Bathroom Window Valance

Step next completed.  The valance.

Since the window is frosted, there's no need for additional privacy but without a little trim, the window somehow looks naked.  Gracious, we don't need more naked in the bathroom.

I seem to have an abundance of vintage linens around and so I looked through the stash and found an old pillow case.  The European standard was, and still is, 80x80 cm or about 30 inches square. That almost covered the width, but not quite.  However, as I only needed half the length (or width, I guess, depending on how you look at it), there was enough of the trimmed part for panels on the side.  Perfect!

Hard to say how old this piece is.  It's linen, finely woven. ( I can always tell 100% linen when I sew because the machine sounds like it's chopping wood. No joke.)  I'd guess 1920s or 1930s,  The home artist who sewed it repeated the scroll pattern four times across the pillow case, an estimated 500 holes, uncountable stitches.

A lot of work!  And not something you just toss when it gets a bit worn, and this piece was clearly used.  And worn.  When that happens, you darn. Even the darning is artful.

 I think it's a charming touch in our well-worn house.

More old stuff

Yeah, we have too much stuff, but I do try to trade out when we get something new.  Or new to us anyway.

Some time ago, we gave away the old triple dresser that we'd brought over from the US after we got a hand-me-down from Ursel - an antique pine dresser that was much more to my liking and much more in tune with our little house.

And it was pretty big, but not quite big enough to hold everything that had been in the old dresser.  So, we went on a hunt.

And we found something!  But of course it needed a little work.  Werner to the rescue, yet again.

He replaced runners, cleaned the pulls, and filled in more than a few holes the wood worms had left.

He sanded and waxed and now the old wood looks like honey, is as smooth as velvet and has a wonderful sheen.  I hope I don't fill it up too soon.
 

 

Craft shows are a lesson in pride and humility.  You put your best effort into creating a product that is pleasing.  You set up a stand that is welcoming and attractive.  And you wait for the public to show.

And they come. And they look and they react. Here are the reactions in order of frequency:

1. They glance and walk by.
2. They glance and make negative comments.  (I can do that myself. I can do that better myself.  Can you believe she's asking money for that?)
3. They stop and look and say something nice.
4. They stop and look and ask what it costs.
5. They stop and look and actually BUY something!

Since I'm new at this, this order of things is just becoming clear.  And I'm getting to be OK with that.  The question is, how long I'm willing to be OK with that!  I don't have the answer yet.

Today the show was at the Ökologiestation - the place here in an urban forest in Bremen where kind folks show school children what is going on around them in nature.  They do a craft show twice a year and have only 10 stands.  It's friendly and intimate and low pressure.  Perfect!

And Werner is of course the perfect helpmate and the best partner for getting it all set up. 

But I was nervous!  Have I made enough?  Will the first ten people buy all the irresistible egg warmers and then none will be left for the next 5 hours?  Will I have to stand there with few offerings for most of the show?

Am I crazy?  (Don't answer that :) )

Well, I made enough, that's the truth.  I was happy with the number of pillow covers that I sold and so disappointed that my sweet and cute and irresistible egg warmers were so resistible. Wouldn't you want these on your table??

If you do, just let me know.  They're available.

Re-Purposed Ties

Barbara, my dear fellow-sewer and lover of old linens, had asked if we might bring back a few silk ties from the US.  She's working on a quilt, from old ties that she has been collecting over the years.  But she cautioned, If you go to the Goodwill, watch out!  Don't pay more than $2.00!!  OK.  I can do that.

You can imagine, I'm sure, that it takes a lot of ties to make a quilt.  And you may be thinking at the same time, who wants to do that anyway?  But creative people just see things differently. (I seldom put myself in that category of persons, sigh...)

But back to the ties. I had a hunch that between my various male in-laws, there would probably be a little stash of no-longer-used, no-longer-wanted, slightly out-of-date or soiled ties in Barbara's color - primarily red.  And I was not wrong!  Larry and Barry, seldom needing ties in their retirement, had some lovely ones to donate.  Joey, since he's trying to get rid of the banker-as-a-guy-always-in-a-tie image, also had a few he was more than willing to part with. So we had quite a collection to donate.

And so we went to visit.  Back to the site of my accident!  Barbara and Charlie were forever saying Watch your step!   I do. I did. I will. After the obligatory Kaffee + Kuchen (yummy homemade treats from last summer's fruit) we looked a the quilt-in-progress. 

