Location, Location, Location

This is what I see in the morning before I go to work.

Just beyond the end of our street is a fabulous view of the Vegas Valley (its really an alluvial plane, but that's not so catchy...). The lights really sparkle at night - this photo was about a half hour after sun-up. Sometimes it is cloudy where we are, but at the same time, we can see the sun reflecting off the tall shiny buildings on the strip in the distance.

The valley is like a saucer and our neighborhood is up on the rim of the saucer, so we can see all the way across the metro area.

I call our new neighborhood the Shady Rest. There are real trees instead of palm trees and much more interaction amongst the neighbors, since everyone is kind of 'cheek by jowl', (although, I think we have more yard than some of the new construction going up, these days).

It is a very modest neighborhood, but friendly. There is quite a list of rules, but not all of them seem to be enforced.

One that is enforced, quite vigorously, however, is 'no working on cars'. Apparently some time back, the EPA paid a visit and found that not everyone was careful about disposing of fluids, so the ban was put in place to avoid 'chronic infraction' status. That is a deep disappointment to The Mister, as he was looking forward to puttering with the Falcon, since it has been out of the paint shop for a very short time. We are researching alternatives for him, since there is not so much to keep him busy with our small space.

One of the rules that seems to be less important is 'no clutter in the yard' and 'only lawn furniture on the patio'.

This is a neighbor across the street:

You can't see in the photo that the 'destination' sign on the motor home says "Twilight Zone". It is kind of a hippie bus with ALL kinds of things in the yard. You can just see the refrigerator to the left of the bus. I don't want to be rude and stare, but if there was a roof over it all, I think it could be on "Hoarders"!

Most of the other neighbors are very tidy, although there are quite a few that have gone a bit overboard with plastic flowers as landscaping.

Since clutter is not against the law, we enjoy the eccentricity aspect.

At least there is no HOA!

Settling in

Well, we are in and it is feeling like home. A small home, but not so bad.

I have learned to judge the traffic and make the call as to whether the highway or surface streets are the most efficient for the commute. The kitties are getting used to the sounds around us, no longer startling at the wind or the barking dogs in the trailerhood.

And, I have my iris in the ground!

I wasn't going to fool with them.

I had dug the special ones and taken them to safe haven at Dsis's house in CO. The only ones left were multiples of nameless clumps that were dry and ignored. It was the last trip to the house to pick up the kitties in their carriers and mop the entryway on my way out the door. I looked at the beds and grabbed a plastic dish pan and a grocery store plastic bag out of the back seat. I dug the plants with my bare hands and took them with me, thinking that I would get some big flower pots and put a couple in each.

The next day when I got home from work, I was thrilled to see that The Mister had fetched the planter boxes and had them installed and ready for planting!

I think that it is likely that I will have some bloom in the spring, since we have a couple more months of warm growing season ahead. We don't have irrigation here, so I will water them with the hose, but they are next to the sidewalk and I will pass them everyday, and that will remind me to give them a drink.

And by spring, maybe my hands and fingernails will have recovered from being used as garden implements!

The time has come! (and public yarning!)

We are moving!

This weekend we will be out of the house and implementing step one of the 'exit strategy' - moving into the RV! Much of the summer has been taken up with the preparations and the work is not over yet.

There is still much washing of floors and woodwork in preparation of turning the house over to the management company who will (we hope) find us a renter who needs to live in Las Vegas for, oh, 10 years, or so. Or, at least until the housing market makes enough recovery that we can unload the albatross that will no longer be our home.

Finding a place for all the things that are still with us will be a mighty task, as well! I have winnowed my wardrobe down in stages. I still think I have too much for the small RV closet. I am thinking I might have to store my off season clothes under my desk, at work! Not really, but maybe one or two pair of shoes would fit in my bottom desk drawer...

A couple of weeks ago, we picked up the current car project from the paint shop where it has lived most of the year (that is another saga!) We were pulling out of the automotive industrial center after picking it up and saw this bit of yarn graffiti:

I asked The Mister to pull over and took a few snaps to share.

Right in the middle of all that is automotive and manly-ish was this desert tree, decked out in crochet swatches!

Not that desert trees need sweaters to keep them warm, especially in August, but this one didn't seem to mind!

And it gave me a little bit of hope that irony and whimsy can survive in this dry heat!

Not So Fussy Cutting

Like any interest, I suppose, the more I know about something, the more refined my taste becomes as to what appeals to me.

