Today I:
- Did 7 loads of laundry;
- Ironed 4 shirts, 3 blouses, 1 dress, 1 pair of pants and 1 shirt;
- Cooked 3 meals;
- Watered the plants;
- Gave the flower beds their monthly weeding;
- Cleaned Albert the hampsters' cage;
- Went out for a 50 minute run.
But I ALSO managed to find a moment to take some lovely pictures of some of the cool stuff I discovered when foraging in my mother's storage room last weekend. I don't think I'll show you everything at once, I'll save it for future blog fodder. But today I'll show you my treasure box.
Just a regular jewelry box, the kind pretty much every little girl must have at some point. I used to keep all sorts of stuff in here, jewelry (of course), but also stuff I knew was important, but didn't really know what to
do with.
Like the necklace my babysitter made me.
This goes back to, oh... 1982? Think skin tight jeans, sneakers, leather jacket, and if you're still not there, throw in Tony Basil's
Hey Mickey for the soundtrack. Are you with me now?
Or these babies: a bona fide Expo 86 Official Medallion, and an Air Canada UM badge (I had 2 of these in the box). I used to fly alone a lot as a kid, visiting my Dad, and it was a running joke that whatever question was asked of me when, when I was wearing this badge I was to answer "Uuummmmmmmmmm....".
Pretty neat, right? Then I noticed a bunch of... well... tissue paper in the bottom section of the box, along with a card.
I don't know if you can read that, but it says "List - Nursery Rhymes for Tara's children". The card was written my my grandmother, the very one whose picture you've probably noticed on the homepage of my blog, teaching me to knit when I was all but 5. And the tissue paper? In each bundle was a little Wade Red Rose Tea Figurine, each one representing a nursery rhyme.
Some of my favourites...
Clockwise from top left : Little Red Riding Hood, Little Miss Muffett, Little Bo Peep and Humpty Dumpty.
These guys I don't know, but I'll be sure to look them up and read their stories:
Clockwise from top left: Little Jack Horner, The Pied Piper, Wee Willie Winkie and Dr. Foster.I can't tell you what it means to me to have found these. I'm sad to say I threw out a lot of stuff that I got from my grandmother when I was younger, too young I suppose to recognize the
value of sentimental value. But I held onto these, and the fact that she wanted them to be for my children really makes them all the more special.
Especially when I read the bottom of the card:
It says "Given to Christopher (that'd be my Dad) