Before and After - Vintage Thingies Thursday

It is time for Vintage Thursday Thingee - and I've got some great things to share. Please join us at Coloradolady, where Suzanne is our hostess, to see vintage thingies!

And stop over at Bloggeritaville for Thrifty Thursday! You know you want to see all the wonderful thrifty buys.

When we lived in CA we had a friend who lived in a wonderful old house. The yard was full of wondeful flowers and trees. Lucille had gardened all her life and the yard was wonderful.

A lovely spirea that had grown horzontally along one fence . . .

Wysteria that scented the town for blocks around . . .

And a bush that grew the biggest snowball flowers I'd ever seen . . .

Lucille had lived there for years and years and now she was alone in the house and soon it became apparent that she no longer was able to stay in her home. Her niece decided that instead of selling the home, she would rent it out, giving Lucille the hope that someday she might be able to return to her home.

The house was full of lovely old antiques - used by Lucille all her life, and I asked her niece, since she was renting out the house, if I might buy the small china cabinet from Lucille. Her niece said she thought she would leave all the furniture for the renters.

Not long after, we were jolted awake by the fire siren going off in town - and as we looked out our window we could tell that the fire was near Lucille's house - in fact it WAS Lucille's house. The fire department was only two blocks away and they reached the house in time to save it - but not before major damage was done.

The cause of the fire - the renters had wanted to save money by not using the dryer and had piled their wet clothes over the large intake grate to the furnace. When the furnace could not get enough air to circulate through the house because of the wet clothes on the intake grate, it caught fire and the fire quickly spread to the attic over the kitchen. Most of the house was saved, but many wonderful antiques were lost.

The next day we walked past Lucille's house, and the smell of wet, burned wood, and the drip, drip, drip of the water still there from the fire hoses was the most dismal sight and sound I'd ever seen or heard. It broke my heart to think of Lucille's house burning.

Soon after, her niece called me up and offered me the china cabinet for free. Here is the reason it was free . . .



The lovely little cabinet was burned, and wet, with broken glass and smoke and fire damage. I took the cabinet anyway and put it in our back yard. Then began weeks and weeks of sanding and scraping, more sanding and more scraping. The top was burned so badly from the fire being in the attic that I had to replace one of the boards on the very top.

After the scraping and sanding and cleaning was done I painted the whole china cabinet white, added some pretty knobs and it was ready to use. For several years bits of fine ash would sift down - from nooks and crannies that could not be reached to clean - it has finally stopped - 20 years later.

In our new living room . . .

Filled with my pine cone dishes, with a flock of chickens below . . .

We are thinking of painting the back of the open section white, so other dishes will show up better. Thinking - that's all for now - just thinking about it.

Have you refinished a piece of furniture? Was it more or less work than you anticipated?

Vintage thingie Thursday and Thrifty Thursday

It is time for Vintage Thursday Thingee - and I've got some great things to share. Please join us at Coloradolady, where Suzanne is our hostess, to see vintage thingies!

And stop over at Bloggeritaville for Thrifty Thursday!

We stopped at a yard sale last Saturday - a lady had put all her stuff out on the lawn near the ponds in our community. We aren't allowed yard sales here - so we were surprised to see her there. We asked if she was from the community and she told us she was from the apartments across the road, but that this was the perfect spot for a yard sale.

We knew that soon the management of the community would see her and scare her off - but we shopped anyway. I started asking prices -

for a nice serving bowl - 25 cents, two for the price of one. . .

a cute folding sand chair that the boys could use - 25 cents . . .

some pretty silverware - 25 cents for all of it. . .

a pretty little pickle fork - free . . .

a mandolin - 25 cents - lots of extra blades for this too . . .

Everything was spread out on an old quilt and Don asked - how much for the quilt - and she said - are you ready, maybe you'd better sit down - go ahead, ohhh you already are sitting down. She said - a quarter!!!!!

Well, we couldn't get that stuff unloaded off the quilt fast enough. She apologized that the quilt was in bad shape -but I said - I can always use parts of it - and for a quarter - well, what can I say - what a deal!!!!

I love the tulip design and the thirties colors . . .

Most of the quilt is in fair to good condition . . .

The edges are badly frayed on one end - I imagine that this was wrapped about some boxes and stuff in the back of a pickup on moving day and allowed to flap in the wind - from the extent of the damage I'd say it was a long trip. But most of the quilt is in fairly good shape, considering its age and the treatment it has gotten.

Ohh poor little quilt . . .

All raggedy and frayed . . .

But I shall clip off the frayed edges and find some matching fabric to rebind the edges and it will be a happy quilt once again. After repairs it will be a good throw size for napping on the sofa.

I'm so glad we stopped at that yard sale - got some other things there too - for 25 cents each, but they were't vintage - just great deals. On the way home we noticed that the lady had moved her sale across the street to a narrow strip of grass near the apartments. I hope she sold everything, and it is pretty likely - since she had such good prices. Glad we were first.

Vintage Thingee Thursday

I've been wanting to participate in this fun group for a long time - today seems to be the day.

Please stop over at Suzanne's blog - coloradolady.blogspot to find more people sharing their vintage treasures. If you have been reading my blog for a while - you know that I love vintage linens, vintage kitchen things, mostly vintage anything - so this is the perfect spot for me.

I have always loved vintage botanical prints, and I've been planning on buying some for a specific wall in our new house - and look what I found - FREE - a huge selection of Vintage Printables.

Everything from botanicals to animals to vintage clothing to medicine to mythology - oh you must go over and see it for yourselves.

Bird's nests were the first thing I copied to be printed . . .

And from the huge selection of trees, I picked this one and several others . . .

And the flowers - I must limit myself - oh heck, why limit - let's pick more and more and have a great time printing and framing these fabulous vintage botanicals.

Have fun - and enjoy your hours and hours spent looking through all the possibilities on this site - I think I'll go back and look for some fairies.

Vintage Thingies Thursday

I was over visiting Rechelle's blog and found this fun way to show vintage things. You can find other Vintage Thingie Thursday blogs over at Colorado Lady blog - a wonderful blog.

Rechelle had a red bowl - which I also have - and it got me to thinking about how much I do love vintage things. I have teapots, linens, pine cone dishes, silverware - oh the list goes on and on . . . I could have posts from now until . . . well until I run out of pretties to show - which would be a long long long list of Thursdays.

Today I'll share some vintage linens - one of my very favorite things. I look for them at flea markets and swap meets, at yard sales and thrift stores.


This is my most recent find - a lovely Irish crochet edged pillowcase. I have tried and tried to do Irish crochet, I just can't seem to get those little roses to look right. After looking at this I just might give it another try. I would love to have a bedspread with Irish crochet roses - ohh that would be so sweet. Do any of you have any hints that might make the Irish crochet come out standing up so pretty like on this pillowcase? I'd surely appreciate any ideas.

We go to Skagit County (here in Washington) once a year for their annual swap meet. It is huge - held in the fairgrounds and emcompasses many buildings. By the time we've hit every building - or at least most of them - we are ready for a lunch break, or at least a sit down break.

I came across a booth in one of the first buildings that was selling BAGS of vintage linens for 2.00 a bag. I wanted all of them - but they had over 100 bags so I knew I wasn't going to get all of them - so I picked through and got 7 bags - and what treasures I found. Some other booths had linens for sale also but they were selling for 1.00 to 3.00 each - I really got a bargain!!!

Table runners, doilies, dresser scarves - many with pretty hand crocheted lace edgings . . .

Some napkins . . .

And ever so many pretty hankies!!!

My plan is to make a crazy quilt using the vintage linens - but in the mean time I am using some of them in other projects.
I like to make angels - all colors - with fun embellishments . . .

Their heads are felt - their wings are felt backed quilt blocks, hand stitched buttonhole stitch around the edges. I use mini 9 patches - each nine patch quilt square is 3"x3" - just the perfect size for a pair of angel wings.

A lot of the nine patches I got in a swap I was in long ago, when we still lived in CA. We had a color theme each month and we'd all make zillions of the little nine patches to send off in the swap. I've used the swapped nine patches to make whole quilts, used them in about 7 other quilts, given bags and bags of them away and still have two plastic shoe boxes full for other projects.

I can get four angels from one hanky if the hanky has design on all four corners. Napkins make one angel, since they usually only have design on one corner. I make a basket full of the heads and wings and then search for hankies to match the thread and nine patch colors. These are fun to make - nice handwork project for in the evening when we sit in the living room and Don reads to me.

My angels have flown all over the country - some even flew across the sea. I've had requests to send them to children undergoing medical treatments, to people who are lonely and need a bit of cheering up, to friends of friends who need something uplifting in their lives - and then I've also sent them out as give-aways on my blog and to friends and relatives. I just love making angels. Do you know someone who might need an angel?