A Generous Spirit

Something special happened to me recently. Just out of the blue, totally unexpected.

Once a month I meet with a local gardening group to share seeds, produce, expertise and occasionally, muscle. We weed and dig and admire each other's garden's, sharing cuttings and a delicious afternoon tea where we all contribute our home-made cakes and biscuits. One of the gardeners, Belinda, brought along her childhood doll to show us (well, me mostly, as I'm an avid collector and maker of various treasures).

Belinda produced  a hand-woven basket she had used for her own babies when they were small, with a lumpy towel inside. It was exciting to unwrap her. Sadly, her eyes were stuck shut as she'd been stored a while and the blinking weights had become gummed up. 

I was totally gobsmacked when Belinda offered her to me to enjoy, to appreciate and look after. The doll, an antique German bisque doll with a composition body, had been given to Belinda when she was about 13 by a friend of her mother's. Belinda called her Josephine, shortened to 'Josie'.

Since this doll was made in 1910 and about 109 years old, I was worried about how to open her eyes without damaging her. I checked the Internet but didn't feel confident to attempt it. That night, I rang the convener of a Sydney Doll Fair, who gave me the number of  'The Doll Doctor,' Barbara Hancock. She kindly explained how to peel back the wig, check the head markings and fix the eye blinking movement mechanism from inside the head. What a relief when her eyes moved after several moments of gentle prodding! After cleaning her eyes with a cotton bud, she was as good as new. How amazing to think she is still in such beautiful condition after all these years.

Here she is wearing the smocked dress Belinda made for her in school sewing classes. What a sweet dress! Belinda decided to hold on to her dress.

The doll was uniquely numbered and marked, made in 1910 by Armand Marseille, who was born in 1856 in St. Petersburg, Russia, the son of an architect. He emigrated to Germany with his family in the 1860s. In 1884 he bought the toy factory of Mathias Lambert in Sonneberg and started producing porcelain dolls' heads in 1885, after acquiring the Liebermann & Wegescher porcelain factory in Köppelsdorf. At the height of his business, the factory produced a thousand doll heads a day. These were produced until about 1930.

I love this vintage floral fabric which Belinda's Sewing teacher gave her to use.

I spent the next day rummaging for suitable clothes for her to wear, dressing her in them, and photographing her. She is quite large, about 60 cm tall, and vintage baby clothes fit perfectly.

That afternoon I made a collaged hanging for Belinda with heartfelt thanks. I tried to find fabric scraps that matched her dress, and kept to a vintage colour scheme. I included a feather from one of my Laced Wyandotte chickens as Belinda had loved her own Wyandotte chickens years ago.

Here's Josephine wearing her vintage crocheted silk dress which I had collected and mended.

I've given a delighted Belinda her wall hanging, and she's seen the new outfit, and taken her smocked dress home as a momento.

What a generous-hearted gift, and I am still stunned! 

Thank you, Belinda!

Here she is with a new friend... 

This special gift reminds me of other kindnesses I've received over the years. Once when I was going through a hard time in my thirties, a lovely gift of $200 appeared in my mailbox, in an unmarked envelope. I never did know for sure who it was, but I suspected a gentle family who I used to visit. I was feeling sad as I'd gone through a couple of years waiting for a court case over workplace stress, and broken up with a boyfriend. With that money I bought a beautiful Birman kitten who purred and snuggled with me for 21 years, bringing so much happiness. 

This is a collage I did of Tara after she died. Her full name is in the frame... Her Serene Adjacency, The Lady Tara Fluffy Bum.

Now it's my turn to offer some kindnesses back to the universe as the opportunity arises...

I'd love to hear of special gifts of kindness you might have received or given, too.

Love,

Up-cycled Coat Hangers for Vintage Clothes Tutorial

Dear friends,

Do you have some special vintage clothes you'd like to display to enjoy them? Perhaps a vintage baby dress, or a wedding dress to bring out of the cupboard?

I decided to play with some trims and doilies to decorate some plain coat hangers so they could add an old-world feel to vintage baby dresses and clothes I want to photograph and display. This ivory satin baby hanger was an op shop find.

I chose a small doily which had a minor stain (part of the vintage look). It had an open weave, so I folded it to work out the half-way point, then mounted it over the hook.

I snipped off a a piece of another doily and a short lace motif from a roll of recycled lace I collected from an old garment. The centre hole was just large enough to thread over the hook. You can experiment with wrapping a piece around and securing it with some small hand stitches.

A length of cream satin ribbon can be draped around the hanger - enough to tie a bow plus a little extra, about 40-50cm. You can trim it at the end.

Fold the ribbon around the hanger from front to back, and tie a bow at the front of the base of the hook.

The finished hanger - mine needed no sewing as it stayed nicely in place.

Here it is with a vintage baby's slip which I embroidered with a bow and some grub roses.

Here are a few more ideas... a satin button as the centre of the flower motif. I hand-stitched each end so the doily wouldn't slip off.

Starting with a padded hanger makes it a quick and easy project with great vintage style. Here I've added some pearl beads, an ear-ring and a velvet rose as accents.

These apricot shades are my favourites...

I'm joining Wen for Simply Neutrals # 55 over at her blog, AppleApricot. Come and join us for a feast of neutral beauty.

Pastel Roses and Lace

Hello Friends,

It's the 50th Simply Neutral Party at Wen's blog, AppleApricot, so I'm celebrating with a bumper post and a special giveaway for you all below. Thank you, Wen for being such a warm and welcoming host, and also the community of artful women who have gathered to share their works and encourage each other in their various artistic pursuits. I've appreciated the inspiration, ideas, and friendships that have grown here.