When I travel, I love finding vintage quilts in flea markets or antique malls. My budget does not allow for the $500 or $600 mint condition treasure, so I look for beautiful things that may have a flaw that makes them within my budget.

On a trip to Ohio a few years ago, I found this quilt top in an antique mall.

I love the bold orange and green combination!

I always had a thought that someday, I would learn how to quilt, practice on 'lesser' projects and finish this top into an heirloom worthy project! I knew that I would have to learn how to deal with scalloped borders first, though!

I decided, after coming across it while sorting, to take a closer look. To admire the vintage fabrics and color combinations.

After looking at it with a more 'schooled' eye, I decided that I will never make a quilt from this top.

Why?

After taking a series of classes and reading lots of books and magazines, I have come away with the fundamental rule that quilts should be flat.

This one is not.

Notice the white crosses with the orange squares in the center? Notice how they look like graceful foothills surrounding the round 'plate'? No amount of pressing will render this quilt top flat!

After a futile turn with a steam iron, an alternate plan began to form. I could take it apart and remake it!

As I began to look closely at the individual fabrics, I noticed something odd.

Deer legs!

And some other parts, as well!

There are three blocks made with this fabric, and I am guessing not a bit went to waste. Maybe the original quilter was focused more on the color than the print. I wish we could see a bit more of the faces of the herd, though!

(so cute!)
The entire top is hand pieced and the fabrics are in really nice condition. I think I will wait awhile to decide exactly how to use it. My skills are still very basic, and I want to be sure they are up to the project that would do these fabrics justice!

It is kind of freeing, though, knowing that I don't have to live up to a priceless work of stitching!

Vintage Redwork Stuff

After several weeks of avoiding the Great Chaos Behind The Door, I have begun sorting and packing my studio to go to storage.
These are a few things that I have come across in the process:



An orphan pillow case.

The case feels like a contemporary fabric and it is a bit bigger than vintage ones usually are, so I am guessing this was done in the last 20 years. I don't crochet, so I have no idea if the pattern is as complex as it appears. I think it is lovely, though.

This is a very cute dresser scarf, edged in red cotton, and the design is made by stitching red braid into a graceful vining pattern with pink thread. It is very precisely done!


There is some wear on the corners of the solid fabric, but it doesn't have any of the stains that are so common in vintage dresser scarves. I think the white fabric is linen. Maybe it was used as a table runner, or on the dresser of a very careful person.

This is one of the more intriguing embroidery projects that I have come across. The overall size is about the size of the usable part of a flour sack, after trimming the stitch hole margins. It also has the same fabric slubs that I find in a lot of flour sacks.

The motif is huge, more than life size, as you can see by my model...


I am not sure if it was intended as a dishcloth, or table topper or maybe a cover for a baby carriage. Or maybe it was meant to drape across the foot of a twin bed.

I have always liked red. When we were small, Dearest Sister always went for purple and I went for red. If it was candy, she took grape and I went for cherry.

She finally put her purple luggage from 1973 in the last garage sale. But I still have my red and white teddy bear!

Maybe that explains why redwork sparks such an interest for me!

Catching Up and Stitching Up

This has been one crazy summer! It has been a month since I have posted and only 5 posts since Memorial Day! I am not even sure I can account for my whereabouts, in the last few weeks. If I didn't have an outlook calendar, I am not sure if I could come up with an alibi to save my life!

I have been crazy busy at work. We have added over 100 new positions at our location, and that means that I have interviewed over 300 folks in the last 8 or 9 weeks. Unfortunately, the growth is mostly the result of another location closing, so our delight at being able to offer folks a job is tempered.

But it has kept me busy and has changed our summer travel plans a couple of times.

The Mister went to Washington by himself to visit his middle daughter and her kids. I had planned to go with him, but the timing did not work out, so I kept things humming at home while he was gone.

He wasn't back a week before he headed out again with his brother, to Virginia, for a nephew's wedding. I flew out, just for the weekend, and joined him and had a quick visit with Ms A and K, Dsis's eldest. Our original plan was for me to take two weeks vacation and make a long road trip across country. (That plan was scrapped early on, when the hiring schedule became known.) The upside of The Mister traveling with his brother is a new appreciation (on his part) for traveling with me. And my navigational skills...

Since I flew six hours each way, I did get some good headway on the current quilt block embroidery project:

It is more Rhymeland Mother Goose...

