Letters from "Sour Grapes". The farm life quilt: 1942

While reading through the newspaper articles from 1942, I came across a request from "Sour Grapes'"who asked for the patterns of the farmyard quilt and I thought I would look through the archives to see if I could find those particular patterns.

It took a bit of searching, but I did find it in older archives and I printed the entire set of patterns out.

Following the guidelines suggested for the quilt blocks I cut out my fabric. As every one now should be aware of, I do things frugally and these white blocks came from an old sheet. I'm planning to use the crayon tinting method to make up the blocks.

Each of the blocks in the quilt alternate with a cornucopia as the pattern. I'm thinking of making my alternate blocks crazy quilting as I have a lot of pretty cottons I can use on the blocks which keeps in with the 'make do and mend' of the era.

As you can see, "Knitter" replied to "Sour Grapes". The other quilt patterns "Knitter" mentioned I have also printed out and there is a three little pigs quilt too. All these were printed in newspapers from around 1932-33.

A lot of the patterns from the war era have always been knitting of some kind but  to see quilts mentioned is interesting and I am sure too there will be a lot more embroidery patterns available as this is when the tea towel and pillow slip embroidery came into fashion again.

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

Vintage beauty

GLYCERINE AS A COSMETIC

It is worth knowing pure glycerine is valuable as a cosmetic . It has a wonderfully beautifying effect when used on the skin and as the benefit of whitening and softening any rough dry sky to make it supple. When using glycerine it shouldn’t be used as in a concentrated form. 

Glycerine has special interest for a beauty regime because of its property of softening the skin, but also for its capacity for fading discolouring, so that it acts a s a beautifier in the true sense of the word.  A tablespoonful of it in a  pint of water - or rosewater or, witch hazel- will soften and protect the skin from the air. It should be rubbed in, but not wiped off. 

Lotions containing glycerine agree with most cases of dry skin, and often combined with other beauty ingredients for wrinkled skin, blackheads, chapped lips, and sunburn. Pure glycerine has a powerful, beautifying effect on the skin.

Glycerine is a substance which may be used instead of oil and has the advantage of being more cleanly effective to the skin. It is more emollient than oil, and softens bodies without greasing them. A cupful in a bath of warm water will have a fantastic effect upon the skin of the body.

Glycerine having the property of absorbing water, uses up the moisture which the skin requires, and there-fore, should be diluted.

Those who want to try glycerine can do so by mixing in a little glycerine with the cold cream or lotion that they regularly use, but be sure to use only pure glycerine. 

To summarise, here are some of the virtues of glycerine:

1: It renders the skin soft, velvety, and supple.

2: It is an antiseptic.

3: It is the only cosmetic which softens without greasing.

4: It is more emollient than any oil.

5: It contains amazing preservatives qualities when applied to the skin, and acts as a veil against wind, heat, cold, and burning rays of the hot sun.

6: It has a tendency to dissolve blackheads and such.

7: It imparts to the skin softness, smoothness, and suppleness.

8:It is a great substances for curing chapped skin.

9: Used as a cleansing cream or lotion, it acts as a protector and beautifier.

10: It does not evaporate or dry out, nor turn rancid, nor decompose as almost cold creams do, and when added to them, prevents those preparations from doing so.

(Note: I used rosewater essence as I couldn't find true rosewater. And I didn't have fresh roses to make rosewater. You need to use quite a bit of the rosewater essence to make up for the substitute.)

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

DEAR ELEANOR BARBOUR

The newspaper articles of 1939 had sections which appeared regularly in the pages. There was always front-page news headlines, sections for husbandry, sports, and one of the longest regular section is the ‘Of Interest To Women’ section and the Dear Eleanor letters. Women from around Australia wrote to Eleanor telling of their home-life whether happy or sad and giving recipes as well as useful tips. Eleanor ‘wrote back’ at the top of the article writing about her adventures of the time and giving advice to the homemakers. The articles are really a good look at the true living standards of the era and as time progress Eleanor encouraged all homemakers to prepare for war.

In the garden, I’ve been planting out what the garden articles of 1939 suggest for the Autumn season. Pansies, snapdragons, and English cottage garden favourites are being mentioned as popular plants to plant out now. I’ve also planted out the winter vegetable crop such as cabbage. 

In the kitchen, the recipes are changing for the seasons with hearty stews and soups. A lot of the herbs from the garden such as bay, sage, and thyme are coming in handy to add flavour to the meals.

In the home, ‘make do’ is being put to good use as always. I’m making an apron from my scrap bag and the crayon tinted flowers I did previously will become the pocket for the apron. I’ve never made an apron, so this will be interesting learning curve. I’m also working on a Grandmother’s flower garden quilt using up scraps from the scrap bag and I’ve recycled a lot of old Christmas cards to make up the hexagon templates for the quilt. Of course, the crazy quilt continues. 

The weather is changing for the seasons and it’s been quite nice weather for Autumn. The colder weather will likely come in and the home-front will have to adjust to the seasonal change once again. 

