Blog salad

 

I didn't get out much this week. I was sick with SOMETHING that wasn't COVID but had me on the couch napping on and off for most of the week.

I inherited a batch of  1940s and 50s printed tablecloths from my late mother-in-law.  They all have the kind of wild and hopeful prints that in those days were called gay. I have used those cloths regularly over the past more than thirty years. One of my favorites is this one

 with a vaguely Hawaiian print---the border is actually a motif used on Hawaiian quilts. My friend Anne owns the same cloth but printed in Christmas colors. Anyway, after eighty or so years of use the cloth has needed some mends in the interior. I had noticed the last time that I ironed the cloth that the edges were getting frayed. 

I thought about a variety of solutions, binding the cloth with a contrasting fabric, serging off the grotty bits and then re-hemming or even tossing the cloth in the rag pile. Instead,

inspired by Nancy Sullivan who sent me this beautiful hankie that she had edged so beautifully,

I decided to crochet around the perimeter of the cloth to encase the raggedy bits and give the cloth a bit more life. 

I bought a spool of red cotton crochet thread that if Woolworth's still existed I would have purchased there. It took a couple of days but at the moment, the cloth is edged like this.

There may be additional rows of  crochet added at a later time. If I had to do it over again I would have done a row of shell stitching because it is a bit sturdier.  

When I first came across this cloth my mother-in-law was using it to cover the folding beach chairs they used when they would sit in the back yard.

The plastic webbing had gotten frayed and was really unpleasant if the sitter were wearing shorts. My mother-in-law would drape the chairs with the then forty year old tablecloths. When I got the cloths they were pretty ratty looking but good laundering, ironing and mending have kept these cloths part of our lives.

The other day I got a call from Laura. We share a dear friend. Laura's mother had died and Laura has been working on clearing out the apartment her parents moved into in 1960.Our mutual friend suggested that I might be helpful with sewing and textile related things. 

I didn't take the mid century Singer sewing machine in a cabinet but did suggest possible homes for it. I also left the sewing box behind. There were lots of fabric scraps...including this

length of 36 inch wide printed nylon. It felt so much like something my late mother-in-law would have loved and owned that seeing it felt almost like looking at her face. Yes it is now on my dining room table. I don't know what it will become but it will be something that will give me joy. 

Laura let me take home several pairs of her mom's dress gloves.

I particularly love this pair.

One pair is already being dyed pale blue to make them a bit less formal.

One of the joys of helping someone sort through old things is that you get to learn new things. The furniture in the apartment was beautiful. It felt like an American take on Danish modern. After i got home i did a deep dive on Google and discovered that it was made by Erwin- Lambeth. The company grew out of a chair company that supplied the Sears catalog. One of the descendants of the founder married a chic New Yorker who felt that there wasn't furniture available on the market for modern young couples who wanted to decorate their Pre-War NYC apartments or their brownstones.  She began the Erwin -Lambeth division in 1946 and it was a favorite of  designers and decorators. the furniture is modern but sits comfortably in a room that has lovely old world bones.

I helped Laura. I got some new goodies and I learned about a new furniture company. A productive day.

Shabbat begins in a few minutes. We have been invited to a friend's so I have the luxury of not having to get a great deal done.

Shabbat Shalom!