...bluework, this time.

And different motifs than the ones I used for the last bebe quilt.

In the past, Dsis and I have tried to use gender neutral colors for the quilts that we have collaborated on for her grandbebes. We do not yet know the gender of number four, but I decided to do blue work in delft blue with red lettering. If it is a boy, then blue will be fine. If it is a girl, she will have a quilt the color of her mother's eyes!

Hope you are having a good summer!

Vintage Ephemera Surprise

The thing that I enjoy most about estate sales, other than great bargains on cool stuff, is that sometimes it offers a little peek into a time capsule. Sometimes mid-century, sometimes retro 70's and sometimes just miscellaneous stuff from another age and time.

At the estate sale that I attended last month, there was a basket of sewing notions that were priced by a person who did not think much of sewing notions. Most of the things were bagged together randomly for 50 cents or a dollar. I picked up several baggies of various assorted goodies and one of them had this cute nautical ribbon...


...and about 10 yards of very old lace, wrapped up in a big brownish wad. I unwrapped the lace and found this:


A business card advertising a livery stable situated about a half mile from where the famous 18th and Vine Jazz District and Negro Leagues Museum are now. (And Arthur Bryant's Barbecue - the original one) All those things came much later, though. I am thinking that the livery business must have been from the 20's or 30's.

A quick look at Google Earth, shows that the city bus company office is there, now. Still a transportation business, but no need for Scientific Horseshoeing!

The ribbon is in the Etsy shop. I am not sure what to do with the business card. I might just stick it in with some sewing notions and let someone find it at another estate sale - hopefully many years from now!

Feedsack Fabric Souvenirs!

Last month, when we were in Kansas City, one of the things that was on my list to do was to visit one of the Kansas City Star stores and buy a book on feedsacks that I had seen on their website, Pickledishstore.com.

Another item on the list was a quilt display at the National Archives that Barbara Brackman had mentioned in a blog post about summer quilt exhibitions in and around Kansas City.

One afternoon, during our visit, we had a few hours unscheduled, so I mentioned to The Mister that I would like to go to the National Archives to see some quilts. I told him that there was a quilt exhibition there and his eyes began to glaze over a bit. He was envisioning something similar to the quilt show that he spent an hour at, last March (before I took him home and went back to really look!) I assured him that there would not be hundreds of quilts, just 12 that are of historical significance. Reluctantly, he agreed to go, even though I just had a vague idea that the Archives were 'close to Union Station'.

Well, we drove straight there (it seems the Archives are somewhat of a tourist destination, so there was good directional signage from the interstate) and parked by the front door and things were going swimmingly, until I walked up to the information desk and saw a poster about the quilt exhibition - that would start in two weeks! As we turned to go, the lady tried to interest us in the current exhibition about what it was like to be a prisoner at Leavenworth from the 1890's through the 1930's. Probably interesting, but not really a substitute for quilts, in my mind.

But! I saw another sign that indicated they also had a KC Star store, albeit a smallish one, so all was not lost!

The store did not have the feedsack book, but I did get a fabric souvenir!

Actually, two!

I had seen this 'Quilt in a Jar' in the online store, but had forgotten about it, since it seemed a bit pricey at $25. As a souvenir, though, I had no such thrifty thoughts! Because - no shipping!

These jars each had 36, six inch squares of feedsack fabric, all different, (although the assortment in each jar was the same with a couple of exceptions). The jar advertises that the fabric is equivalent to a 100 pound feedsack although I think most 100# sacks are a bit longer than 36". Still, 36 different prints is worth a premium, I suppose.

A couple of the prints are ones that I have, but there were also some very lovely florals and some geometrics that were very fun. A couple of them were the looser weave which are a bit less useful and one or two seemed like they may have been salvaged from a former project, but I was pleased with them, overall.

And The Mister and I can use the jars to drink iced tea when we sit on our front porch at the RV park!

Hodge Podge and Happy Independence Day!

Hello....hello...still there?

I wouldn't blame you for giving up on me! Posting only six times in May and twice in June makes me almost embarrassed to show my face around here!

I have been busy and distracted this past month, but things are coming together and I am starting to feel more like we have a 'new normal'. So, I will not promise to post regularly, but that is my intent!

I thought I would try to catch up a bit, but first, a patriotic nod to the holiday, by way of vintage textiles:

This is one of several vintage fabrics that I have listed in Atomic Sisters etsy shop. I have trouble coming up with 'non-drapery' ideas for large motif fabrics, so I am de-stashing a bit. I just cannot envision using these, so I decided to pass them on to someone else.

