GIVEAWAY TIME! - Pumpkin Penny Rug Tablerunner

Ok, today is the official start of my very first blog giveaway. And it's a good one indeed!

Welcome to all! Lurkers, Ebay customers, and fellow bloggers are all appreciated here.

This giveaway is open to anyone who happens to stop in to read, but especially for all of you who are on my bloglist as followers because you have kept me entertained for the past 4 1/2 months since I've started my blog. You've taken me in, welcomed me and encouraged me with my work and I've very much appreciated that support....and your business!

I've said it before and I'll say it again; This is absolutely my favorite penny rug to make.

I've made hundreds of different penny rugs over the years, so it really is quite a compliment to the designer. (Click on the pictures to see all the detailed sewing on this tablerunner)

For me, since I design my own patterns, it's fun to take a break from being in penny rug designing mode and just make a penny rug from the instructions in front of me ...designed by someone else. This design always challenges me because of it's difficulty but then rewards me when it's finished because of it's beauty. So this is the penny rug that I will be giving away. It measures 12" x 28 1/2". All but the black wool background is my own hand-dyed or overdyed wool. The backing is a nice homespun cotton in a plaid that blends nicely with the colors of the wool. I've attached my owned signed and dated label on the back too.

It looks beautiful on a table, but my own rug is kept on the back of our old rocking chair so don't think of it just as something for a table.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR ENTERING

Chances for this will be based on a point system.

Each point accumulated will garner 1 entry.

Drawing will be done on Wednesday, August 5th

All you have to do is leave a comment in this post to receive ONE point.

Here's how to gather additional points:

* 2 Points --all of you 50 people who are listed right now (July. 31)as "followers" on my bloglist.

* 2 Points --all of you who are Ebay customers and have purchased items from me in the past.

* 1 Point -- all of you who add me to their "followers" list. (starting today, July 31)

* 1 Point -- all of you who have me listed on their blog page as a "favorite blogs to watch list"

* 1 Point -- all of you who announce my giveaway in their blog posts.

Tally up your points and let me know your total in the comment section.

If you don't have a blog, please be sure to list your contact email address in the comments.

And to give proper credit to the designer, here is her pattern. If anyone wishes to purchase this pattern to make it yourself, just do a google search or visit your local quilt shop to order it. My local embroidery shop has one pattern available for purchase. If interested, let me know and I can purchase it for you for $8 including shipping.

In other news, I have this Traditional Penny Rug listed on Ebay .....

As well as this popular Wool Blueberry Pinkeep listed. Please take a click over to visit my Ebay listings. It's a slooooow month for wool items so your business is much appreciated!

Happy Day everyone ... and good luck!

Deadline for entering is 2pm est, Wednesday, Aug 5th.

Winner will be announced Wednesday evening

Vintage Thursday! Guessing Game!

Can anyone guess what these old wooden things are?? Don't know?
I'll give you some hints .......

They come in a lot of different sizes. This large one is about 2ft high and almost as wide.

The way they are sitting is not the position they were used. Their functioning position would be laying on their sides.

They were used on transportation vehicles.

Still no guesses?

This little one shows steel bands around it and it also show how the slots were used. See the two pieces of wood sticking out on either side? They used to be a lot longer, but have broken off. When this was used, all the open slots would have had pieces of wood sticking in them.
Ok, I'm just going to tell you what this is. . . .

They are old wagon wheel hubs. You know back in the horse and wagon days ... the wagons had wooden wheels with spokes? These hubs were in the center of the wagon wheel and were used to hold the spokes and rims of the wheels.
Go take a look HERE to see what it looks like all put together as a wagon wheel.

The story behind why I have old wagon wheel hubs by my front door?

My husband's Uncle Lou was a bit of an eccentric man. The life of this man is a whole book in itself, but briefly told, he was a collector.
Gosh, .... the man collected really odd things. Hmmm ... I don't want to be disrespectful so I have to word this carefully ....
He owned several houses in that small town ... all of them vacant and all of them held his collected items ... literally from floor to ceiling, in every room, on every floor, from basement to attic with just a narrow pathway through each room.

