Category Archives: Awesome Old Things

Cute Little Old Lamp

Posted on by
Reply

I went shopping yesterday with my mom and Gigi at a great little antique shop near my house- Early Attic Antiques- where I found this great little lamp!

I loved it’s green glaze and art noveau flourish. (The old-style plug makes me think that this might be from the 1930s…) Since I’m looking at craft and artisan shows to apply for this year, I thought it might be great to sell a few lamps with shades on them, and this was was too awesome to pass up. So I bought it, and when we all got home, we started holding fabrics and patterns up to it to see which one would best suit the lamp…

cute lamp with fabric left over from a different project

cute lamp with adobe fabric

cute lamp with butternut fabric

cute lamp with sea comb fabric

cute lamp with trumpet flower remnant

We went through several combinations, and I decided to think on it a bit. The one print I didn’t try out when Mom and Gigi were here was Trumpet Flower- I’ve discontinued it, but it’s one print that was designed specifically with the art nouveau style in mind. (It was inspired by a majolica tile in my kitchen.) When I held up this Trumpet Flower remnant to the lamp, I think that I’d really hit the nail on the head. Now it’s just a matter of figuring out which colors to print it in- brick and adobe maybe?- and I may find myself with a finished product that never actually makes it to a craft show…

My mom, when she reads this, will not be surprised at all.

New Toy

Posted on by

When I was getting ready for Crafty Bastards, it started to become apparent that my Husqvarna does not like to work with painted canvas. The main issue was that the feed dogs needed help pulling the fabric under the needle. The paint just seemed to create too much drag along the plate. So I thought I’d check and see what a used industrial sewing machine might go for.

And look! Not too far from where I live (and there isn’t much that’s not too far from where I live!) was a sewing factory that had gone out of business about 20 years ago. A few nice guys that are busy renovating the building are selling off the old machines on eBay. I gave a call, drove down to the factory, and tested one out. After a few test runs, the machine loosened up and ran like… new!

consew1

consew2

consew3

consew4

So, I became the owner of the dirtiest sewing machine I’ve ever seen. My husband and I went to work cleaning it up on Sunday, including the drawer which still contained a few small possessions of the seamstress who ran it- Juicy Fruit, Sucrets, a ruler from the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. (I kept that in the drawer.) Now, I’ll get to finish my work with a little piece of local history, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to have any trouble with my painted canvas!

Falling Off the Face of the Earth

Posted on by

I guess it’s my turn to be busy!

runnerblock1runnerblock2

Working on a new print- very exciting! I created this block specifically for a new project, and I’ll post details as I make progress. I can’t wait to see how this turns out…

Starting to get ready for Crafty Bastards. I planned my inventory, my schedule and started ordering supplies. I made myself a big ole banner. And I fixed up a great old folding chair from the Junk Lady:

foldingchair

When I had stripped off the brittle, rotten fabric from the chair frame, I saw a label that dated the chair in the late 1800′s. Sometimes I feel a little guilty when I remake things like this, as if I’ve just destroyed some irreplaceable Antiques Roadshow find. But then I remember that it’s from the Junk Lady, and if it were that valuable she likely wouldn’t have ended up with it in the first place!

So my posts are going to be a bit sporadic for a while- please bear with me…