In other news:

This past week, The Mister and I took a road trip to the central coast of California. I had some business there and we decided to make a tiny holiday out of the maiden voyage of our new(er) camper. My work was in Santa Maria, so that was the base, but we spent most of Friday exploring some of the country side.

We started with a trip to Solvang for lunch, then explored the wine country around Santa Barbara. We really were not interested in wine, though, just the scenery.

We stopped at the Fess Parker winery, but passed on the coon skin hat wine bottle toppers!

This lavender farm was tucked in amongst the vineyards. I saw it on the map and with a minimum of wrong turns, we found it!

It was so beautiful and just alive with bees and butterflies. We stopped at the little shop and rang the bell, so someone could come out from the house to sell us wonderful soap.

Originally, we thought about spending the long weekend in California, but decided to drive back Saturday and have a weekend at home. The kitties were very glad to see us when we returned. They are a little nervous about all the packing, etc. that has been going on!

Wait until they find out that we are all going to live in the camper...

Catching up...

It has been almost two weeks since I have posted, and I am not sure that I have anything to say today, but I am going to try to get back into the routine.

This past week, The Mister and I drove East to take some of our stuff to storage for the 'duration'. (30 months to retirement. Have I mentioned that, already?) Along the way, we visited with family and enjoyed the rainy weather. Most everyone there was tired of the rain, but we enjoyed the change from the heat.

We celebrated my birthday, midweek, with a morning of fun garage sales. I had lunch with Sister G at our favorite special occasion (or any excuse for an occasion) lunch spot.

I went to a church sale in the afternoon. The '$3 to get in preview' started at 4 and I got there about a half hour early. I had never been one of the early birds at a church sale. It was totally worth the wait and the $3! I haven't gotten organized enough to take any photos of my treasures, but suffice to say that my overloaded carrying capacity only cost me $20 - until I bought a sewing machine - a Singer 403 Slant-o-matic! The Mister thought I was kidding when I told him I bought the machine - until he saw the cabinet that came with it in the back of the pick up... I bought it with someone else in mind, though. It will not be added to the stable!

That evening, we planned to go to dinner at our favorite fried chicken restaurant and The Mister surprised me by inviting eight of our nearest and dearest to join us.

So, all in all, it was a very fun birthday and a very successful trip!

And, I found out there will be a new baby in the family, before next spring! I guess that answers the question of 'what project shall I start next?'

My Life in Boxes - Finding Forgotten Treasures

Well, we are 'underway' with the plan. Stuff is in boxes, and boxes are everywhere. Five more work days until I have a week's vacation, so we have loaded the car trailer with the first wave of boxes making the Eastward Migration. We will probably have two more loads, since the trailer was made to carry the weight of a car, which is apparently a lot less that the weight of all the stuff I have accumulated over the years.

We had the trailer about two-thirds full yesterday, when The Mister decided to take it to the truck stop and put it on the scale, just to be sure we weren't getting over the capacity. When he came home, he announced that all the weight that we could carry, was already loaded. So, we had to reorganize the load to fill up the floor space so that stuff could not shift in transit. And we also had to take out some, so that there would be a margin for me and our luggage, cooler, etc. (The Mister was in the truck when it was weighed, so he was already accounted for)

I have to tell you that loading boxes is something that I am really good at. It was a skill that has served me well in my career, and I have sharpened it over the years. I had that trailer locked in from side to side and front to back. It just about killed me to dis-assemble it into a less efficient load! But, I also don't want to be one of the unfortunates along the side of the road with a blown tire on an overloaded trailer. We closed it up as it sat, since it was 110 degrees and went back at it this morning at 6am, when it was only 85 degrees! We unloaded 9 boxes of books and spread everything else out into one layer on the floor in the back half.

And now that it is loaded, I can slow down and be more deliberate in packing, since the next trip will not be until the end of July.

I planned to pack up my sewing things last, but this afternoon I started pulling stuff out of the closet and I came across this little embroidered quilt.

It is an estate sale treasure that shows some use, but is in really excellent shape.

It is the story of the Kitty Mother who lived in a shoe.

In this version, they may have all gotten broth without bread for supper...

...but I don't think any of them were spanked soundly.


They all look like they sure love their mama's broth!


