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...