Vintage Summer Finds

I thought you might enjoy a look at a few things that I turned up over the last couple of weeks! 

I took this market tote with me to a small local vintage show and picked up a few small linens. I wish I could have filled it up! But I did find this fab little wine crate in a junk shop that I almost never visit. I love the lettering. 

So many ways to display with it. Looks great all on its own too.

This is one of the new small linens that I found. 

But my favorite linen finds came from one of my regular flea market visits a few days ago. I just love thick towels with hand crochet trim.

And aren't these monograms wonderful? I don't even know what that second one is! Care to guess?

I don't have a scale collection. (If you can believe that!) But this one ticks off all the "must have"  boxes for me. 

Did you spy this great little kitchen clock sitting there? No longer working, but in the perfect stage of foxing and aged white. Makes my heart go tick tock!

A sweet friend just gifted me this adorable ironstone pitcher. Love those curves. 

I found this little stool at the vintage market show. Always great for displays.

I adore everything about this pretty sugar creamer set by Meakin. 

And this little bunch of tiny doilies that I got for pennies can tuck in anywhere.

This little zinc pitcher was the only thing I came away with at one of my regular markets. It's keeping company with another grey enamel pitcher I already had. Makes me feel so summer farmhouse!

Everything gets shifted around a bit of course, and I have changed up what I am now looking at in my dining room wall frame.

I use tear sheets from old magazines here and there. Love these summery images from Bella Grace.

I hope you're beating the heat and those wild summer storms!

More happy summer days ahead!

Jacqueline

Working With Linens

I don't do this as much anymore really. Work with linens. It's a phase that I have moved a bit away from since I am less involved with selling vintage these days. But it gives me great satisfaction when I do. And it is something I love that can never leave me.

I still acquire new things like this beautiful hand crocheted pillowcase in a design that I have never seen before. And that creamy color!

There was just the one, carefully put away for safe keeping no doubt. But it is now the stuff of dreams when it graces a cozy guest bed.

My recent summer guests have just vacated the premises, and it only takes a day or so before I am back to sorting things out in the linen nursery again. I have given a few new pillowcases a soak and couldn't wait to give them a press to see how they turned out after.

I thought I was done with pink, but here I am again!

A heartbeat did not go by before these were in my shopping basket. And the pink is just an accent color after all! But along with the pink, a few other things have gone. The suitcase of small toys under the bed. A trove of baby things and small girl stuff. And armloads of pieces of linen things that I have been trying to tell myself the truth about since my sewing days are over.

I have a way to go, but you should feel how liberating it is. Moving along to someone else things that you will never use makes so much more room in your head. (Not to mention in your house!)

 I will always have stacks of baskets. Stacks of dishes. Stacks of linen. But beautiful things in boxes don't make any more sense to me than boxes of books. They should be kept where they can be enjoyed or else given way.

It takes some consideration and care because I do regret having let some things go. 

So there will always be linen days for me.

And one or two things on the nursery window sill from bygone days to keep me company.

I have always sorted out more than just linens at this ironing table anyway. . . .

Many more lovely summer days ahead to you!

Jacqueline

My New Ironstone and Summer Farmhouse Dreams

July does it for me every time! Gives me that summer farmhouse feeling. Thank goodness you don't have to have an actual farmhouse to get it! (the feeling that is), elsewise wherever would some of us be?

Just a few props are needed. Blue dishes will help. I have one solitary piece of these blue bird plates, faded to just the right stage.

I love the crackled and crazed stage of ironstone too.

I gathered up this stack of small flour sacks together. I always think I will use them for something. (I could.) But I love the look of a little stack of them just sitting there in a neat pile. Our grandmothers used them for everything!

A grain sack table runner and old woven tablecloth holds it all underneath.

This little tureen is my most recent ironstone find. It is a very old sample with lovely details, and fits the bluebird platter perfectly. 

It was the beautifully aged and stained maker's mark that won me over.

Made over 150 years ago, and we can still use it the same way today.

Another old piece I just found may be just as old. It was only four and a half dollars. Already a star in my pitcher collection!

Great unique shape and rim and handle details.

A few unique scraps of antique hand worked linens in the mix too. They add so much to the story!

Happy summer farmhouse dreams to you too!

I hope July is good to you!

Jacqueline