At some point, when my husband and his brother were in their early teens, Uncle Lou found out about an old wagon wheel company that was going out of business.
Uncle Lou bought the contents of the wagon wheel company which consisted of HUNDREDS of old, used wagon wheel parts. We don't know why he did this.
My husband and his brother were used as free labor by my uncle to unload the truck full of heavy wagon wheel parts and store them in one of Uncle Lou's vacant homes.

There they sat until Uncle Lou passed away some 25 years later.

Now, since Uncle Lou never married, my mother-in-law was left with the entire mess of his estate and what the heck to do with hundreds of wagon wheels, old oak spokes and rusted rims.
Floor to ceiling wagon wheel hubs! My husband used to groan when even thinking about those hubs because that was some major unpaid labor he did to unload them so he didn't really want anything more to do with them other than light a match to the entire vacant home and happily watch it burn to the ground.

Well, ... let's just say .... hmmm... have to be respectful here again. My mother-in-law was a collector. ....
She wasn't about to let these old wagon wheel hubs and spokes go up in smoke via bonfire.
She did some research ... this was back before the internet too ... and found a small company that still made wagon wheels. She gave everything to him .... Yes, that's right, she gave them away to the first person who was willing to haul those hundreds of heavy, dirty wooden hubs away and out of our life.

Even though we thought they were all gone....the hubs would still appear in different places over time....haunting us. When we were dealing with my mother-in-law's estate 10 years ago, we came across even more down in her basement.

So the ones that I have here in my own yard are some of the few that were left over. Do I wish that I had kept more and sold them for their antique value?
NO .... wait .... I need to clairfy my answer .... NO, I DON'T WANT TO DEAL WITH ANYMORE HUBS EVER AGAIN! :)

This is why I have old antique wagon wheel hubs sitting at the front of my house. They don't haunt us anymore because instead of hiding them away in a dark musty basement, I use them outside to hold my flowerpots and for the memories and lessons that we've learnd from them.

One very important lesson that was learned was; Vacant houses should be rented or sold and not used for floor to ceiling storage.

Vintage Thingies Thursdays is hosted by Suzanne. Go take a click over to Coloradolady's blog to find more Vintage Thingies.

NOTE: I've finished the Pumpkin Penny Rug and will be announcing details for its giveaway tomorrow.
YES! I will be giving this away!

Here's the finished penny rug that I will be giving away. Again, the lighting is bad on this because it's a rainy dreary day. I had to take this to my kitchen table to get decent natural light. The orange pumpkin colors are really a lot darker than shown.
Oh and sorry, but that big can of Nacho Cheese that is shown in the picture will NOT be included with the giveaway. Sorry.

Be sure to check back tomorrow so that you can enter for a chance to win this wonderful penny rug. If you add me as a follower, I'll give you an extra entry chance, but that offer will close at midnight tonight.

It's almost Giveaway time!

Sheesh, I don't want to seem like I'm taunting everyone with a giveaway, cause that's not my intent. I just wanted to show that I haven't forgotten and I'm definitely progressing on it.

What's up with the green colors in this picture??? It doesn't look like this, really. The greens are much nicer. My camera is pms'ing today. It's best to not mess with it too much when it's in this kind of mood because not matter what I do, it just won't cooperate and take good pictures today. But anyway, this is the giveaway pumpkin penny rug that is almost complete. I still have to attach the tongues and then sew on the backing and I'll be finished. It should be ready for the giveaway on Friday, so make sure to watch for it.
So, it's taken an email from my sister, NAGGING me to post an entry in my blog. Yes, she's a nag and apparently nagging works because alas!, here I am!
I've been busy, ok? I've been babysitting in the afternoons, and the grandson is way too much fun to play with so my sewing gets put aside, for the most part. Also, my Rachel has gone back to school, so last week was spent shopping and getting ready for her departure. She left on Sunday and the house just isn't the same.... mostly because she left her IKEA tables in the living room for me to put away for her. Grr... Rach, these tables will not sit in there until you come back to get them in 3 weeks.
Anyway, I miss that girl already, yes I do. She went back to school to work a couple volleyball camps, which is a paid job. That's for 10 days. Then she'll come home for 3days to pack and go back for her pre-season volleyball training. She'll be living in the dorms during that time but only takes basic survivor items, because she'll be playing volleyball from 8am to 8pm every single day. After pre-season, she'll move her things to the apartment where she'll be living for the rest of the semesters. So it's a huge mess of packing and figuring what she's going to need to take.
I do none of the packing or figuring though ... my only duty is to have my credit card ready.
It's easy to blame my week of silence on babysitting and Rachel leaving but I might as well confess right now what the real reason is for my absence....
BIG BROTHER is on. Ok, I'm not proud of the fact that I watch Big Brother and become addicted to it each and every summer. I know that I lose braincells after watching it but I just can't help myself. Yes, I get the livefeeds so that I can watch them 24/7 . Ok? Yes, I agree it's utter stupidity. But I still watch. The livefeeds show me things that the CBS censored and edited show doesn't show. $14.99 for one month of livefeeds. Then I'll call to cancel and customer service will offer me another free month just to keep me as a customer, so I'll get basically the entire Big Brother season for less than half price.
I still have been sewing though. I finished up the traditional penny rug but this picture of it is utterly horrible. Remember, my camera has pms today so just imagine it as a nice blend of oatmeal browns