I think that it was stamped with the colors, but some of the clothing is applique.

I don't remember if I have tried to soak out the age darkening, or not.

Perhaps I will do that when we get back from our trip. Or, maybe I will put that on the list of things to do in 2013...

Vintage Embroidery Transfers and Living Small...

Thank you all, so much for your encouragement! The Mister and I spent the last week doing our further 'looking into' and have come up with a plan! It does involve moving into the camper, but not until the end of this year. At that point, we will have 24 months left!

Yes, we have set a date for retirement! We did the math, (twenty different ways) consulted professionals, and I told my boss. So it is settled.

Of course, I may wind up with a 'second career' at some point, but that is a plan for another day...

In the meanwhile, we are going to spend the summer and fall downsizing, and moving things to storage at our retirement destination in Kansas.

Thinking about what things I will need in a very small space for 24 months (I know it is two years, but 24 months, sounds shorter!) is an interesting exercise. I will need clothes, but if I find myself without some necessity, there are all kinds of places to purchase whatever I might need. I will need some cotton yarn because travel knitting is almost always dishcloths. Again, not scarce, so if I underestimate, there are sources for more. Same with embroidery floss.

One area that will require much thought is books. I have a lot of books. Since I have some time, though, I am going through some of my quilting and craft books and scanning some projects so I can have them with me electronically.

It is hard to imagine, though, that if I had a hankering to start something, that I wouldn't be able to find a pattern or idea on line that would fill the bill!

And, in that vein, I have started scanning my vintage transfers, so that they will be available to me - and to you!

These bunnies apparently have stumbled across a nest of eggs. I wonder if one of them is the Easter Bunny, or if they are hoodlum bunnies that are plundering a chicken coop!

I love the yell-leader bunny! I can't quite figure out what he is wearing, though. Is it a tail coat that is flapping behind him? It doesn't look like he is wearing a coat, so maybe it is a scarf of some sort tucked into the waistband of his pants...

This little donkey cart reminds me of a plaster one that adorned our neighbors front yard when I was little! I think theirs usually had artificial flowers, though.

This one is another mystery. Is the bird decorating the hat, or has the kitty captured it? It kind of looks like he is licking his lips...

These are more of the Betty Burton group. (Since they are iron on transfers, they are meant to be reversed.) My scanner was covered in little flecks of the iron-on ink after I scanned them. I am glad that I have this incentive to do it, though. Some of them are kind of fragile.

I will upload them to my Flikr album and I plan to add more over the next few weeks. Or at least until my craft things get packed away!

Chickens...and stuff

My mind has be all a-clutter for the past few days. The Mister and I have been weighing strategies for wrapping up the next few years in the desert and moving away from this Crazy Town in the Desert. We are anxious to move from here! It is not a very good fit for us, although my job here is great. Much better than the job situation before I was transferred.

I think I have mentioned that we bought our house the very last month of the housing 'exuberance'. The very next month the prices began to fall. And they have fallen very, very far. In order to leave here, we need to get rid of this house. We will never be able to sell it for what we owe. Not even close. So, we are thinking of alternatives.

One option that we are considering, is to downsize and live in a yurt with no running water and an outhouse.

Not really.

But we are thinking of reducing our housing expenses by living in our camper for awhile. Then we could save up enough to pay someone to take the house off our hands. Maybe a slightly bigger camper than the one we currently have, but not much bigger. Probably a total of 350 square feet of living space.

People in big cities around the world live in smaller places, so I think we can too. But it will take some adjustments.

For instance, I will have to stop buying things, because there will be no room to put anything extra. So no need to clip the coupon for Jo-Ann that comes in the Sunday paper. No shopping for yarn or fabric, and no craft books from the thrift store. Everything except the essentials would be stored for the duration.

And we will have to only buy food that we intend to eat within a few days.

I would have room for my little featherweight, and maybe a small box of fat quarters and another one of solid color fabrics. I am thinking that I could transfer embroidery designs to a few dozen squares of flour sack fabric and keep busy with embroidery.

And then we decide that it does not make sense, financially, to do it.

Then, one of us will say, "something else we could think about..." and off we go again, planning and trying to foresee the future.

It has been one of those things that crowds out any creative impulses, so I haven't had anything to share, lately. And, we still have more 'looking into' ahead, so it might be awhile.

So, here is a little chicken family that we saw at a car show in California.

Just something to get off the topic!

