected, like vases shaped like open books. Now that is a specific collection!

 
 
I kept these only because they're a perfect Jadeite color. There's very little chance I'll collect marbles. I can't tell one kind from another, or whether they're old or new. I also was not very good at marbles growing up and never quite understood the point of it. Some old-fashioned amusements went out of style because they just weren't enough fun. That, in my opinion, is what happened with marbles. Maybe I'd feel differently if I'd been any good at them.

Several people wondered whether I collect thimbles.

 

I do not. But I have been cleaning and sorting like crazy lately, and would you believe how many thimbles I came across, here and there? This is not a collection. It's an accumulation. I don't understand thimble collecting either. Part of the problem is that I don't know my metals. Some thimbles are sterling, and that's a good thing, but I have no idea how I'd tell. And the ones that aren't silver-colored? Are they brass? The only one I'm sure about is the pink one, because it's plastic.

 

Here are the dog with toothache salt and pepper shakers I mentioned previously. As a child I found them perplexing and a little bit frightening. I did not think they looked so much like dogs as they did some kind of weird lions or monkeys. Like flying monkeys. Like the ones in "The Wizard of Oz." Now I'm going to have bad dreams.

Hey, I'm going to be away from the computer a lot the next couple of weeks. You may not even notice, however, because I have been squirreling away photos and posts and if all goes as planned, they'll appear as if by magic. I have a cleaned-up sewing notions collection to show you, and a couple of other non-collections, and another ugly chair makeover, and Valentines decorations. I might not be so great at answering e-mails and blog visiting, though, but I'll catch up. And I really do want to say hello to a lot of people who left comments on the last post who I hadn't heard from before - thanks!
 
 
 

Things I don't collect: Egg timers

 
  
Some of my so-called blog friends insinuated in their comments on my last post that it certainly appeared to them as if I did have a salt-and-pepper shaker collection. Well, I don't, and I have addresses for some of you, and if a set of salt and pepper shakers shows up on your doorstep without explanation some night, you'll have only yourselves to blame. With that said, here's something else I don't collect: egg timers.

 

I have only one of these, and even though the base is very chipped up, I like the broom.

 

And that sweet face.
 
She lives in a drawer with the watering can salt and pepper shakers, and one can only wonder if they whisper to each other about whether they've done something wrong and how come they don't get to live in the sunshine with the Jadeite. Well, it's because I collect Jadeite. And I don't collect egg timers or salt and pepper shakers. Life is difficult and unfair sometimes.

 

I don't collect dresser sets, either, but I found this duo at the thrift store yesterday. Pretty, but so not my style, and certainly destined for Etsy.

 

I don't collect wedding cake toppers/bride and groom figurines either, but they were at the thrift store as well, and again destined for Etsy.

Anybody who guesses correctly what object will be featured next as something I don't collect will receive it/them in the mail. (But only if you really want it/them.) Go ahead, guess! It'll be fun to see what you come up with.

 
 

Things I don't collect, part one

 

It may not seem this way to you, but there's a lot of stuff I don't collect. Dolls. Clocks. Cameras. Guns. Fishing lures. Hess trucks. (Nothing is worse than being at an otherwise promising auction that has a pile of Hess trucks, which apparently must be auctioned off very slowly, one by one.) Anyway, I also don't collect salt and pepper shakers, so I thought I'd show you a few of them.

 

Salt and pepper shakers used to be quite the collectible. Especially tiny, useless ones like these tres elegant lamps, which are made of plastic. These show signs of light use, which means someone actually filled them with maybe a teaspoon of salt and pepper (they're tiny) and put them on the table, expecting them to be used. I would feel very silly shaking one of these over my vegetables.

 

These are cute, but again, awfully impractical. They might be Shawnee. Then again, maybe not. Here's a valuable auction lesson I learned from my friend Laurel: When an auctioneer holds up something, like a vase, and says, "Might be Roseville!" my friend Laurel mutters under her breath, "Might not be." It's just good to remember that the word "might" means almost nothing.