No doubt, in the up coming articles from Eleanor Barbour and her readers will give plenty of tips on how to make the changes. Change is never easy but if you take little steps to prepare it does make the transition easier. Living a vintage life is all about changes, it’s not easy, but it is a better way to be. At least I think so.

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

The Well Dressed House

In 1939 the home was featured a lot in the woman’s articles of the day. Many tips were given on how to go about making the home attractive. One woman dressed her home in the same materials as she dressed her-self! She kept the background as simple and inexpensive as possible. Then changed accessories in the home. 

Articles also talked about the benefits of changing the home view by moving furniture around. This is something I’ve been doing for years. It seems, ‘move-itis’ isn’t a new condition of the modern era. Accessories were the main feature of the articles and using what you had was an important part of making attractive changes to dress the home. 

Lamps during the time were a popular feature and the writing suggested placing lamps where a person reads and try dividing lamps around the room at intervals to spread the light around. A lamp at the end of the lounge suite could be put on a tall stand, so light would cast down on the occupants of the lounge. if the stand has a lower shelf, a vase at the bottom or fancy pottery was suggested to make the arrangement attractive. At the time, there was a trend to break away from central lighting and scatter it as much as possible around the room.

 Cushions were considered a must for a well dressed home, as they are today. They brighten up the home, and at the time they were available in many designs and colours to add cheer. Home advice of the time suggested it best to match or contrast with curtains. Make or buy them from rich variety of silks, velvets, or other fabrics, according to taste. The rule during 1939 for cushion fabric was: don’t put cotton and silk fabric cushions in the same room as ‘One laughed at the other’.

New table mats of the time were also put in place to make for an attractive home. Hand-Embroidered mats tucked away should be starched and brought out to add a new change.

Other ways to dress up the home during the era was to buy new nick-nacks, because they were inexpensive way to making the room bright and fresh.

For the well dressed home, the changing of accessories and furniture in the home is as important today for the wise homemaker as it was then. The main emphasis is not to put out a lot of expense when making the changes but simply use what you have.  

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

Aubergine or Egg plant

The garden section from a newspaper article in early November of 1939 wrote: Those who like variety in their vegetables and home gardeners who like to grow uncommon vegetables should take an interest in growing the egg-plant or Aubergine. 

I took up the suggestion and planted out a couple of plants. This can be done by planting out seedlings, which I did. Or sowing direct in the open ground, three or four seeds to the site and afterwards thinning to one plant. The plant likes warm temperatures and the seeds germinate in hotter weather and flourish better when the weather is warmer. I planted my egg plants next to tomato plants as they are of the same family and require the same cultivation methods. The plants produce a lot of fruit and it is best to keep the crop to five or six per plant. Any garden work around the plant should be very shallow as the roots of the plant are at the surface and can be easily damaging to the plant. 

The above recipe for Aubergine tomatoes reads:

Wash large ripe tomatoes and cut in half cross wise. Melt 2 tablespoons butter or oil in skillet, place the tomatoes in the cut side up and sprinkle with the following seasonings, 2 cloves of farce finely minced, 2 teaspoons sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper and finely minced (chopped) parsley. Cover and cook slowly for 10 minutes. Garnish with sprigs of parsley and serve immediately with any kind of fish (or meat) course.

Egg-plant fruits are ready for uses as soon as they reach a good size, and while they have a glossy appearance. If dull, they are over-mature and seedy, and not very good for cooking with. To prepare for cooking, simply wipe with damp cloth and remove stem and calyx. It can be peeled or left unpeeled. Egg plant is a watery vegetable; if cut into thick slices, salted, and covered with plate with weight on top, some of the excess moisture will drain away.

When frying egg plant do not cover the pan - slices should be crisp.

Cut unpeeled egg plant crosswise in thin slices. Coat light with seasoned flour, fry in hot butter until pale golden brown. Serve pipping hot as vegetable accompaniment with meat, fish, etc. 

For the right seasoning egg plant is best with: Basil, dill, garlic, marjoram, oregano, rosemary.

Growing the plant was no more difficult than growing tomatoes and I will keep adding the plant to my kitchen garden now I know how easy an egg plant is to grow and how versatile it can be in the kitchen.

Thank you to all who have left comments. I have read the replies but I just haven't had time to respond to them. 

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

Oh, for a cool change

The articles for early January 1939 talk about the need to keep cool. Nothing much seems to change and the weather is still hot in 2019! The newspaper article for how to keep food fresh without an ice box is an interesting read. Depending on where you live refrigerators were advertised and many had them.

The garden for January 1939 talks about keeping up with the watering during hot days, and to plant out celery. Now a days gardeners don't bother with the trench method, they blanch the stems when they are almost fully grown by wrapping cardboard or newspaper around the plant to exclude the light to blanch the stem. Blanching the stem of celery will make the plant less bitter tasting.

I've planted my celery out. I left them a little too long in the seed planter but they will bounce back. It is important to keep the water up to the plant.

I'm going back to old fashioned bar soap this week, instead of using liquid soap. I've chosen to go with the Lux soap as the brand is advertised more than Palmolive soap. I wonder if I will end up with a complexion as: 'lovely as Joan Blondell!'