It's basically a log cabin pattern, but done with strips in the stripes and continuing on and on - it's one huge log cabin block.

She opens the ties and presses them and adds iron-on backing to stabilize the silk and then sews them together to make the longer strips.  There are a few ties with some history of course.  And interestingly, she's saved all the labels which will become the binding for the finished quilt. 

Then we had a painting lesson.  I had already done some fabric "printing" after our first visit, but having a lesson was useful.  She gathered some flowers and leaves and then we helped make a "sampler" to take home for reference.  Even the sampler is pretty!

Now to make some of my own for the craft show at the end of March.  I'd better get busy - there's not much time!

Weihnachtszeit - Christmas Time

It's not just a one day holiday here - there's Christmas Eve, First Christmas Day and Second Christmas Day.  No need to rush the season.

After our Christmas Eve with Mutti and Christoph, we had a late and leisurely Christmas morning breakfast, German style. Or German style à la Wichmanns:  sparkling wine, soft-boiled eggs, cured ham, home made jams. 

I have to have my egg warmer, and please notice the four candles lit for Advent.  Gemütlich we say in German: How cozy !

No newspaper to read.  It is Christmas after all and everyone deserves a holiday, even the journalists.  So no paper on the 25th or 26th.  Imagine that.

Then later, our girls came over from the university - Nickolet and Fiona from Zimbabwe, and Ranisha from Nepal.  It's too far and too expensive to go home for Christmas (we understand that!) so we made a little Christmas of our own.

It wasn't very traditional.  They all love fish,so fish it was - fried - with veggies and potatoes and salad.  And please don't forget the cake!  Nickolet loves cake!  This time it was apple cake with ice cream, another favorite.

We tried to get a scrabble game going, but with phone calls to home and skypeing to the US, it got too late for games.  But the girls had fun taking pictures of each other around the Christmas tree!

The next day, the Second Christmas Day (after all these years, I still can't get used to that) we finally had a chance to take a walk.  A little exercise was way way way past needed!! 

We were invited to share dinner with Ursel and friends :  roast goose. That is perhaps THE tradional Christmas dinner here.   The skin was crispy and tasty, the meat moist and flavorful.  Add red cabbage and potato dumplings.  Y U M.  Besides, there was a cat to pet!!!

   
We only had to contribute dessert:  Key lime pie.  I can certainly manage that. It's funny still that a thing we take for granted is such a wonderful treat here!  We offered to leave the half we didn't eat and there wasn't even the smallest of "oh, I couldn't possibly ...." before the "well, ok....."

The only thing missing was the snow.  It is sooooo warm!!  Last year there were inches of snow on the ground; this year, the geraniums are still blooming in the window boxes.  S T R A N G E.

But there is nothing strange or weird or off with our wishes to all of you for a wonderful and healthy and successful and happy, happy new year.  We hope to see all of you soon.

The Show

Ursel and I got to show our stuff last weekend at the "Quality of Life" show at the SwissHotel in downtown Bremen.

Friday night, we set up the stand that my neighbor lent us - how great is that!  He sets up huge sets for congresses, so this was small potatoes for him but a huge help for Ursel and me.

Herr Zoellner's son was a helper, too, so obviously, set up is child's play!

Saturday morning at 9 we got busy filling the shelves and the table with all our wares.  Looking good!  Ursel and I..

and with her nieces Ilke and Christina who made all the felted bags.

Pretty necklaces,

  and lovely linens.

Yeah, well, it obviously looked a lot better to us than it did to the folks who came to the show because we didn't sell much at all - at all !!  It was the wrong venue for us; everyone else there was a professional with shops of their own and commercial goods for sale.

But it was an experience and we'll consider a different venue in the future.  Meanwhile, I have a pile of pillow covers and assorted stockings.  Thursday I'm off to a shop in the little artists' village of Fischerhude to see if the Christmas things at least could be sold there on commission.

Getting started in selling is not so easy, we've found.

And so it begins ...

After the editing and translations, it's time to get down to business, meaning getting ready for the show.  Ursel has us registered for the craft fair and she of course has a back-log of lovely necklaces.  I am just getting started and I have no idea what I am in for.  How many to make?  How much to charge? 

But here is the beginning.  One is a pillow cover of two types of old linen in my most favorite log cabin pattern with a lace embellishment.  And, since I like them and they're small and I think people will think they are oh-so-charming and gobble them up like chocolate, two egg warmers. 

