Breast Cancer Awareness Purse - Stitching Complete!

I completed the stitching on this project last night:



There was a lot of "empty" space to the right of the pink ribbon. I guess I wasn't paying attention to that when I pieced it! Anyway, buttons are a wonderful way to fill in voids like that. These buttons are vintage plastic from circa 1940's.

All I left to do now is to assemble it. When I go into town later this week, I'll pick up some handles for it and can hopefully put it together over the weekend. I still have my little Patriotic cellphone pouch to assemble too. Guess I'm a bit late on that one!

For today, I'm going to sew up a comfort doll for Pat's Comfort Doll project. Mine will be a kitty. I mentioned Pat's project to my mom yesterday and she is planning to make one too!

I'm not sure I'll be able to start stitching on mine right away as I still have some commitments that I have to contend with but at least it will be ready to go.

1916 Tatting Booklet

I've scanned and uploaded one of my antique tatting booklets. This booklet is copyrighted 1916. It's titled Tatting Designs with instructions Book No. Five by Adeline Cordet.



The back cover is missing from my booklet but you can find the rest on my Flickr site.

The directions are obviously for shuttle tatting but so far, I've found that needle tatting can be worked from vintage and antique patterns.

Treasure Trove Of Vintage & Antique Patterns

I mentioned in my post on Saturday that we had planned on going to the flea market on Sunday morning and that we did!

I went with an open mind, not looking for anything in particular, just going for sake of being there, looking at all the great junk and spending a nice morning with my husband.

My open mindedness payed off! I literally found piles of patterns:







Those 1st 3 photos were one bagful that I paid only $2.00 for! All patterns are complete and uncut! There are only a couple of duplicates to what I already have so I'll share my extras with my mom.

Next I found these:



2 old Simplicity patterns for stuffed toys. These are so cute! At first I didn't think I'd ever make them. I bought them because I just love old patterns. After thinking about it, wouldn't these make cute CQ dolls? Maybe for Pat's Comfort Doll Charity!

The 2 patterns in the plain envelopes are floral transfers for pillowcases. I have to check my collection and see if I already have those. If I do, again, I'll share the extras with my mom.

My next treasure trove of patterns are these:



Piles and piles of old crochet, tatting, embroidery & quilting patterns. There are even some here for tennerif lace (did I spell that right?) and some for hardanger. These patterns are from old newspapers and magazines. Some were manufacturer give aways and some were send aways. Some of the things here are just ads in newspatterns for patterns that could be sent away for. They date from the late 1800's through the early 40's. There may be one or 2 from the 50's but most are quite antique and vintage!

The first thing I want to do with them is to pick up a notebook and some clear sleeves so that I can store them safely. I plan to somehow organize them, probably by type. Then, I am going to one by one, scan them and share them here. This is a wonderful collection and I'm sure some of you will enjoy working the patterns. Also, they will be great for research. I will include as much information as I can find on each sheet. Many have dates although some do not. They'll be permanently stored in an album on my Flickr site. I just need a bit of time to get them organized.

So those are my flea market finds from yesterday. All for under $20.00! Is that amazing or what?

One more thing that I would like to mention today is a couple of "give aways" that I have. These were in with that last batch of loose patterns.

First, if I have any collage artists or scrapbookers who read my blog, I have a couple of old hand written letters along with their envelopes. They're from the early 1900's. I will gladly send these off to the first person who emails me with a request for them. I think one of them is dated 1915!



Also, if anyone collects vintage needlecases, I have one that I will gladly send to the first person who emails me with the request. Please, US Residents only! (pamkellogg at kittyandme dot com)

Speaking of old patterns, you may remember the 1919 tatting booklets that I found at another flea market a couple of weeks back. I'm going to be scanning those one by one and sharing those patterns as well. Again, they will be in an album on my Flickr site.

So I have alot that I'm going to be sharing with you very soon. I just need to organize things a bit here first.

A Bit Of Stitching

Ok, so the world isn't coming to an end after all! I stitched for a little while last night while watching my Cubbies lose!



I'm feeling like I've been working on this for all eternity! It isn't as bright looking as it appears here. It's much softer in tone. I used the scanner today because my husband needed the camera.

Charlene asked me how big my oriental bird mats were. The oblong ones are about 11 X 8 and the square one is 10 inches square.

Allison asked me what "search words" I used to find these on Ebay. Honestly, I didn't use any search words. Sometimes, I look at Ebay for a few minutes while I eat lunch. I was just looking around in "Linens & Textiles" and I found these.

Speaking of Linens & Textiles, we're heading out to a flea market early tomorrow morning. It has to be early because it's supposed to be 95 degrees here tomorrow and I can only tolerate the heat for so long! Anyway, I may be late in posting but hopefully, I'll have some little goodies to share with you. Like I said yesterday, if I could only use my stash as fast as I can buy it!

Ebay Treasures & Spiderwebs

Last night, I was wondering what I would blog about today since again, I didn't stitch. Yes Sue, I do think the world is coming to an end! I haven't stitched since Sunday. What's up with that? Honestly, I've had a couple of very large design projects with tight deadlines and I'm pushing myself to get them done. I won't miss the "I need it yesterday" stuff when I retire!

Anyway, my husband came in with the mail and I suddenly had some cool "show & tell" for you today!

I found these pretty little machine embroidered bird mats on Ebay over the weekend:



I'm sure ya'll know what I plan to do with these! Yep, they were just screaming at to me to be the focal points on crazy quilts. Aren't they pretty? I'm not sure if I'll put them all together in one quilt or if I'll use them individually. I do wish I could stitch my projects as fast as I can collect stash! I'm sure I'll get to these someday. In the meantime, I'll enjoy having them and planning out my projects.

I think I was attracted to these because of my Crazy Quilt book. They must remind me of something in there. Looking at the all the old Victorian quilts, I do see a certain "oriental" flair in many of them. Until now, I never believed that crazy quilting was the result of Oriental Crazed Pottery. Now, it does seem a little more possible although I'm still a bit skeptical.

On another note, Angela asked me the other day how I do my spiderwebs and if I couch them:



Yes, they are couched on. I don't use a pattern, I just freehand them. First I do the long threads starting in the center and then I go around and around and do the connecting threads. Once the entire web is done, I go back around and couch everything down.

Does anyone else have any questions for me? I'll be happy to answer them. Just leave a message in the comments section.