Kitschy Kitschy

I've always loved Niagara Falls. I grew up only about two hours away from the Falls and always looked forward to summer trips there. We'd go once a summer, crossing into Canada at the Peace Bridge in Buffalo, New York. Then we'd drive north toward the Falls and picnic along the River Road, where the Niagara River is first calm enough for boating ( but you sure wouldn't ever catch me pleasure boating on the Niagara River). The current churns and becomes faster, turns into rocky rapids, and then there you are at the Falls, that most awesome of sights.

I'm always on the lookout for interesting kitschy Niagara Falls doodads. Some of my finds:

The little kilted doll is actually from Toronto, sort of in the same neighborhood. My dad bought that for me when I was about five. She used to do a jittery stiff-legged dance, but the wind-up key is long gone.


Sorry the pictures are a bit wonky. The little orange pitcher was bought in an antique shop and had a little note inside (still there) saying it was bought on an 1880s honeymoon. Cool, huh?

Gratuitous Lucy picture alert. She's now six months old and a complete delight, getting more trustworthy every day (although there was a tiny little incident involving morsels from the cat litter box this past week...).


This is our third Westie, and the first to really love playing with toys. She rolls around with them, throws them in the air, chases them around. Very entertaining. And we appreciate that she even enjoys playing with the expensive toys we've been suckered into buying.

I spent most of my down time this past week knitting. I'm pleased to say I'm nearly done with repeat 19 of Kimono Shawl #2. I love this pattern.

Moving into the home stretch AND, God help me, already planning the next lace project.

Findings

Posting has been a challenge--my home computer seems to be pretty much defunct (but a new one is on order!), and Mr. Kathie is out of town, leaving me on full-time puppy duty--"Full Westie Immersion", as we call it. Lucy is doing well, but still needs to be watched pretty closely.

I'm not getting a whole lot of anything accomplished.

But I managed to make it to Seams last night. And good things seem to be coming our way.

Casey had been weeding out her sewing room and brought a pile of "free to a good home" items. This is a great idea and I ought to do the same.




I came home with a selection of Christmas fabrics, including a yard each of a couple gorgeous coordinated Hoffmann holiday prints, seen in the foreground below.

And why do I need these? I have no answer for that one.

But the prize find of the evening had to belong to Kara, who stumbled on a country estate sale last weekend. She scored a 1930s Featherweight, at an excellent price, in perfect working order, with the most amazing array of machine attachments and accessories I've ever seen.

I thought I knew my way around sewing machine attachments, but some of these contraptions had us all scratching our heads.

This buttonholer would make a great doorstop or boat anchor.

This would be a table clamp thingy.
Sometimes you see pretty antique ones that look like birds.

We were stumped by this one above till we went through the accompanying literature and discovered that this is an accessory for darning stockings. I'm actually holding it upside down here. The curved pieces are movable and would hold the stretched stocking.

There were also separate rufflers and pleaters, and cording and binding feet that amazed and astounded, and a big box to hold them all.

The machine itself is a beauty, obviously having seen only very light use. Lucky Kara.

My own Featherweight is 1950s vintage, with a much more modest set of attachments. Terrific little machines--I feel fortunate to have one.

Links of the day:

• My family and I really enjoyed Gerrie's Wild Rice Salad which appears in this post. I'll be making it again for sure.
• Check out the ultimate dog walking accessory.
• This made me laugh. And they ALL do this: unproductive dog activity.

Treasures

What's not to love about a 30,000 square foot antique mall in Salamanca, New York? It makes way more sense to me than tossing money at the Seneca Allegany Casino. I do have to say that enthusiasm wanes when the feet start to hurt and the non-stop country music starts to make the veins in my head pulsate, but when antiquing is involved, I keep plugging along.

I was excited to antique in a different part of the country, figuring there might be some good finds, especially in the areas I'm always on the lookout for. And yes! There was indeed Pennsylvania Purinton Apple.

Four hard-to-find tumblers and these cute salt and pepper shakers came home with me. I have a large set of this that was my mother's. Nice and chirpy and cheery--I'm always on the lookout for more.