I've chosen a mauve theme today - along with some other pastel roses, since my garden is overflowing with rose beauty at the moment. It's very challenging for me to limit myself to 'simply neutral' tones!!! I hope these choices fit the theme.

A gorgeous old print of a bunch of mauve roses in its chippy paint frame called to my heart. There's a signature at the bottom - 'Morgan' - but I couldn't find it on the Internet. I can't tell if it might be under copywright or not. This aged and stained mauve silk doiley I've had for years goes perfectly with it. It's from the personal collection of my friend Donna who has a wonderful vintage shop at Burrill Lake near here on the South Coast of Australia, called 'Lakeside Vintage'. Donna sells via Instagram, too, and can mail some things. 

I had fun pulling out mauve stuff to display with it. Another reason I've not produced much art this month! Too much playing! You'll see it appears further down in this post with another picture.

Apart from gardening, I have been creative too. I pulled out a pile of old clothes I've been saving to alter - things that didn't fit properly, or needed some attention, or were just not quite right. Some were from charity shops, bought for their fabric, to turn into something else. I set about altering some of them... I stitched the grey rose in chiffon by hand, and attached a piece of lace cut from a round doiley. That made it flow nicely. I then gathered some mauve seam binding to cover the seam, and added a brown ribbon accent. 

These mauve roses from my garden were perfect shades to show with it... The centre rose is called Stainless Steel, and the others are Novalis.

This beautiful top had a fully gathered bodice which looked a little like a maternity top, so I added some lace decoration (old doileys) and a pale salmon cloth rose finished with a seam binding bow to break up the line of gathers. I love it much better this way. It's hanging against David Austin's rose, Windermere.

The cloth roses are sold by the metre, on a gauze strip at a local crafty shop. I used another on this cheap sleeveless top for Summer. I added some black braid around the neck and at the bottom of the lace to protect the cut edge. 

The lace was an op shop buy, gold on black netting. I cut the frill off a synthetic blouse that was too hot to wear here, and stitched it as a layer under the last flounce. I used a scrap from that blouse under the rose as a small frill.

The top is mostly cotton, loose and cool. It's become a little more dressed up.

Since we are here in the garden... 

Gardening has taken over my life these past few months, and our garden is looking magnificent. The roses are the best they have ever been. It's raining here now as I write this...surrounded by vases of roses I just HAD to save from browning in the rain... 29 vases of them!!

I picked a whole bucket of Climbing Cinderella roses at their best, as the rain browns the edges of the petals. I painted a metal bucket with pale pink chalk paint. My kids complain that there's not enough room to sit at the table for dinner, surrounded by flowers! (I do take some away before we eat!)

Daisies are such cheerful, long-lasting hard workers in my garden... It's hard to find a 'neutral' palette when everything is so green and vibrant at the moment.

A dear friend who is staying with her daughter while her new house is being built needed a place to store her vintage typewriter - so I offered it a temporary (sadly!) home. I cleaned it up and displayed a favourite quote on it - my teenage son scoffed at me that "typewriters can't print pictures, Mum!"

Here's the quote:

'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakenly meant for his ear; the profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader; the profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Society and Solitude, 1870 

Not much reading this month! The picture of sweet twins below was a garage sale find. Some more adopted children for my collection.

Now for some cards I've made -  the first three I made some time ago, but I have been doing so many other things this month that my creative output suitable for Simply Neutrals is limited! First, a birthday card...

A baby card for a friend...

A little Christmas angel...

Here's a recent gardening-themed wall hanging which I made at the same time as a garden-themed card for a dear gardening friend's 70th birthday. I made this as I reflected on how my garden has been such good therapy these past months, and its rewards are ongoing...

I love old world roses, particularly those with scent, and many petals. One of my favourite roses is David Austin's William Morris...

The old silver rotating photo display below was a cool op shop find. I enjoyed printing out my favourite cabinet cards to fill it.

This month I've been busy designing posters for one of our local Museums, the Moruya Museum.  I just want to show one poster draft here, and I will be posting the others soon. What treasures we have hidden away in museums! The top picture here is a cherub from the old baptismal font from Moruya's Catholic Church. The tintype on the left is a wonderfully preserved example of a cased ambrotype, one of the earliest examples of photographic methods from about 1860. The centre is a part of a vintage lace tablecloth, and the right picture is a framed Irish Land League propaganda-style poster depicting the 1881 trial of Charles Stewart Parnell and other leaders of The Irish Land League in Dublin, dated 1890.

We are so lucky to have museums keeping our stories and artefacts of the past. 

Visitors to my house say my place looks like a museum - I love displaying my old collections. This gorgeous picture cost a whole $1 at a vintage fair - I've continued the mauve theme as it complements the green and mauve tones in the background of the picture. These roses are fake - but pretty good, eh? Garage sale dust collectors - I just washed them and put them in the sun.

I'm enjoying taking photographs of all the beauty I see every day. It's like a gratefulness journal of appreciation.

Sorry, this 50th Simply Neutrals Give Away is finished.

These images will be available on my Etsy shop when it's up. I am currently preparing images from my own collections to sell, and I hope it will not be too long before I take the courage to open shop! 

I've tried to limit my palette for this post to neutral colours and pastels so I can join the 50th Simply Neutrals Party at Wen's blog, Apple Apricot. Please follow the link and check out the display of wonderful neutral beauty there.

 

 

See you later; I'm off to see what's on display at Wen's blog.