Just Looking...

Hey guys! Did you all get to the flea or yards sales this weekend? It is May! before we know it it'll be Too Hot for flea market hunting.

So off I went on Sunday. The market was fun! Bustling with cheery folks..and their dogs.

Can't you just see it: ''Hey, baby, wanna go to the flea market?'' Killer the famous fatly adorable pug slowly raises an eyelid. "Snort.'' [= ''NFW, man.'']. "Oh c'mon, it'll be fun! Reeeally. There's like, you know, hotdogs?" Killy leaps up and waddles to the door. And off we'd go to the flea.

Meanwhile, though I saw I good stuff, my current attempts to spring clean and declutter put me in a non-buying mood. [internet photos --- just to give you an idea of the stuff...]

What I didn't buy: the four small c. 1820 Staffordshire plates the guy has for me.

a Kate Greenaway doll dish. Two bucks tagged, what was I thinking?I love KG even more than Beatrix Potter, I think.

a Wedgwood Etruscanware small milk pitcher, pint...cream with PINK raised motifs. Adorable. [the familiar matte ground kind is reversed, color with white Grecian ladies: 'Jasperware']...

A rare purple transferware milk jug, pint, ''The Duchess"..old and the purple was SO cool.
Just for color....

Mason jars with original white milk glass lid inserts.

An unusual Mason jar, tinted green, with rusty wire bail, crosshatched textured pattern. English?

a printer's case full of the old type letters, many sizes.

a neat wooden carrying box, toolbox with center handle and row of pegs along one edge , Perfect for spools of thread and if lined, for sewing projects.

We also didn't get a hotdog..and Killy is just a sweet and charming ghost now. I still miss him, April 30 is 4 years since he passed on to that rainbow bridge.

''Grieve not
nor speak of me with tears
but laugh and talk of me as if I were beside you
I loved you so . . .
'twas heaven here with you.''

                                      ~ Isla Paschal Richardson



Used to be, once was, what might have been...

love

lizzy

......gone to the beach.

Photos from EBay, Google Images, and ICanHasCheezeburger.com www.icanhascheezeburger.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Beginnings

Is that redundant? Let's say: planning summer projects?

Hi everyone, hope your weekend has been good! It is still chilly here and the few trees we have are just beginning to show leaf buds. But summer will be here soon and I am looking forward to deck time and beach time.

I enjoyed the Porch quilt so much, loved having the handwork to keep my hands busy while enjoying the summer days.

So...a new applique project!   From Glorious Color I try to call it the Dream quilt but usually I say "Mr Sunshine" quilt.

"Celestial Dream"
by Susan Powell

I hope it isn't too ambitious for my skill level and attention span.

This pattern is the real deal ! Not a book but huge tissue paper patterns.

They're harder to work with, as I usually just run applique designs through my printer onto freezer paper cut to size. Maybe I can find a copy place that makes large scale copies...

And of course first thing I had to do was change it! That whale looks like no whale I've ever seen! And it is red? I will change it to a humpbacked Nantucket style whale,lol...maybe, um, grey? Lavender?

Here's all the bright blue plaids I collected for the Porch quilt back then did not use.

[still waiting for the purple, sigh.] They will make beautiful backgrounds for this new quilt.

Then I have a couple of machine sewing projects for late spring. Because I am getting a new sewing machine! Yay! A gift from my family, have not chosen it yet....[all I ask is fast sewing and needle-down ending! Can't spend a fortune...any suggestions?]

These embroidered blocks were gifted to me by my friend LDF. I've had them for awhile and keep changing my mind about how they should be used.

This is the current inspiration antique quilt.

I want to do more with these classic blocks than just a sewed together plain top.

Then a small quilt.

These are pre-Civil War era [1840?] star blocks I bought for the America Hurrah quilt.

I decided they were much too special and should have their own showcase. The old fabrics are fantastic.

I made a mistake though...I wanted to make a strippy quilt [setting is vertical rows or bands, for you non-quilters] and strip quilts often used large prints in the wide spacer bands. But I hate how this looks and laboriously removed this fabric. I'll go back to the brown pansies/ rosebuds I originally planned to use, above.

And here...far far in the future: Lori of Humble Quilts shared this antique quilt and her pattern so I can make a Big Top [Circus Stripe] quilt too. Her post is here
Thank you , Lori!

And from Collector with a Needle blog ,  this Pennsylvania Dutch applique  quilt.

If, like me, you love folk art and prims, you'll love it---Gaudy Dutch colors and all.

It is rather colorfully wild---so much energy and joy. Cool new techniques, like the Hawaiian-ish scherenschnitte [papercutting] center motif. I have many of the antique fabrics---and/ or vintage repros of them, in my stash. How could I resist!?

Click to enlarge plus onderful close-ups on their esty site: here

On the home front, the spring cleaning is moving slow...the wind kicks ups so much dust! I am wiping everything down daily, so tedious. But my deck is all cleaned, and the grill is ready for burgers. Optimism! Summer will be here soon?

love

     lizzy

gone to the beach....

all pattern photos reproduced with permission. Lori's Big Top quilt pix reproduced with permission. all links added with persion.
Thank you all!

A New Beach...and a Pink Moon!

Hi! A new beach today...new in more ways than one.

I've never photographed the big town beach that is to my far west...it's ''urban'', public and busy at times.
There used to be a real boardwalk here...wonderful for bike rides and street fairs, concerts, baby stroller pushing...

Built in the very early years of the 20th century, a city landmark and prized tow resource. [c.1915?]

The carnival rides were long gone, no arcades or tattoo parlors! [same or very similar view, c. 2012]

Just a lovely access to the Atlantic, best enjoyed midwinter when no one else is around.
But always there..
So when I went to the doctor in early March I couldn't believe my eyes.

His office is right on the beach here. There used to be ramps---to the boardwalk!

Still H. Sandy sand on the street when I took these photos last week...mid-April.

These are the pilings where the boardwalk used to be.

 

 

 

 

Like some sort of odd Egyptian ruins, aren't they?

These enormous fake berms or dunes were bulldozed here to protect the  town after Sandy, since a further winter or spring nor'easter could have again brought floods.

 

 

People are venturing over these mountains!

And there it is, the beach! big and white and waiting for summer...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

love

 

 

           lizzy

 

gone to the beach.....

 

 

 

 

 

note: first 2 pix by MH, thank you!
other aerial views and antique postcard via google images.
All other pix by me...click to enlarge!

PS Had to add..just now, 8.27 pm, "Pink Moon"/ April full moon, rising over the beach.

 

 

 

Supposedly called The Pink Moon because wild pinks [flowers] were earliest spring wildflower to bloom in chilly April. BUT it really looks, well, pink! So cool.

 

lizzy