More of each to come.  I'm thinking 50 pillows and 20 sets of cosys.  I welcome advice.  And I think I had better get busy!!

The Garden Shed

It's been a year ago or more that I asked Werner if he could build a little garden shed for us. As you who have seen our "yard" can imagine, he said WHAT? ARE YOU KIDDING? WHERE? 

Of course I wasn't kidding, since I am a serious person and as is well known, have no sense of humor.  The pots and bags of soil and the few odd implements sat out in the way and weather and irritated my view.  Smaller tools and aids clogged up the storage room. Irritation is not one of my favorite things.  Besides, there was this idea in my head of a charming little shed with a window box and I knew we could do it.

Last summer our neighbors had their house re-roofed; the old charming (key word, here, charming) slate roof tiles were unceremoniously dumped into a container to be hauled to the dump.  Wait, wait!  The roof for my unrealized garden shed!  Werner dutifully salvaged tiles and they were stacked outside.

During the winter we chatted and sketched and Werner was gradually lured into the idea of a shed.  Then a friend started some home renovations and there was a lot of old floor boards that I thought were simply ideal for the shed.  Werner of course went to salvage the wood.

OK! We had a real start!  Just one more little push.  Werner does love a challenge and he scratched his head and did the calculations and got started.  It was really great, and as the shed developed, I introduced the idea of decorations.  GEEZE, he sort of said, do we have to?  He was quite skeptical, but I found some pictures of what I wanted and naturally he did an incredible interpretation.  And when my artist got into it, he had to be restrained.  The "glass" of the window "reflects" the back of the house.The "flower box" on the door looks so good that bees have been coming to visit!!

I love it! Thanks, Werner.  Don't we make a team!

Baubles, Bangles and Beads

Today was a craft fair in Bremen. Before Easter, a bit like before Christmas, there are lots of markets where creative people can strut their stuff. I fantasize about joining their ranks, but it is so intimidating! Ideas! Execution! Commitment! I seem to lack some of the essential elements to enter the craft market.

Nevertheless, looking is lots of fun and inspires me a bit to go home and do SOMETHING.

Our friend Ursel got inspired a few months back. She got a 5-kilo bag of assorted glass beads for next to nothing, all sizes and colors and shapes and all in a jumble. But she has a great eye and before long they were sorted and organized and began turning into lovely necklaces and then she ordered more beads and then she took apart some old necklaces of hers to add to the mix and, well, this is part of what happened.

Back to the craft fair. A young friend was visiting so of course they made a necklace but the center bauble just didn't quite get it. Wouldn't you know, a glass artist was at the fair and she had the perfect bead!

So back to Ursel's where she finished the necklace for Wiebke and then said:  Well, my dear Sharon, I think you need a new necklace.  And it should be turquoise. That's a good color for you.  Well, OK!  Let's make a necklace.  

First we chose a range of colors, then set up the row, then chose the smaller beads to go between, then found a much better center bead, then restrung it all and -- ta da ! a masterpiece.

 So, is turquoise a good color for me? I vote YES. Thanks, Ursel, it is beautiful!

Nostalgia

Actually, "old people's memories" might be a better title. 

I've been doing a bit of sewing for Christmas and thinking of doll clothes for Dylan's and Hannah's dolls. This brings back lots of pleasant memories, and reminds me of paper dolls.

Paper dolls.  Who reading this remembers Betsy McCall?  (I'll guess two. ) I see paper doll books in stores once in a while, but years and years ago it was a standard in the toy stores and 5&10 stores and drug stores and wherever coloring books were sold.  A part of that trend was Betsy McCall , a once-monthly feature in McCall's magazine, the same company that produced McCall's patterns (and of course touted their product along with the play-toy).  She was a cute little girl -10-ish I'd say -  and each month there was a different theme and paper cut-out clothes to go along with the theme.

I LOVED cutting out the dolls and the clothes.  I even designed clothes myself for these little paper dolls and made dolls of my own.  Naturally, this magazine did not show up monthly at our address - that was waaayyy too expensive.  It seems I saw more of them at Aunt Geraldine's in Tishomingo, Mississippi, during our summer vacations.   I don't remember if I only drooled over the cut outs there or if I sneaked them from the magazine or what.

Anyway, here is an example of the former Betsy McCall Paper Doll,one of the later versions. 

Read and sigh.