I made a couple more of the Black-eyed Susan candle mats. The black one was ordered and the light one will be Ebayed sometime soon. I really don't know which one I like better. They both turned out so nice. I like showing how to make the same pattern look different, so this is a good example.

That's all I've got! I'm outta here and off to clean up around the house a bit before the grandson comes over.

Happy Day everyone!

Traditional Penny Rugs

Back in those colonial days, women used scraps of wool clothing to create penny rugs. They're called penny rugs because coins, such as pennies, were used for the circle templates. Hundreds of circles were cut and sewn together to form the penny rug.
Here's one of my own traditional penny rugs. This is just a small size with the bottom "penny" measuring only about 1 1/2" wide. I like this size because they fit just about anywhere. There's no backing on this mat ... each individual penny is attached to the ones next to it which makes it drape nicely. It looks nice laying on a shelf with a few rows of the pennies hanging over the edge

This particular penny rug is on an old wooden trough. See how nicely it drapes over? And the smaller size makes it perfect for for that type of smaller space.

And by the way, shown in the picture are the hand-cast paper ornaments that I won from
La Chambre Rose . Thank you again, Nancy. Nancy has lovely items and a great blog so go visit!

So I'm in the mood to make another traditional penny rug. Here's another one of my own penny rugs, using off-whites. It's one of my favorites so I think I'll make one similiar to this one. I just don't feel like dying wool though, so I went through my wool stash and found some wonderful oatmeal colors that blend nicely and won't require any additional overdyes.

There are 36 circles that make up this design with each circle requiring 4 layers of pennies.

Sooooooo ... using my friend, the Walmart circle template, I drew out the three sizes of circles that I needed. The bottom circles require two layers of the same size so I've drawn out a total of 144 circles. I have lots of cutting ahead of me!

Now, some people have diecutters to do this job, making it quick and easy.

I don't have a diecutter and .... hmmm.... I really should buy one. I really don't mind cutting all those circles though and cutting them all by hand gives it a more handmade look. That's what I say to justify not spending the $$ on a diecutter.

So here's the three colors of wool that I'll be using. I like using textures in the pennies so I found two different shades of herringbone and one plain. Just like the colonial days, the pennies will be made from recycled wools. The herringbones have come from sportscoats and that nice light brown is from a wool skirt. I've washed them several times so that they've felted thick and soft.

This is all 100% wool. I guess woolfelt could be used but you're not going to get the same look or the same textures using woolfelt. If you're going to take the time to make this, I highly recommend using 100% wool over a 20%- 35% wool/rayon blend felt.. Today, when I go over to babysit this afternoon, I'll take these circles with me and cut them all out while the kid is taking his nap.

I've made up three pennies already just to see how they'll look together and to make sure the thread will work well with the colors.All four layers are sewn for each penny and this picture shows them attached to each other to form the beginnings of the first row. (I start with the center row first and work out to the ends.)

I try to make it neat on the back so that the attaching stitches don't show. I've run the stitches between the layers, back and forth a few times to attach the pennies to each other. The only thing that shows are the little knots where I've tied the threads off.

After I get one row finished, I'll take this upstairs to my ironing board and steam the pennies so that they lay really nice and flat.

I'm particular about the thread too. Embroidery floss is a LOT cheaper to use, but I prefer to use pearle cotton #8. The pearl cotton thread is twisted tight so it's going to hold up much better over time than the floss, which isn't twisted tight.
I'm thinking heirlooms here, I don't want to skimp on threads just because they are cheaper.

Over the weekend, I was able to progress quite a bit on the giveaway Pumpkin penny rug. I'm finishing up the embelllishments and starting to sew the tongues together. I'm on schedule for the giveaway to start next week, so make sure to check back then.

Happy Day everyone!

Update on the Penny Rug Giveaway

I haven't forgotten about the giveaway
This is what I'm planning to giveaway, hopefully by the end of July. I'm trying to work on it a little bit every day and as you can see, it's progressing nicely.
I still have the pumpkin stems to sew on and after that it's all embroidery embellishments with veins on the leaves, detailing on the pumpkins and then curly tendrils. Then I'll sew the 3 layers of tongues, stitch them on and finally sew on the homespun cotton backing.
Jimmy finished up the fence for me. I'm so happy with how it looks. Rach isn't so happy with it, saying that when she looks out the dining room window, it looks like we're in jail. She's silly.
She's leaving to go back to school next week, so it will only be another week in prison.
Today, I'm planning to extend the planting area to the end of the fence and then put stones under the fence itself to help with weed maintenance.
I went to an estate sale yesterday and found this cute little tin of vintage buttons. The lady only wanted 50 cents for the tin and an old pincushion.
K was visiting yesterday afternoon and as soon as I walked in the house, he saw the tin and said "ohhh, what's that?" BUTTONS! The boy loves buttons. He happily played with them for quite some time on the table, stacking and sorting them and admiring their colors and sizes.
He's such a cutie. Forget about expensive toys, give him an old tin of buttons and he's happy!
Happy Day everyone! It's Saturday and it's a beautiful day!

Vintage Thingies Thursday: Memories of Mom

Did you arrive here from a link that you found on a blog post??
Terrific!  Email me at cathspennies@gmail.com  for a very special something!
In your email, tell me how you arrived at this blog post so that I know you went through the steps.   

CONGRATS TO ALICIA!  She was the first person to discover the secret giveaway spot!  5/1/16

Keep watch on my website for more secret giveaways!  

My mom passed away back in 1990 but I have a few great things of hers that remind me of her.
Vintage indeed, this jewelry box belonged to her. It's a Sarah Coventry Jewelry box and there's a special story that goes along with this.
Does anyone remember Sarah Coventry parties? I don't even know if it's still in existence, but they used to be like Tupperware parties only with jewelry.
I'm not sure when it was exactly or how old I was, sometime back in the 60s'.... my mom went to one of those parties and came home with this jewelry box that she won as a door prize. She was SOOOO excited to have won it. And boy, did she use it! Remember clip on earrings? I don't know how women could wear those back then without constant pain, but she had a huge collection of those bug clunky clip-on earrings. Along with pins and heavy necklaces ... all costume jewelry. I remember when I was little, my sister and I would open it up and play dress-up with the jewelry.
My own daughters , when they were younger, have at times, opened up the jewelry box and played with some of the contents.
The box had a certain particular smell ... not a bad smell but a distinctive scent that was contained in and wafted out as the box or drawer was opened.
It's something that I've always associated with my mom and my childhood.
This jewelry box sits on my nightstand beside my bed. It still has that familiar scent in it.
This old cookbook contains memories of my mom too. I got this cookbook as a wedding gift back in 1975. Back in those days we didn't have computers to look up recipes and good, basic cookbooks like this Betty Crocker one, was essential.
I still use this cookbook for basic recipes for pies and cakes and many other things. My mom liked this cookbook of mine and she borrowed it one day, just to read. Mom was a reader ... always had a stack of library books laying around. But anyway, she read my cookbook and wrote little notes throughout, with her own adjustments to the recipes.
In the picture above she wrote in her own pie dough recipe.


My mom made the best turkey stuffing and she didn't add any seasonings to it other than salt and pepper?
My stuffing will never be as good as her stuffing was.
Ahh, the good memories of mom!
Thanks for hostessing Vintage Thingies Thursday, Suzanne!
Visit Coloradolady for more Vintage Thursday thingies.

Flowers and Fences

This is a picture that my daughter, Jen, drew up for me a few years ago. It's kinda cute and primitive looking and even at the time I thought it would make a great candle mat. I kept it hung up in my sewing room (Jen calls my sewing room "the crazy wool lady's room") and forgot about it until yesterday. I was moving things around and rediscovered it.

Sunflowers are more of a late summer kind of flower, so I'll definitely make it but not til next month. I drew it out just to get an idea of size and then drew some other flowers that I think I'll make next.

Hubby is on vacation this week, and he's building more fences for me. I've been wanting a white picket fence right along our sidewalk at the front of our house so we went out last night and purchased vinyl fencing sections. Wow, that stuff is expensive! We only need three sections though and it's really going to look nice, so it's worth it.

I've debated back and forth for a month now about the vinyl fencing. I reeeeally wanted wood pickets but he wisely reminded me that I'm getting old and we need to do things to decrease maintenance around the house, not increase. The wood fence would require painting every few years and we really have enought painting things to keep up with so I'm settling for vinyl.

So this is his project for the day. Our grandson will be over this afternoon, so I'm sure he'll be helping "pap" too. I'm really excited for this fence. Next will be an arbor .....

And I've already mentioned the arbor idea so that once the fence is up, he'll easily adjust his thinking to how to build a nice white arbor for me. :)

I've Ebay listed the Black-eyed Susan candle mat and the cute little pinkeep, so go take a look and get in on the bids.

See the flowers in the crock on the mat? Can anyone tell me what the name of those flowers are? They're tall and wispy and you can sorta see them in the fence picture up there (close to the driveway) I planted them a few years ago and they come back bigger and better every year ....well, as long as Jimmy doesn't mow them down ... but let's not go there.

But anyway, I sure would like to know what they are so that I can look for more perhaps in another color.

Happy Day everyone!

Black-Eyed Susans --Finished!

I used to have Black-Eyed Susans in my flower garden and for a while, it seemed like they took over the entire area, but for some reason, they've disappeared and this year, moonflowers have taken over. I need to do some thinning out and plant some more Black-eyed Susan seeds next year. I really love them and they look so nice in a vase.

So, yes, this is ready to Ebay list tonight. The candle mat and the pinkeep. I decided to try the design on a black background and I'm glad I did. I'm happy with my design.

I'm considering selling the pattern for this too so I'm making one with an off-white background now so that I can show the comparisons.

This is how it stated out and I probably could sell it just like this ... with no other embellishments. But, nooooo, I HAVE to add more to this ....

So I added some little curly-qs. And it looks like it needs some leaves now, so I'll get those cut out and attached next .....

But in between finding the green for the leaves and cutting them out, I added more details with vines.

Once the leaves were all cut out and laid out, I decided the leaf color was too bright so it's back to my wool stash to find some other colors. Thankfully, the leaves don't use up much wool, so I didn't have to dye any.

The deeper olive color is looking much nicer compared to that brighter green.

Just about finished here. Notice that lint roller? I keep that handy while stitching. Wool tends to be "sticky", especially black wool. It picks up lint and threads easily so to keep it neat and easier to de-lint after it's finished, every once in a while, I'll pick the mat up, give it a good shake and then roll the lint roller over it. They're a buck at the dollar store and it's well worth it.

I've actually seen pictures on Ebay of handmade things with lint and hairs and fibers on them and wonder why the heck they couldn't spend half a minute with their friend, the lint roller. I certainly don't want someone elses lint all over something that I just purchased

Just a few final steps with this and I'll be done. Do you notice those puckers in the center of the mat? Wool tends to stretch a bit while stitching/working with it but the wonderful thing about 100% wool is that a lightly applied steam iron will shrink it right back into place. (don't try this with wool felt because the steam will take those nice puckered bumps right out of the felt, making it flat and ugh, shiney)

So before I sew on the backing, I steamed it flat. It's so easy to do and just takes a few minutes.

