Hoopla Round 2

Look what Luckdragon stitched for me in the Embroidery Hoopla Round 2 swap on Craftster!

I love the french knot lei on the little boy. She did a little bit of crayon tinting and it makes a very nice effect. I also like the thick texture of the girl's hair.

I just signed up for round 3 of this swap. This one went very fast and was a lot easier than the Tea Towel Tours I used to co-organize. Those were an extravaganza of messages, mailouts, and communications. This is a simple exchange with no extras. I imagine a nice display wall of hoops as I do more swapping. I have a lovely collection of fully decorated tea towels from my last several embroidery swaps, but those are hard to display.

Check out this link with just the image posts from the swap and you won't have to read all of the chit-chat.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's not a turkey, but it is the owl I stitched up for Luckdragon in the Hooplah 2 swap on Craftster. She made me an adorable pair of children, but since that isn't very autumn, I'll post it later.



Luckdragon indicated that she likes owls, and it so happened that I felt like stitching one. This is from an Aunt Annie's transfer pack. I've stitched from this package before and that owl also went out in a swap. One day I will stitch up an owl to keep. I palnned to do a colorful owl, but somehow it ended up in earth tones. I did lots of color changes this time.

I also put a quilt block on the back.


My daughter surprised each of us this Thanksgiving morning with little turkey drawings. Here turkey sees November on the calendar and observes, "My time is almost done!":



On this one the turkey is on a coffin platter ready to be buried in the ground, "Dinner too old?" Live turkey notes, "I'm just glad it's not me!"


Here the cow and the turkey have protest signs encouraging chicken meals. Frustrated chicken realizes, "Everyone's against me."


We are going to Grandma and Grandpa's for our meal this afternoon. Mom already called this morning with a turkey emergency, but I am confident that our bird will be delicious. Until just the last several years, we all went to Iowa every year for the holiday and never did any cooking, so we are still working out the best way to do the meal.

Have a great day! Tomorrow is shopping day! We always go to antique stores and stay away from the big sale craziness.

Vintage from Grandma Part Two

This is a continuation of my last post. I suppose it will come up in your blog readers in the wrong order. You do use Google Reader, don't you?

I got a nice stash of vintage laces and embroidery at a family reunion from my Aunt Lavina. These are things that belonged to my Grandma, Leonace Burrell McKee when she was young. Here she is with my grandfather, probably when they were courting. They married in 1930:
There are some nice embroidered linens in this section of the collection. Times were tough for folks back in those days and Aunt Lavina told me of a story she remembered about a full set of embroidered sheets. After they were completed, I guess they were too scratchy and uncomfortable to sleep on, so the pretty embroidery had to be pulled out because there wasn't any money to buy a different set of sheets. Can you imagine? That was just the way it was, I guess.

Look at those perfect satin stitches!


These pieces are cut off of the ends of well used pillowcases.













Aunt Lavina and Uncle Larry have traveled the world and Lavina has collected linens and needlework from cultures everywhere she has traveled. She showed me her beautiful stash of stuff, but I didn't have time to photograph it. I am so happy she gave me these lovely things from the tradition of needlework in our family.

My mom has been giving me my stuff from when I was little. Handmade doll clothes, Joan Walsh Anglund dolls, a very old Raggedy Ann. My loved teddy bear.. not all of it is worth posting, but those vintage dolls... I've got to take some pictures of those to share..

Grandma's Vintage Part One

It's November already! I still haven't planted my bulbs, but the garden and yard are all cleaned up and I usually don't really get to that until the spring thaw.

We had a fun Halloween, but my son at age 13, didn't even go out this year. My daughter's ice cream cone costume was a hit, and she loved all the attention. I got way too much candy again this year, but I found this yummy recipe for Shortbread Candy Bar, which was originally in Everyday Food. Ours shortbread candy bars are topped with Snickers and Milky Way and are way better than the candy alone.

So I've got to catch up and post all the vintage things the family has been giving me. Back in September at a family reunion, Aunt Lavina gave me some very special handmade laces and hand sewn items that had been my grandmother's when she was young.

She passed back in 1997 after suffering from late onset Alzheimers. I remember her as one of the sweetest and kindest women. She was an elementary schoolteacher before she married in 1930. We have generations of schoolteachers in our family.

Okay, so let's get to the pretty stuff. These are hand crocheted borders for pillowcases. Someone pulled them off the case to save them.




These are borders that were rolled up into strips:


Look at the elaborate detail:


Now, we aren't sure that these were actually made by Grandma, but they did come from her stuff. She was always busy with sewing and crochet. They certainly are of an old vintage.





This is a yolk and a collar that they would wear to pretty up a simple dress:


Look at this beautiful handmade dress. So delicate and lovely.


And this pretty underskirt: