More Vintage Hankies

After going out for breakfast yesterday, Bubba took me to the Colonial Antique Mall in Woodstock Illinois where I wandered around, in my own little world for awhile.  I found some gorgeous vintage laces but some vendors seem to think they have gold and I know better so I didn't buy any.  Instead, I found a few more pretty vintage handkerchiefs:

So Springy!  2 are for mom and 2 are for me. 

If you remember from my post yesterday, I said I would share a photo of the pink Mile A Minute afghan my mom made me for Christmas:

It's crocheted in strips and then the strips are crocheted together.  Yes, I have white wicker furniture in my living room.  When we remodeled our living room a few years back, it just wasn't in our budget to buy new furniture but I couldn't live with what we had so I bought a set of white wicker patio furniture.  It's really pretty.  Light and airy and gardeny however, it is not particularly comfortable for living room furniture.  The plan is, at some point to get something more Victorian looking.  Either a set of antique furniture that we can have reupholstered or something new that looks antique.  As you can see from the photo, it has to be cat friendly so I'm thinking of leather.  It comes in soft, pastel colors like pink and aqua blue now.  I can't live with anything dark.  We also plan to put a wrap around front porch on our house so we'll then move our wicker furniture outside to enjoy.

Anyway, that's the afghan mom made for me.  As you can see, mom is well aware of my love for the color pink!

Finally, I did do a little stitching yesterday:

When we got home, I put my Marie Antoinette movie on.  I may have mentioned that my husband has been working on Saturday's and doing a lot of side jobs and saving his money.  Last week, he bought us a 60 inch television.  Christmas has been very lean for the past few years and he wanted to do something nice that we could both enjoy.  All I can say is wow!  It was a surprise and I was blown away.

Of course, when you upgrade one thing, you have to upgrade everything.  The picture was quite grainy so we had to buy a new DVD player and we also have to upgrade our Direct TV box and service.  It's crazy.

But anyway, the new DVD player made a huge difference in the picture quality and so I decided it would be nice to see Marie Antoinette in all her pink fluffiness!

I was so taken with the quality of the picture and sound that I couldn't hardly tear my eyes away from the TV long enough to stitch!  Ha, ha, ha!  I felt like I had never seen the movie before.  Too funny!

After that, Bubba put National Treasure on and again, I was just in awe of how different it looked and sounded on the new TV.  I'd better not plan on any movies today or I'll never get that cat doll done!

For today, I actually plan to do some straightening up and hopefully, I can finish up on that cat doll.

Pink Cats

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas.  Ours was very nice.  We spent the day at my parents house and I was able see my sister and nephew for awhile too.

My mom made me a gorgeous Mile A Minute afghan in pink!  Pink, are you surprised?  I'm going to drape it over the back of my sofa later so I'll take a photo of it for tomorrow.  I've always loved Mile A Minute afghans.

I haven't had any stitching time but I thought I'd share my current pink cat doll since I have a bit of stitching done on it:

Both borders were worked using my Waste Canvas technique.  If you look closely at the white border, it's the Creten stitch with lazy daisies on the points.  Yes, even the Creten stitch can be worked using waste canvas.  It's the only way I can get it straight!

Scott is going to take me to the antique mall in Woodstock Illinois today.  One nice thing about the holidays is that I get extra time with him!  And he's willing to go anywhere I want to go.  He's a good man.  Anyway, if I find some cool goody's, I'll share pics tomorrow.

Happy Christmas!

I had a lovely Birthday yesterday.  It was sunny and almost 40 degrees outside.  I sure couldn't ask for anything better as far as the weather goes!

As planned, Bubba took me to the antique mall in Volo, Illinois.  It's a huge antique mall and just a hop, skip and jump from where we live.  I found a few nice vintage goodies to add to my stash.

First, a few vintage hankies:

The blue one is flocked!  I have a few in my collection from my flea market travels. 

