Saturday, June 29, 2024

Friday, June 28, 2024

Quote Of The Day

 

photo by Brad Payne

O to lie in the ripening grass
That gracefully bends to the winds that pass
And to look aloft the oak leaves through
Into the sky so deep, so blue! ~ William Roscoe Thayer

Thursday, June 27, 2024

Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Vintage Sewing - A Very British Sunsuit from 1955

 


A rather tricky-looking and covered-up sunsuit from Britannia and Eve, May 1955.  Left-click to enlarge.


Monday, June 24, 2024

Saturday, June 22, 2024

Thursday, June 20, 2024

Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Vintage Paper Crafts - Dolly Dingle dolls from 1930


 From Pictorial Review, August 1930.  Dolly's summer adventures.

Monday, June 17, 2024

Vintage Magazine Covers - Blue Book, July, 1929


Maybe this will help everyone think "cool" during today's scorching weather.  Stay safe, all.

Saturday, June 15, 2024

Location, Location, Location

 


In my former line of work, we would call this "bracketed."

Friday, June 14, 2024

We Love You, Ameren Power Crews

 


We got slapped around a bit last night - this is from two doors down. It fell between the house and the church.

(Divine intervention)?

Still without power or internet, which is why I'm typing this from the car, on my phone, at the health club in Bloomington.

Thursday, June 13, 2024

Grrrsday

 


And in other news, a German shepherd, a collie mix, and a Great Dane walked into a bar...

(The vet's actually.  Batdog was SO good and I am proud of him.  I'm not sure the gentleman who walked in with the cat  made a good choice to have kitty in his arms rather than a carrier, though).

Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Tuesday, June 11, 2024

Vintage Needlework Books - Anne Orr, Crochet, Cross-stitch and Tatting, 1923

 


Anything by Anne Orr is worth snapping up, and this one is a very nice 24-page booklet with a variety of projects, including collar & cuff sets, edgings, and a "between-meal cloth" (my between-meal cloth is also my during-meal cloth and my after-meal cloth, but I digress).  A free download from the Antique Pattern Library.

Saturday, June 8, 2024

Caturday!

 


The only cat to win the Dickin Medal. "Simon rapidly gained a reputation for cheekiness, leaving presents of dead rats in sailors' beds, and sleeping in the captain's cap." 

Typical Tuxie.

 

Friday, June 7, 2024

Quote of the Day

 


Three Postcards

The first came from Weston-super-Mare
with the Grand Pier - newly-built - in view,
shining, stretching out into the distance,
and the sea, an unknowable blue.

Unfamiliar, that neat hand of his, the black fountain pen.
But he was the one; she knew that even then.

The one after that she received two years on;
Tidworth station, as viewed from Church Hill.
A row of thatched cottages in the foreground,
the barracks beyond, then the fields, silent, still.

She propped it against a vase on their mantelpiece,
a wedding present from her niece.

The last was a busy port scene from Boulogne,
a censor-passed, heaven-sent souvenir.
'Crossing rough - but I made it!' he'd written.
When it's over, perhaps we can all come here!'

She pressed it to her stomach, the baby moved once more.
The telegram had arrived the day before. ~ Brian Bilston


Wednesday, June 5, 2024

Happy Birthday to an Idea

 


On this day in 1947, General George Marshall gave a  speech at Harvard University.   As commentator Heather Cox Richardson pointed out this morning, it wasn't stirring or fiery - it was, in fact, the sort of bland, political-wonk speech you would expect at an Ivy commencement..

It called for the US and her allies to rally round "...A concept of government based on equality before the law, secularism, civil rights, economic and political freedom, and a market economy; the tenets of liberal democracy.  As Otto Zausmer, who had worked for the US Office of War Information to swing Americans behind the war, put it in 1955:  "America's gift to the world is not money, but the Democratic ideal, democracy." 

In short it was the Marshall Plan.


Tuesday, June 4, 2024

Vintage Woodworking - a Dragon Bracket from 1934


From Popular Science, November 1934.  I think that dragon pattern could be used for more than just a bracket support.
 

Monday, June 3, 2024

Happy Pollinators' Month

 


And of course, Happy Pride Month (should go without saying).