I flipped it upside down, applied a pressing cloth and then very light pressed it with the steam turned up full blast on my iron. I let it cool for a couple minutes and it's completely flat and perfect.

It flattened the flowers too but that's not a problem. I pinched them a bit to fluff them up.
I just need to sew the backing on now and then I'll give it another final steam pressing so that the sewn edges lay flat.

Done! Bad picture there ... I spend so much ridiculous time trying to get decent pictures. It's the cameras fault. Well, no, it's me and not taking the time to properly use the camera.

In other news, Thank you Casserole Carol and Mark for going out to dinner with us last night.

We will have to do that again ... you pick the restaurant this time ... we're getting tired of always making that decision.

My Jimmy is on vacation again this week, so not sure how much sewing will get done between doing vacation things and babysitting.

(The pumpkin penny rug that I will be giving away is coming along nicely so expect the giveaway in about 2 weeks!)

Happy Day Everyone!

Pumpkin Tutorial -- CANCELLED

After almost two days of deliberation, I've decided that it's best for me to not continue doing the pumpkin penny rug tutorial. I really enjoyed doing it but I've had some recent "issues" come up with the pattern designer so I've decided to discontinue the tutorial. I will certainly continue doing other tutorials in the future not only with my own designs but other wonderful and talented designers. I'm not going to cause any further "drama" by saying anything more about this designer and the issues other than I will not ever mention her name or her designs again in my blog. The previous two tutorials that I've already posted, have been deleted. No more free advertising for her!

I will, however, still do a giveaway for the pumpkin penny rug once it's completed but only because I feel an obligation to the readers because I've already announced it as the giveaway.

The giveaway will hopefully be sometime by the end of July. It's completely made by hand, not mass produced by a large corporation, so it takes quite a bit of time to complete.

In other, happier news, I've completed the Summertime Black-eyed Susan pincushion.

I've started on the Black-Eyed Susan Candle mat and it's looking really sweet. Sorry, I didn't get a picture of it because of lack of time. I've got 5 minutes to complete this, change clothes and be out the door ......
Hopefully tomorrow I'll show the candle mat and then have it ready for Ebay sale on Sunday.

It's my own design by the way. Made by hand and not mass produced.

Comments are closed for this post because I just want to forget about it all and move on to other better and happier things!

Happy day everyone!

Vintage Thursday

I think I'm going to love doing Vintage Thursdays because I'll get to retell the stories of some of our precious belongings. Some of those belongings, like what I'm going to show today, have been loudly ridiculed by my two daughters. "mom" (insert eyeroll here) this is junk, why do you keep it?" Now that they are a little older, I think they might be appreciating the sentimental values of some of our things that we've collected over the years. I admit though, some things do need to be thrown out as real junk!

Well, this junk has a really good story. The story starts way back when my husband and his older brother were just young'ens. Their Uncle Lou, who never married or had children of his own, took them on Sundays to different construction sites in the area to ummm... "try out" some of the machinery. Back in those days, the machinery was left right out , sites were left open and unfenced so anyone could easily stroll around, climb or play on the heavy equipment. Well, that's just what these young boys did!
Back in 1966, they decided to explore the excavation site in a nearby town called Vanport, Pa. The Route 60 bridge was being built there at the time and while digging out the area, construction workers and the young Wagner brothers, came across an archeological find. The workers found an old colonial pottery kiln which was estimated to date back to the 1700's. All sorts of broken pieces of pottery were found along with the special kiln handformed stilts that the potters at the time used to hold the ware in the kiln.

My husband and his brother and their uncle happily went about that opened site on various Sunday afternoons, gathering remnants of the past.

We now have many boxes of broken pottery pieces and hardened clay stilts ... with colonial men fingerprints in them! I just couldn't throw them away!
So, being one to figure out a use for just about anything, I put some of the pieces in with my garden flowers. I really like how it looks. This is probably about as vintage as vintage can get!


Look at those lids! They're so cute, how could I throw them away?!

Beautiful pottery! Would you throw this away??!

The chipmunks wouldn't want me to throw this crock bottom away! It's their bathtub!

My treasures from the past!

Happy day everyone! Oh, and go visit Suzanne @ Coloradolady for more Vintage Thursday stories.

Black-Eyed Susans! New Summer Design

I have this problem of not sticking to one project at a time. I should be finishing up some orders and working on the pumpkin penny rug for the next how-to but I had to stop everything yesterday because I had a brainstorm for the next design.

I had to get this drawn out on paper while the idea was fresh in my head.
Black-Eyed Susans! I drew out the candle mat design and then a little pinkeep to match.
I've already started with the pinkeep just to try out the design and I have to admit, the black-eyed susans look more like sunflowers, but darn it, they're going to be called black-eyed susans
anyway!
Rachel, the one who always offers up the constructive criticisms, was away visiting her volleyball friends for the dayand spent the night there, so I haven't any feedback yet on the design. I'm getting dependent on her useful suggestions, so I look forward to her return today just to see what she says.
This weekend hubby and I did quite a bit of junk shopping. The picture shows a few of the treasures that I found. Some fabric for a $1, another red and white tablecloth, in perfect condition for $2, and the wooden sewing rocking chair for $1. The rocking chair holds spools of thread on the side and has a slot in the back to hold scissors. It has a definite handmade look to it but I have plans for it. I'll paint it up and put a nice woolen pincushion on the seat and it'll be cute as a bug's ear!
The stoneware coffee cup that is in the picture wasn't part of the junk shopping. I collect handcast stoneware coffee cups and I bought this on Saturday from a potter who was set up at a craftshow in Ellwood City.
All my stoneware cups that I've collected have something different or orignal about them that makes them super special. This one, besides being a rich, leathery brown color, has a primitve square scratched/etched into the clay, on both sides of the cup.
But anyway, it was a good weekend for bargain shopping. We had a lot of fun.
I am babysitting this afternoon, so I plan to get some things finished during sweetie's naptime.
Happy Day!

Vintage Thursday!

Suzanne, over at Coloradolady is the hostess for Vintage Thingies Thursday. This is my first post for the event. I felt compelled to do it because of the picture above that Suzanne uses for her event. The picture caught my attention right away because I have one of those Juicers that fit on a Sunbeam Mixer.

I have it sitting on a glass but I do have an old Sunbeam mixer that it works on. Even though the mixer isn't as old as the one pictured, the juicer still works on it.

I've used/tried out the juicer but found it to be cumbersome. It's easier and less cleanup to just squeeze the juice by hand, but I guess if you had a lot of fruit that needed squeezing, it becomes handier. The juicer is one of those things that I have laying around in my sewing room. It probably should be packed away ... or given away, because I have no use for it, but for now, it's going back up on the shelf in my sewing room.

But basically, the reason I even found out about Vintage Thursday was because of the Juicer picture.

My next vintage treasure is kinda odd. It has sentimental value and a great story to go with it if nothing else.

Yes, it's a shovel. It's a really old shovel. It's at least 75 years old but it really looks almost brand new because it was so well cared for. It's shiney and the blade edge is so sharp on it, I'm sure it could cut like a knife.

This shovel belonged to my husband's Aunt Ethel. She passed away a few years ago at the age of 93 and this shovel is what I requested to have from her estate.

Aunt Ethel was one of those types that had an absolutely spotless home. Of course, with a spotless house inside, she also had a spotless house outside, with weed-free flower and vegetable gardens. Her gardening tools were cleaned, oiled and shined after each use. I've never in my life seen anyone but her clean and polish a shovel after using. I remember the very first time I saw her do this and was just simply amazed and impressed.

So, when she died, I requested to have her shovel. I use to keep it in the dining room, but now, with the grandson, I didn't want him to get hurt with it so it's kept upstairs in our hallway.

When I see it, I'm reminded of Aunt Ethel and I smile. She was an exceptional woman ... very out-spoken and opinionated. She tended to be blunt; saying exactly what she thought which caused some people to be wary of her, but I always got along fine with her and really enjoyed her stories of the old days.

When she was alive, she gave me her old rolling pin, telling me that she knew I would appreciate it and take care of it. I did and I still do. I have it hanging on the wall in the dining room.

I think she'd be really happy with how well I'm taking care of her shovel and rolling pin.

God bless that woman. She is missed, especially during the holiday dinners. She certainly was a character.

Happy Vintage Thursday everyone!