The scrapbook I have for the newspaper articles of the time is starting to fill up with a wide variety of home and garden sections. There's a lot of things I can't do with the articles I do have due to the obvious reason some items are no longer available or they are not something I want to do just yet. But I save what I find and it will be a good record to have on hand.

Don't get me wrong, I love vintage, but I also love our modern cons and technology. Without the latter, I wouldn't be able to research and save what I find. It would also mean long trips to the library. I think eating and living like our older generations once did makes sense in these times of uncertainty we seem to be in, but it is also wise to balance our technology with theirs too.

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

Cross stitch- finding a centre

It may surprise some to know I didn't discover a love of needlecraft until the early 2000's. I was looking for something to take my mind off troubles I was having and painting then, at the time, wasn't doing it. I wandered into the news agency looking at the hobby magazines and discovered an English cross stitch magazine called Needlecraft. It was a new issue so I thought I'd give it a go because at the time the magazine was very cheap and had a free cover kit. I brought it. The cover kit was a card with ducks. The kit had everything in it to get started so I stitched away after reading the instructions briefly and ended up with a row of ducks. But the kit had linen fabric not aida. Linen is sort of open weave where as aida fabric has blocks. I missed the part in the instructions where it said to cross stitch over two linen threads. I stitched over one. Yes, I ended up with a row of ducks ...but they were tiny! Still I was hooked on cross stitch and have been going back and forth with cross stitching stitching over the years. My favourite designs are samplers.

Cross stitching is really quite simple once you grasp the idea you are making crosses and the crosses of colour match the symbols on your chart. It doesn't get any more difficult than that. However, some books and magazines in the early times didn't show the centre of your design on their charts. When you cross stitch you have to start in the centre of your fabric and you find the centre by folding the fabric in half length ways and then width ways. This will make a crease in the fabric and the middle of the crease matches the centre on your chart. When you find you haven't got arrows marking the centre of your paper chart this is what you do:

Finding the centre for cross stitching.

Unfortunately math is used but it's easily done with or without a calculator. 

Step one: Find where your chart begins and ends both across the top and down.  Mark only where symbols appear.

Step two: When you've marked where the chart starts and ends - at the top, the width, count the number of squares across. Divide this number by 2 (half for mathematically challenged folks) and count the half number. Mark an arrow where that half number is. If the number falls between a square and not on a line, it's in the middle of that square.

Step two: Count the number of squares down to where your chart design finishes. Divide this number by two and count  across until you reach the half number. This half number is the centre mark for length of the chart.

Step three: to find the centre find the top arrow and run your pencil down until it is in line with the length arrow; mark a cross where these two join. This is your centre of your chart. Begin stitching here. 

Tips for cross stitching: 

Read all instructions carefully.

Make sure all your crosses lean the same way. Unless the design instructions says other wise.

If the chart uses whole cross stitches only you can match each of the stitches to a bead to make beaded needlework. You can also use the same pattern to make a needlepoint work and cover in the background with stitches. 

Linen is very useful to use when you want to cross stitch on fabric that isn't even weave. Tack the linen in place. Stitch the design. Then pull away the linen thread. ( I've done this for the heart below on my crazy quilt).

 I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

Cottage Journal : Sweet life

Autumn in Australia begins on March 1st, I don't think we've had much of an Autumn for now, it feels a bit like late Spring. This time, in March, there's an annual church market I go to, just around the corner from us. I always bring a little treat home; this year I brought home date loaf and these chocolate chip biscuits (cookies).

I have a small collection of thrift store brought pillow cases which do not have mates to them. I'm embroidering some vintage embroidery patterns onto them and I'll use these mismatch pillow cases to sit in front of the main ones as a bit of decoration. This pillow case still has the label on the inside and it says it's percale...it's very soft. I'm using crayon tinting technique for this pillow case. I have a tutorial for crayon tinting technique Here .

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

Cottage Journal - Simple pleasures

I don't know about anyone else but a box of $2 crayons always makes me happy.

The sachets were shop brought but homemade decorations were added. I used colouring pencils and brushed over the top with fabric medium to help set the coloured pencils.

I've always enjoyed creating cards, it's such a simple activity or it can be as complicated as you like with scraps of paper and such. I made some watercolour cards with inspiring quotes and a touch of ribbon. I think I'd like to make some more eventually.

We've had on and off rain. Good weather for curried apricot chicken. And working on my crazy quilt. I ended up re-patching this section, cutting out long strips of fabric and adding in smaller pieces.  I hand appliquéd the smaller pieces in.

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

Cottage journal inspirations

Just some pictures from around the home, nothing fancy.

Simple hand embroidered from vintage embroidery designs to make up into sachets for some potpourri.

Indulging the sweet tooth...not too many. I'm working on dieting.

Flower Salads

Several common flowers are edible - and add an element of colour and surprise to an ordinary green salad. Not all flowers are edible, though, so make sure the ones you choose are, and wash and dry thoroughly before using. Common flower edibles include Nasturtiums, roses, borage, marigolds, squash flowers, and violets.  

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.