I also always have an eye peeled for Niagara Falls memorabilia. Since Salamanca is only about two hours from the Falls, it's not surprising that there were a number of plates and other Falls-related items. I grabbed these salt and pepper shakers; had never seen any quite like them.


And this antique candy tin picturing the Falls was a bargain.

I have a little shelf where all my Niagara Falls goodies live, but I may have to find a bigger home for them all.

And SCORE! An absolutely mint Pyrex refrigerator box set in the primary colors.


I can't claim to have found this set in a thrift shop for peanuts like some lucky Pyrex people, but I grabbed it when I saw it. I'm still regretting passing up the nested bowl set in the primary colors I saw in the spring at Kewaskum, WI. Maybe I'll get another chance some day...

And finally, treasure shopping is a fine thing, but the gift of good friends with generous hearts is one of the greatest joys in life. And I'm continually blown away by the generosity of friends in the blog world.

I arrived home from Pennsylvania to find a big package awaiting me. Opening it, I about fell over. Here is what was inside:

My very own copy of Patchwork Folk Art sent to me by my new guardian angel Jan, who claims to have had "an extra copy just laying around" and asks only that I enjoy it and pay it forward if there's an opportunity.

You can believe it--I'll be eager for a chance to spread this kind of generosity around.

Going Home

Why do I like pictures showing road views so much? Lots of metaphoric possibilities there. Or maybe it's just that I didn't see a whole lot of road views like this one enroute on my Pennsylvania trip. The high points were lots of turnpikes, toll roads, and of course two generous helpings of the warm group hug that is Chicago rush hour.

But we won't dwell on all that. The main point of the whole trip was the **gasp** fortieth reunion of my high school class. And that did not disappoint.






My school was a tiny parochial one, and in recent years the reunions have been combined with the larger local public high school's. That's fine with me-I had a good number of friends in the other school and it was a real thrill to see lots of them after a long, long time.

Two of my very closest friends also made the trip. Nancy and Tweet. (Tweet was always said to look like a bird, hence the name...)


I haven't been together with the two of them in many, many years. And to share TWO NIGHTS of festivities--that made the weekend just over the top. That's Pat with us above. He's still pretty cute, IMHO.

One night we all ended up at the local Italian American Lodge at about 1 a.m. Much hilarity concerned having to sneak in those of us whose names don't end in vowels... And we were there till we were run out by the management at 2 a.m. I thought my late nights like that were long over. But we just didn't want to let the party be over.

Maybe you can't go home again, but I sure felt like I was there when I was dancing and looked around to see people I danced with in tenth grade, eighth grade, seventh grade.

Interspersed among all this partying was a good deal of driving around checking out places that always meant a lot to me--those beautiful Allegheny Mountains.

Near Bordell, McKean County, Pennsylvania

Red House Lake, Allegany State Park, Cattaraugus County, New York

Allegany State Park, near Salamanca, Cattaraugus County, New York

Oh yes. I also hit an antique mall in Salamanca, New York. Hit it hard. More details on that to come.

Heading Toward the Hills

My hometown's claim to fame

I'm planning to head out at the crack of dawn for Northwest Pennsylvania--that will be six states in one very long day. I've got three books to listen to en route, and needlework is part of the plan: I'm taking the Kimono Shawl as well as the new red Kansas Troubles. I have about 350 tiny triangles to trim and if I can make any headway on that, I'll feel I accomplished something.

Looking forward to seeing some old and very dear friends.

Back early next week.

Into the City

My friend Nancy and I did an ethnic grocery run in Milwaukee Sunday. It was predicted to be the hottest day of the summer so far; we hoped to benefit from the "cooler by the lake" conventional wisdom, but it didn't seem to be ANY cooler by the lake at all.

Tiny glimpse of Lake Michigan

Perfect Victorian: North Astor Street, Milwaukee

We hit a Thai grocery, a Filipino grocery, an Italian grocery, and a spice shop.


After years of surrogate parenting foreign students at Marquette University, Nancy has become an expert Asian cook. I usually follow in her wake and she's taught me a lot. Then I lead the way at the Italian grocery. I'm not Italian but my hometown was predominantly so, and I grew up immersed in Italian food at the homes of many friends. Oh yes...