 

And these, which are just cheery. Alas, this is not the limit of my salt and pepper non-collection. I have some that belonged to my mom: a pair of saucy red tomatoes, and my Christmas geese, and a corn shock and pumpkin, and a very weird pair of dogs with toothaches. (They were too weird to photograph, but who knows? The day may come.) There's another pair, also from my mom, but I'm saving them for a Very Special Post in February. (In fact, I believe Mom purchased them on her honeymoon. When I pointed this out to her, she kind of shrugged and said "Whatever." She has a disturbingly large unsentimental streak for a mom.)

You may be asking yourself how all of these constitute a non-collection. Well, for one thing, I didn't set out to acquire them. They appeared, here and there, in the bottom of a box lot or on a tray of stuff at an auction. They were not deliberate purchases. Plus, I don't display them all together. They almost don't know each other exists, like distant cousins at a family reunion. If I displayed all of them together, people would get the idea that I collected them, and they would start giving them to me. And I might also get the idea that I collected them, and that is one thing I am trying mightily to avoid.
 

  

Vocational education

 

This chair, which is sort of a family hand-me-down, has been a problem. Unless I wanted to re-do the living room in burgundy velvet, it was not going to fit in. It's too large to store anywhere. I didn't like it enough to pay someone to reupholster it. And yet on two occasions when I had the chance to sell it - when I had a yard sale, and when I was taking some other stuff to an auction - I wasn't quite ready to let it go.

 

So over the weekend, I decided to try to reupholster it myself. Taking it apart was fun. I like to see how things are put together.

 
 
I got a little nervous when the chair was completely unassembled and I was left with a skeleton, two lumpy cushions and several assorted small parts. It's at moments like this that I revisit the humiliation of the high school aptitude test on which I scored a two (out of a possible 100) in mechanical aptitude.  

Well, I've got one thing to say to my snickering high school guidance counselor: Ha!
 
 

I am crazy about my made-over chair. Sometimes I look at it and beam like an adoring mother. It was not very difficult to do at all. It makes me want to take an upholstery class.
 
So on the heels of this triumph, I went to work Monday not to do my usual job, which consists a lot of sitting at a computer and writing and updating a web site and such, but to help our building foreman on a project. I sort of came up with the plan for the project, which involved building some display units from scratch, and he was desperate enough for another pair of hands to welcome my help.

And you know what? It was probably one of my top 10 best-ever days at work. I don't mean at this particular job. I mean at any job, from high school graduation to today. It is so satisfying to figure out the solution to a problem. I loved going to Lowe's in the middle of the morning for drill bits and toggle bolts. It's also really nice to work with somebody who thinks you're completely capable of measuring and drilling and gluing, and who does not know a single thing about a long-ago aptitude test. It's so much fun to build stuff that Monday did not feel like a day at work at all. 

All-occasion wreaths

 

Good Morning wreath for a Monday morning. (Particularly this Monday morning, when we seem to be shrouded in fog and ice.)

 

Pink wreath for those days when it seems spring just can't get here soon enough.

 

Blue wreath for those times when you're feeling as if you have a chenille-rickrack-vintage button deficit.

 
 
Sometimes photos have a ridiculously cheering effect on me.

 

Yep, I could do this all day.

 
 
Except I really need to eat breakfast.

 

And get dressed. And go to work.

 
 
I'm going now. I'll leave you with directions to my Etsy shop (click right here!) if you want to see more.

 
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 

Still a work in progress

 

I thought I'd have my project finished to photograph today, but I don't. Fortunately, all of you seem as entertained as I am by the magical combination of old buttons and a super-macro lens.

 

Know where I found this button? At a yard sale. At MY yard sale. Somehow it ended up in the jar of junk buttons. I don't know how that happened, but talk about a close call. The chenille spread in the background was today's thrift store find. It was such a mess I was almost embarrassed to take it to the register. It washed up beautifully, though.

 
 
Here's a still life I'm calling "Thrift Store Chenille Spread with Button, #2."

