Thanks for visiting and thank you to
Coloradolady for hosting Vintage Thingies Thursday. Today I am showing a few things that belonged to my grandmother (paternal). I remember the two glass and silver pieces always sitting on her vanity in her bedroom. It was kidney shaped with a pink shirred fabric below. The fabric was shirred onto an arm rod that swung out and I remember it was a great hiding place. My grandfather's initials were "ECW" which is engraved onto the top of the sweet little heart shaped container.
My grandmother bought the heart box from an antique dealer who was a friend of hers. It already had ECW engraved on it and when my grandmother saw it, she knew she had to have it. The sides of the heart container look like sandwich glass but I'm not sure. The little demitesse cup and saucer were hers also along with the other glass vanity piece.
She and my grandfather also used this bed. My grandfather worked at a lumber yard at one time. He cut down several huge Black Walnut trees on his property, dried and cut them into lumber. A friend of his, Kenneth Axtel, of Jackson, Mississippi carved the headboard along with the rest of the full sized bed. My husband and I use it still.
My grandmother found the pattern of the grapes she wanted carved into the headboard.
He also carved each of the four posts.
Below is a blouse that was made by my grandmother's mother. My grandmother was born in 1897 and her mother died when she was 10 (1907) so the blouse was made sometime before then. I have her old treadle sewing machine that this blouse was made on, although I can't get it to sew anymore.
The blouse is made out of a very thin organza, I think. I hung it up on a hanger in the window to show you how sheer it is. She sewed tiny, tiny pleats on the bodice. The sleeves are very long, I guess she had long arms, unlike me.
Here is a close-up of the pleats on the bodice. I remember my grandmother telling me that her mother would make clothes without a pattern. There are a lot of pleats on the back of the blouse and near the cuffs as well.
The sleeves puff where they attach to the shoulder and I'm sure there meant to be a band at the bottom of the blouse, but she never got the opportunity to finish it. She taught my grandmother how to sew and this is the only garmet my grandmother saved that belonged to her mother. It is sad to think that my grandmother was left motherless at 10 years old but sweet that she kept her mother's blouse all of her 94 years! Now I would like to preserve it and display it for my family. Any suggestions?
Thanks for stopping by my VTT and be sure to check out all of the other wonderful vintage items on
Coloradolady's blog.
photograph taken from Petey's owner's blog.............