Next, I found 2 yards of this beautiful machine embroidered fabric:

I love the scalloped edge on this!  And 2 yards will go a long way for what I do with it.

Next, I found this gorgeous vintage apron:

I almost hate to cut it up because it's in mint condition.  It just needs a good hand wash.  But I did buy it to cut up for my crazy quilting.

Last but not least, this pair of sweet vintage bunnies:

Yes, I'm always thinking of Spring! 

Today, we'll be going over to mom's for a few hours.

I hope ya'll have a wonderful Christmas Day!

Christmas Eve

First, I would like to say thank you to everyone who sent me "Happy Birthday" wishes for today.  Your comments, no matter what time of year, truly mean so much to me!  Thank you everyone!

Well, it's December 24th and to date, we've had no measurable snowfalls!  And I am absolutely okay with that! And there's none in the forecast all the way to New Year's so one month of Winter down, 2 months to go.  I can honestly tolerate the cold of the Winter months.  I don't like the bitter cold but we've been around 30 - 40 degrees so far and it's quite tolerable.  It's the snow that I don't like.  I'd much rather look at brown grass than endless amounts of white snow which in time, becomes dirty and ugly looking.  So if Winter continues like it has so far, you won't much in the way of complaints from me!  LOL!!!

I didn't get much in the way of stitching done yesterday.  Just a little bit.  I went to mom's to help her with preparations for this afternoon and tomorrow.  I'll post an update of my current cat doll when I get a little more stitching on it.

For now, I have to get ready for my shopping spree at the antique mall.  I only ask my husband for one thing each year for my birthday.  I ask him to take me to the antique mall so I can walk around and see all the vintage things that I love!  Hopefully, I'll find some nice little do-dads to add to my stitching.  Although I have quite a nice collection, I'm always on the hunt for more beautiful little vintage handkerchiefs!  So perhaps I'll have some new ones to share here with you tomorrow.

Have a wonderful Christmas Eve everyone! 

Wisdom On Turning 50

Well, tomorrow is my 50th birthday.  It sounds worse when I write it than it actually feels.  My aunt always says that age is just a number.  And I always say it's not the years, it's the miles. 

Some people have a terrible time turning 50.  I like to think of it in terms of condition.  You know, like on Ebay.  There's new, used, vintage, antique and ancient.  LOL!!!  I've reached the point of vintage and I'm ok with that.

Vintage is endearing.  It's charming and usually has a lovely patina.  It's worn but soft and still quite useful. And in my opinion, extremely attractive!  LOL!

With age comes wisdom and heaven knows, I've reached that point! Like I said, it's not the years, it's the miles.

I prefer not to reflect on the first 50 years of my life but rather look at the (hopefully) next 50 years as being where the fun is.  Heaven knows, it's time for some of that.  Especially after the last 3 years.  Those of you who have been reading my blog for some time, know what I'm talking about.

For some people, life is a walk in the park, a picnic and a piece of cake.  For others, life comes with many challenges.  I hope I learned the lessons I had to learn by now.  I've always been one of those people who has to learn the hard way.

One nice thing about vintage, is that it's reached a point of being loved for what it is.  It doesn't have to "prove" itself anymore.  It is what it what is.  It's respected for it's age and withstood the test of time.  And so have I.
 
Well, now that I've amused you with my age and condition analogy, I'll move on to my stitching.  In between baking a couple batches of cookies yesterday and listening to some Christmas music on the radio (which I have not done in 3 years), I finished up on my Pink & Blue Valentine Cat Doll:

And here is a close up of the seam treatment on the right:

See more Crazy Quilt Seam Treatment Inspiration here.

I pulled some lace and trim for this little Pink cat doll before I went to bed last night:

They never look like much of anything until I get them sewn together. If you're new to my blog, you can see my Cat Doll Collection here.

Today, I'll head over to mom's to see if she needs help with anything.  For now, I'm going to sit here and stitch for awhile.