More Recycling

Use it up

Wear it out

Make it do

Or do without

That is of course what all our grandparents did. They didn't throw away anything they thought could be useful. I remember visiting an old farm house museum here. Up in the attic was a big rolled ball of the narrow hems torn off the shirts/sheets/towels/dresses, saved to used later in a rag rug or something similar. Frugal doesn't begin to explain the folks a couple of generations ago. It is fascinating.

I love old linen, old embroidery, crocheted trims and window treatments. And I seem to have a penchant for things that others want to throw away (see the previous post!). When we go to markets, the linen stands always draw me to them and I ususally have some idea of what I might do with a little bit of lace torn from a pillowcase that fell apart or a linen sheet that was just too worn for the next generation to use -- but good enought not to throw away!!

Sometimes it takes a while to get to the finished product.

Our visits to Aunt Mary and Aunt Ruth got me going. Actually, I'd wanted to get this done BEFORE the trip but that didn't happen. Now it has happened: I made some lavender bags.

Here's the recipe: Find some old linen, the older the better. Find some old lace, the older the better. Grow some lavender (or buy it from the market). Make some bags, fill them with the lavender. Done.

Here's the finished product. I only did the sewing; the artists did the work. Aren't they nice?

Happy Birthday, Dylan Rose

One year old today. Wish we could be there to share the day (and some cake and company), but we did send a present.

Here it is: a dress and a doll.

The fabric has little rosebuds all over - how appropriate! And the pattern was the same one I used for the dress Hannah wore to Lee and Crissy's wedding. Little connections.

Looking for a baby doll is actually harder than sewing a little dress! It has to be small enough and big enough and soft enough and sweet enough. I hope this one has enough!

I made the baby a dress (almost) like Dylan's, so they can play dress up together.

Finished - Almost

It's always a work in progress. Of course, this is NOT a work of art, but it is a work. And it has been work. There's always a bit of tweaking to do, but for the moment, I'm done.

So, walk into the room and - after you are awed by the wall painting - take a little look at the coordinated coverlets, pillows and curtains. Maybe too much? I hope not, because there won't be any major renovations anytime soon.

It's fun doing different pillow covers, but I tried to keep the number of pillows down this time.

The curtains were a challenge. I hadn't really planned on doing them when I bought the fabric, thinking I'd tackle that later. But there was just enough to make me think about it and getting it all done was a real incentive. I'd thought first about using the fabrics of the covers, but then I thought the patterns would be waaay too much, and so opted for a coordinating beige. After an unsuccessful trip to the fabric store here in the neighborhood - and unwilling to travel into Bremen to look further - I did the Scarlett O'Hara thing and used what I had. An old table cloth was perfect - wide and long enough, just the right color and weight, and best of all, on hand!

It wouldn't take so long to finish up these projects if I didn't try to re-create the wheel every time. Cuff tops had somehow captured my imagination, but contraints of fabric and lining (had to use what was already cut) put that out of reach. Besides that I didn't have a pattern. This was the compromise, and it turned out fine. If not entirely happy, I'm pleased with it all.

I hope our first guests - Hunter and Hannah - are suitably impressed!!!

New Art

Ever since we repainted the front bedroom last summer to spruce it up for Hunter and Hannah, the area over the windows has bothered me. Too much space. Too much white. Too much empty.

I'd requested relief from the Artist in Residence, and he worked up a sketch months and months ago but somehow couldn't get started. Finally, I gave a hard enough shove and he did start - and finish. Maybe I should push harder more often. Hmmm.

It's a bit kitschy but at least there's some color now, not just white space!

Baby Quilt

(Spoiler warning for Lee and Crissy:
Don't look if you don't want to see the quilt before it arrives!)

It's never as straight forward as it first seems to be, doing these "little" projects like Christmas ornments, stockings, pillows and so on. Most projects have a certain element of learning-by-the-seat-of -my-pants to it even though I think when I begin that I know exactly what I'm doing.

Since new baby Loucks is going to be a girl, I wanted pink but not too pink, and not kitschy since that's not my usual style, and not too complicated since I didn't have a lot of time, and not too big (for the same reason) and not too small, but big enough. That didn't seem like too much to ask.

So I got out all the pink stash and started playing with colors and looking at patterns and had too much to choose from. Finally I ended up with "Puss in the Corner" and did the blocks before thinking of exactly how it would be arranged! I discovered that with a little extra planning, it could have been more "classic." Wouldn't you know - next time I'll correct that mistake.

But it's done and shipped and should arrive well before she does if she's on time!