A Surprise Hung on My Doorknob

  I am making progress on Liat's tallit.

Each dyed strip needs to be edged with the dark teal ribbon before being attached to the body of the tallit.

I am really happy with the progress although I have had to do a fair amount of un-stitching along the way.

Either I have gotten better at the less than pleasant job of undoing rows of machine embroidery or have achieved a new state of Zen but I haven't cursed once when I have had to undo dense machine embroidery.

Yesterday we took the train to have lunch with my husband's friend since second grade. Aside from the lovely time we had and the excellent lunch we ate I also got to take these photos of the fabulous light fixtures at 

Grand Central Terminal. 

Today I opened my front door and found a bag attached to the doorknob.  Inside was a treasure trove, from my friend Pearl. Pearl's adventurous mother had traveled the world before she decided to get married. Pearl's mother was an accomplished needlewoman ( she knit the beautiful suits she wore to elegant family events). Her husband was in the children's trimming business. 

Pearl's mother died a few years ago. Pearl had given me bags of beautiful linens and notions and trimmings from her mother's massive stash. Today Pearl gave me another batch of treasures.

Of course, I will share the goodies with you.

This plastic bag contains

hundreds of lace birds.

I had never known that such a trim even existed. As soon as I saw them I began imagining a dark linen sheath with flocks of these birds flying up and down the front of the dress.

Perhaps my great-nieces will soon own dresses decorated with these birds.

I grew up with cruder versions of this trim made with yarn rather than fine thread. 

Here is a sewing machine bobbin to give you a sense of scale so you can see how fine this lace is.

There was about a yard and a half of this beautiful embroidered net in the bundle of goodies.

Below are some closeups of this beautiful piece.

There were larger and smaller lengths of crochet edging.

 Isn't this little topper beautiful?

And now, the closeups...

I have no idea where it was made. It could have been made any time from the 1930s until today.

I have an 18-inch length of this crochet lace from scalloped selvedge to scalloped selvedge.

I can sort of date these two doilies. I know that they were made before 1954.

I think that these two spectacular doilies were actually used.

They have turned brown, but I can restore them to white really easily and will start the process tonight.

It's beautiful work.

They are the sort of item you might have given as a hostess gift to someone you wanted to impress. The doily might have sat on a pretty wooden table with a beautiful bowl or a lamp carefully placed in the center. It was a shorthand way of broadcasting that you were an elegant woman of refined taste.

Today's treasure haul had one more doily of equal elegance to the two others.

Pearl also gave me a couple of yards of wide embroidered net edging.

Last of all is a roll of embroidered ribbon,

The colors are the full glory of mid-century fabulousness.

Although I didn't own a trapeze dress in lime green or pink kettle cloth with a strip of this ribbon marking the center front of the dress and encircling the hem of the dress I am sure that there were others my age who did.

As I typed those lines the image of the patterned white tights I would have worn with the dress dance in my head.

 I look at this ribbon and a world populated with Pappagallo shod women appears in my head.