Just Mom, Dad, and the kids, enjoying a day in the park!


Teaching the kids which bugs are tasty!

And taking turns at keeping watch.

Maybe we could have chickens if we lived in the yurt...

On this day in history...

...Dearest Sister was born!

(Here she is pointing the way for me to follow, as usual!)

Last year, we enjoyed celebrating her birthday together, along with all her girlies. They schemed to surprise her by showing up unannounced, and were quite successful!

(Here they are, looking angelic, as usual!)

I wish I could be there, today!

Happy Birthday, DSis!

Weekend in California

This weekend, The Mister and I went to California. A car club that we are affiliated with, "So-Cal Galaxies", hosts a car show on Saturday before Mother's Day every year. It is an "All Ford" show and it benefits the Anaheim Police Department.

(Where else would you see so many Edsels in a row?)

We entered our Fairlane and won second in our class ("Fairlane and Torino - all years"). It was participant voting, so nothing scientific, but it is fun to get an award!

It was a long day at the show, but we were 'helpers' so I didn't get any stitching done.

We arrived in California early in the afternoon on Friday, so I convinced The Mister that we should go to IKEA. I wanted to show him some bookcases that I am forming a plan around, but my ulterior motive was to buy 'souvenir' fabric!

I bought one yard of the white with birds and a half of the grey with leaves. Both are quilt weight cotton. No plan for them yet, but lots of potential!

Then, I got a yard of this one:

It is a huge print in heavy home decorator weight. I really don't have any idea of what I will use it for, but it was just so fun, I had to have some! On the drive home, I decided that perhaps a little back pack or a tote bag might be just the ticket!

When it was all said and done, we both brought home something fun from the trip. The Mister got another plaque to add to the 'wall of fame' and I got fabric!

Redwork Color 'n Say Quilt

I finished piecing the Color 'n Say quilt and I am pleased with it!

I am also pleased at how much more 'exact' my piecing was on this project. I am always wondering if my seams are staying consistent enough for the corners to match. There is one row that is a bit off, but not enough for me to worry about. Years down the road, I may look back and wonder at my low standards, but for now, I am making progress, so I am not going to worry about 'perfection'.
The top two rows...

This quilt measures 30" x 38", so I think that is big enough for a baby quilt and I think red is a good color for an 'in reserve' baby quilt.

The bottom two rows...

I will post the images to my Flikr pool and add a link in the next day or so. I originally used a copy machine and reduced the images to 40%. I have lost track of some of them from carrying them around while I was working on it, so I will post the rest of the images when I find them. Or, I will copy them again!

Vintage Embroidery Transfers - 'For the Birds'

A fun thing happened in my 'blog-world' a couple of weeks ago.

Patty at Pip Stitch linked to the vintage embroidery transfers that I posted here and here in February. A couple of days later, an Israeli blog named Friendstitch, (written in French) linked to them, as well. Over the next few days, people from all over the world were visiting those posts!

I am a believer in the 'paying it forward' school of thought, and I have benefited greatly from the generosity of other bloggers from the very beginning of this journey. (Dearest Sister, particularly!)

I had no idea that so many people would be interested in the designs, but I realized that if I added the transfers to my

Flikr album, it would be easier for others to download and enjoy them. I added them to my photo stream and to the Hoop Love vintage embroidery pool.

One of the members of the Hoop Love group commented, and identified them as Betty Burton designs. I went through the group of transfers again, and I found this envelope and additional pages!

(After a little research, I found more information about Betty Burton transfers, here. )

The additional pages connected some of the dots regarding the motifs. There were more nursery rhymes to go with the Jack and Jill, and other themes, such as animals, 'baby' and 'His and Hers', etc.

Today, I am sharing some of the bird designs:

I love the cute tam on this ducklings head!

This little chick must have something to crow about!

I think this birdie is the quintessential symbol of spring!

I think this one is my favorite! It makes me think of a elementary school art project with pipe cleaner legs glued to a board and maybe a Styrofoam head with paper beak and 'dunce cap'(?)

I haven't added these to the Flikr pool, yet. I need to upgrade my account to be able to add more photos. I hope to get that done in the next day or two, though, so I can share these and the others, as I get them scanned.

It was really fun to have so many people from around the globe visit my blog, but the best part was being able to share something unique. The thought that those transfers were sitting in a box or on a shelf for so many decades (my grandmother died in the late 1940's)and now they are enjoyed by people around the world makes me really happy!