 

And here's one called "Maybe I'll Get My Project Done Tomorrow."

Just pretty

 

It doesn't happen very often

 

(because usually I make a huge mess when I'm working on something)



but sometimes all those buttons and the rickrack

 

and the pincushion and the button tin

 

look awfully pretty all on their own.


 
 
 
 
 

Winter white

Maybe the snow has inspired me, or my eyes are tired from Christmas, but the only color I seem to like any more is white. A little ivory or beige is OK, too.

 

After I put the Christmas decorations away, I got out the vases and planters, but only the white ones. All the pink and yellow and green and aqua will need to wait.

 

Fortunately, the local thrift store had stocked according to my needs, because I found a perfect Haeger vase last week. It's on the large side - maybe 10 inches tall - and must weigh 10 pounds.

 

I found this planter, too, which I think is adorable, if a little wildly colored for my current mood.

 

She's very sweet. But she might end up on Etsy. I'm just not sure.

 
 
I got this purse out to list on Etsy, but this is as far as I've gotten. Apparently I'm attracted only to neutral colored items in my storage bins, too. I wish I'd had a purse like this when I got married.

 
 
On the same thrifting trip, I found the perfect chenille spread for me. I need an abundance of white chenille with that sort of ribbed design, and I wanted to find a spread that was kind of beat up because I wouldn't cut into it otherwise. And sure enough, there was this one, with the top in pristine condition, but the sides kind of tattered. So I got the chenille that I needed, and a nice big piece with a pretty design left over. I may just hem the sides for a coverlet. Eventually. Right now, it's too bright for me to look at. 
 
 


  

Good food

 

I've been trying out a lot of new recipes. You won't see many actual food pictures on my blog, because I live in the land of no sun, and by the time I cook dinner, it's been dark for hours.

 

I also tend to make quite a mess and use every pot and appliance available, including, on occasion, a  waffle iron. (The quarter-inch gingham checks give you a rough idea of the size of this cookware, which both my mom and I played with. The waffle iron is maybe an inch across. How we managed not to lose any of those little lids is a mystery.)

 
 
I've been enjoying the new Gourmet cookbook, which was a Christmas present from my husband. Cookbooks are good gifts, because they can inspire you to try new foods at what can be a fairly uninspiring time of year.
 
 

A new cookbook can get you interested in eating healthy food.

 

Or some not-so-healthy food.

Thanks to my new cookbook we enjoyed a meal of  Korean marinated beef, savory rice cakes and rice-studded Chinese meatballs, which was far superior to any Chinese take-out we could have found, and, once all the chopping was done, not at all difficult. I'm looking forward to some beef chow mein, too. And these two recipes -garlic and cheese crostini and antipasto pasta salad - look like they can't miss.

There's some other fun stuff in the cookbook, like how to make fresh ricotta, which looks very easy, and how to make an egg cream, which has no eggs and no cream and sounds like the ice-cream sodas of my youth.

But my most favorite recipe so far is the oven-braised barbecued brisket, for which, alas, there is no link. However, if you found yourself a nice 4-pound brisket, browned it on both sides, doused it in a bottle of your favorite barbecue sauce and put it, tightly covered, in a 325-degree oven for 3 or 4 hours, you would eat very well. (The recipe calls for making your own sauce, which was very easy.) We're having the leftovers as sandwiches tonight.

The other nice thing about this recipe is the opportunity to use the phrase "a nice brisket." I went to all of my local grocery stores in search of a nice brisket and ended up driving to the second-largest Wegmans in the world (well, one of the really big ones) to find said brisket. There's something about the phrase "nice brisket" that's very comforting and makes me think of apron-wearing housewives in Brooklyn in the 1950s.

 

The other recipe I really want to try (and there's also no link to it - sigh) is the cannoli roll, which is a sponge cake roll filled and frosted with whipped cream and sprinkled with pistachios and bittersweet chocolate. Although I'm certain I could eat the whole thing by myself, I'm certain I shouldn't, and so I might have to have some company over for that.