Vintage Monday - the Garden

Because it's finally gardening season in my neck of the woods, I thought I would show you two of the vintage books that I have on my shelf for todays Vintage Monday.


These two are gardening books for children. The books really speak to me because I love...love...love everything about gardening and especially the old fashioned flowers!!! I grew up learning to garden. My Dad had very large beautiful gardens that my brother and sisters helped take care of. I have more details about those days in my description of my "Cottage Garden" quilt, you can read about it there-( just click on the button to the right that says Cottage Garden)


My grandparents and all of my relatives including everyone I knew as a girl tended gardens.



This is the first one that I bought. The copyright is 1941. It's an old school book and I really love how gardening was part of schooling back then. This would have been a book that my parents learned from, my Dad was born in '38 and my Mom in '40.





I love the title, "The Garden and It's Friends".

The illustrations of course are what I love the most about these books. Look at the darling seed packets and old fashioned single hollyhocks. I have alot of these in my garden.

I like how this picture shows how every seed is different and what some of them look like.

Because It's a childrens gardening book, they only show children in the garden! It actually reads as a story about two children named Roger and Ann who wanted to grow thier own garden.

So thier father gave them each a small corner of his garden and gave them money for seeds.

It then proceeds to tell how deep and far apart to plant each variety of seed they have chosen.

It teaches about the care one should take after planting the seeds. Father and Mother both help and give advice every step of the way.

It answers all of the questions that a child might have about gardens and how to care for them.

It shows pictures of Roger and Ann in thier gardens, explaining how fun it is to grow one, but explaining all of the work involved. Believe it or not, I have not shown you all of the pictures,(even though it might seem like it!)

The inside front and back covers show what each of them planted in thier gardens and where.

Here's the back cover photo. I think this book would be beatiful framed but it would be a shame not to be able to read it. The story is very endearing.

The next one is dated 1962. This is one that I would have learned from growing up as I was born in '63. However, I don't remember having a gardening book, I had "hands on" experience.

I so love the colors in this book along with all of the illustrations. That's why I bought the book, it has so many beautiful drawings of alot of the old fashioned flowers that Mr. Honey and I grow in our garden. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves on this one.

Do these books make you want to get out and grow your own garden? I wish that I could spend more time in mine this year, but too many deadlines for me. I'm going to try to enjoy it as much as I can though and I will take pictures of things as they come into bloom and show you.

I have already taken some of my tulips and lilacs, I'll show them to you this week. But for now ,it's time for me to go out on the back patio and applique some more paper dolls!

Get those Paper Dolls off the paper already!

This is what I've been up to this week, spending alot of time in my studio. My studio is my home away from home that's inside my home!!! I love to spend my days in there creating away...I always have either a good book on CD for listening or an old movie on DVD to sort of watch but mostly listen to, and if I have a diet Dr.Pepper with x-tra ice...I'm really good to go!

I'm trying to get the first couple of blocks for my new Applique Club ready by next week. I've been going to teach this quilt for a long time. It's my Paper Doll quilt and it's time to get those dolls off the paper and into fabric. (pun intended)

You can see my first stack of fabric that I have chosen to work with. The colors will be used to make the dolls and some of the clothes. There will be 2 paper dolls in the quilt and their clothing styles are of course vintage. They are from the late 50's - early 60's. The fabrics are waiting to be cut into first thing tomorrow morning. I can hardly wait to get started...

Vintage Monday - Vintage Dress

Yesterday I gave you a sneak peek on todays "Vintage Monday" - pink and yellow cotton dress. Here's a closer look. I just love this dress. This is one of the very first things that I ever bought in a thrift shop and one of the reasons that I started going on a weekly basis.

I saw the edge of the skirt peeking out of the sides of hanging clothes. I had never looked at clothes before, I actually was there in hopes to find an old church pew for my kitchen. Anyhoo, I saw the skirt and it looked old to me and reminded me of something my grandma's would have because of the print. I pulled it out and saw that it was a two piece with a full skirt and top, alot like some dresses that my Grandma's and even my Mom used to wear when I was a girl. They called them thier everyday dresses.(the ones they wore aprons over). Do you remember your mom wearing dresses every day? I do, she only wore pants when we went camping.
It had never been worn when I bought it. I know because no buttons had been sewn on yet. That was the only thing that it needed, everything else was finished including the hem. So I brought it home after paying 4.99 for it and sewed on some old pink buttons from my collection.
I really didn't know anything about the age of it but I could tell it was old, you can tell old clothes from new even if they are still in great shape. Also, the style of the dress was long gone!
I took it over to my Grandma's and showed it to her and asked her how old she thought it was. She wondered why I would want an old dress. She doesn't understand my collecting. She always says things like,"We threw those things out years ago, why would you want them back now?"
The fabric is from the 1930's- 40's era and I know that it's not a reproduction fabric (although there are several out there close to it now) because I bought it about 20 years ago, LONG before the Aunt Gracie line began - of course, I started to collect that immediatly and still do! I only know the fabric is from then, but who knows when the dress was made? It's really not fancy, just a simple skirt and blouse, but I think the little pink and yellow floral makes it so sweet. Don't you?

I put the dress on a dress form that I keep in my upstairs livingroom. Kassidy and I bought the form and decided to call her "Martha" after my maternal great grandmother who LOVED to quilt. I then dressed it up with my grandma's old pearls and one of my hats that I've already showed you. I placed a pair of beaded gloves and a printed hankie coming out of the side of one of my vintage purses (I'll show you those another time),then I tied the purse on with see thru ribbon.

To me, she looks like she's ready for a day of shopping and a luncheon with the girls, don't you think? I like to see her in my livingroom, it's comforting to me. Is that strange?

Tell me what you think about Martha and where you think she might be going...

Happy Mother's Day

...and her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.

Proverbs 31:28

Ode to the 1930's Quilt

I finally finished binding my quilt that I showed you a peek of last week. The thing that is really bad is that I finished it last August and it has taken me this long to get around to binding it.

The quilt is called "Ode to the 1930's" and is designed by Lori Smith. Everyone in the clothesline club last year made one. We didn't work on it in our meetings, we chose our own fabrics and did it on our own. We brought our finished blocks for show and tell each month and we all eventually finished our quilts.

This year we are making signiture quilts. I'll show you my blocks as they are completed!

As for this quilt, It was really fun because I love working with 1930's fabrics as you know and I especially love sampler quilts. I absolutely loved making it and enjoyed every step.

I went a little photo crazy because I wanted to be sure to show you a close up of each block so I'm sorry for all of the repeat pictures of some of the blocks...now for the show...

The quilting is done by my friend Helen Brutch. Isn't it fabulous! She quilts all of my quilts and I just think she is so talented and such a wonderful sweet lady.

If you are interested in having her quilt something for you, email me and I will give you her number.

Here is the full quilt which is very detailed. now do you know why I took so many close up shots for you?

I love putting applique and pieced blocks together. If I only had time, I could make so many "spin off" quilts that would be so cute from each block. But then, that's the beauty of a sampler quilt, you get to make just one of everything and get your variety.

Do you like the floral border? I struggled with that decision, there are so many options with a quilt like this. But once again, yellow won out. The color of sunshine...