After the shopping, we met my city boy Will for a buffet lunch at our favorite Indian restaurant, Maharajah.


We pigged out, as usual. Total curry immersion--I love it.

The Thai grocery had beauteous mangoes, which found their way to our table tonight.

Saturday Miscellany

Hey! Can you spot what's missing from my kitchen? The puppy corral! Since April, we've had a good-sized area fenced off here in the kitchen. It's made for a good way to confine Lucy, but it's been a large pain to work around.

Lucy has been riding the learning curve so successfully that we have graduated her to full kitchen and family room access. Very good news.


Lucy is very much living up to all we had hoped for. Sweet disposition and very funny and dear. We've never had a puppy so into playing with toys--very entertaining. And with the house training pretty well nailed, she's now a full-fledged family member.

I spent Saturday afternoon at Mayfair, trying to get prepared for a trip this week. I'll be heading out to Pennsylvania Wednesday for a BIG high school reunion next weekend--and I can't wait to see my peeps from way back when. It will be a two night extravaganza. Well, as extravagant as Bradford, Pennsylvania gets. But you know how it is--the clothes have to be just right, have to hit just the right notes.

And I think I'm ready.

I went to Half Price Books, hoping against hope I'd see that copy of Janet Bolton's Patchwork Folk Art that I stupidly didn't buy awhile back. Not to be. Some other person, obviously smarter than I am, snapped it up. But I scored these:


These Taschen books are small-format--an obvious knock off of the cute little Jeu de Paume books. Or is it the other way around?

And for years I have wanted a copy of A Room of Her Own. $6.95--not bad.


I found this on the remainder table at Barnes and Noble. Eye candy for me--lots of pictures of blue and white china.

China porn...

And I picked up these magazines, which may lure me away from sewing time.


Back home I had enough energy left to make stuffed peppers.



Then I hit the couch and wallowed in my new books all evening.

Antsy

Celebrating a completed quilt!

It's good to have a friend like Renee. She always cuts through the #%&@ and figures things out for all the rest of us.

Renee became really enamored of the Feathered Star. She had the Marsha McCloskey book and studied and studied it until she could have written the book herself. Then she started teaching Feathered Star classes, adding her own insights and shortcuts (if there can be such a thing as shortcuts with a pattern like this).


So I took her class at least six years ago and made the quilt top but it got sidelined. I liked the quilt, but when I began quilting it, I just sort of got to a point where I didn't know where to go next. I liked these quilted leaves, but then what?

So the thing got folded up on a shelf and there it sat for about five years.

But ta-da! I took it to the Glen retreat this year, and just DID IT. Got it all quilted.


I decided I didn't have to quilt the whole thing in turquoise. That thread color thing had been one of the dilemmas that made me abandon it. So I used clear thread in some areas. No rules against that, I guess.

It's neither fish nor fowl--a traditional pattern made from some decidedly funky fabrics in an odd color scheme. But I think it's fun. And it's D-O-N-E!

Dumpster Diving

It's an eye-poppingly gorgeous summer weekend, with clear sky, sunshine, and lush green-ness all around, and what am I doing?

Chopping up scraps. I spent most of my weekend mining the scrap bins. While I'm motivated, might as well act on the impulse, right? It's a truly scary situation when one can dumpster dive in the comfort of one's own home, spend a whole weekend plus a couple evenings at it, and STILL be only about halfway through organizing it all.








It's been kind of fun. I can't believe how many little ziplocks of cut squares and fourpatches and triangles that I've found, many from projects I can't remember. Good raw material for another Mile a Minute, at least.

I hit Target for some plastic Sterilite drawer units that fit ever-so-perfectly under my sewing machine table leaves.



It's a continual wonder how I can fit ever more and more STUFF in this room. But any kind of enhanced organization is progress, and I feel like I'm moving in the right direction.

I'm down to about half a bin of scrap-scraps. I plan to leave them accessible and cut more as I have a chance, but as for dedicated time doing this, I think I've developed acute rotary cutter fatigue for the present time.

Next challenge: to actually USE the scraps.