What’s Old is New Again

For a while we were self hosted and now we are back to WordPress which works for me. Due to the day job I’ve been in for nearly the last three years, my time is limited. Here’s to efforts to get this back up and running, and, with some effort, regular posting. I’m targeting once a week but it may be a slow ramp up. I’ve a few new projects starting up at work, and start up always tends to take a lot out of me.

In any case, in the vein of this post’s title, I’m going to share some things I found while wandering through a favorite thrift shop today. I usually go right to the tiny “craft” section and dig through, typically finding a cut or two of cotton fabric to add to my stash. Considering we were there earlier in the week, there was nothing new that suited me. While the munchkin played in the toy section I wandered into linens. And what did my wondering eyes behold but a stack of tatted edged doilies. From the look and color and stitching, I’d guess these are decently aged. I only rescued about half of them. The gallery below shows the set I have as well as closeups of all the different edges that were there.

The set I brought home

Tatted edgings.

I would have bought all the doilies but there were thimbles calling to me. I’ve been collecting thimbles for a few years now. Some are souvenir style from places we’ve visited. Others are ones I’ve come across at needlework or thrift shops. Of the three I brought home today, two are from English makers and the third is French.

Caverswall, England – it reminds me of an illuminated manuscript 2 of 2

Caverswall, England – it reminds me of an illuminated manuscript 1 of 2

Coalport Butterflies Peacock Grayling Thimble, England 2 of 2

Coalport Butterflies Peacock Grayling Thimble, England 1 of 2

English and French porcelain thimbles

To top off the find there was a cocktail napkin for lack of a better term. It is linen and stitched with hardanger and pulled thread work.

hardanger napkin

I guess I will never understand those who casually discard such things, but at least they ended up in a thrift shop and not the garbage. There was another piece that I would have dearly loved to bring home but was out of my price range. It was a needlepoint about 18 inches square of a Siamese cat on a patchwork background. It would have gone lovely with the needlepointed Siamese cats I have that were Addie’s.

Ah, such is life. Until next time.