Another vintage embroidered towel

Here's the other embroidered floursack dishtowel that I mentioned in my previous post.
I can't even believe I scored this for 50 cents. Wow.

First of all, I love fruit motifs, especially pineapples.
I tend to gravitate to Hawaiian and Pacific Island designs.
I especially appreciate the asymmetry in this piece--how the outline in black makes the leaves of the pineapple pop.
I love how white space is left to simulate how light would hit the fruit, and thereby give the shapes definition.
Very artistic.

Bias tape Birds

Pattern to make birds from pieces of bias tape and embroidered details.
Mail order pattern from 1969.

These were intended to embellish little girls' dresses, aprons, and towels.
A quilt would be nice too.

I had better brush up on my embroidery skills

I recently purchased this embroidery kit on ebay.
This is called Circle of Freedom, and makes an afghan.
The kit is new in package, old stock from 1973.

Most of you already know I collect seagulls, plus Gina and Floresita have me thinking about improving my embroidery skills.


Click on the images to see the detail.

Finished, it will be beautiful.

History in an envelope

I purchased this Kaumagraph embroidery pattern with designs for trapunto,


but the real jewel is what was inside the envelope.
There was an old letter from the USO, dated 1945 (the date of the transfers also)

I don't know anything about the scrapbooks referred to here--do you know what those were?

But also inside was a drawing of how the lady who owned this pattern was going to use it to decorate a dress:


This fascinates me.
Did she ever complete her big plans, or did this join the pile of unfinished projects?
It's doubtful she completed the dress, because most of these transfers are unused.
Who was she?
Just a few lines on a piece of paper can invite so many questions.

Vintage fun

I recently purchased this cute embroidered floursack towel on ebay.
I thought the design might be an old Vogart embroidery pattern, but I haven't been able to determine which design number.

My mom says it reminds her of an old French chef cookie jar she had in the 60's or maybe even the 50's.

I'm pretty sure the embroidery design is old, but I'm not sure how old the work is.
All I know is that I think it's adorable!
Kind-of matches the carrots I recently posted.

I have decided to go back to incorporating my thrifting and ebay finds onto this blog,
and am going to stop the Secondhand Swag blog.

Too many blogs, too little time...

And I get the most traffic here.
So there you go.

Yay to being back online!!!!!

Apron/Embroidery love

If you enjoy aprons and/or embroidery, Gina has a new blog featuring her amazing collection of vintage loveliness.
Find it here.

Also, Floresita has Vintage Transfer Finds, featuring some really unique designs.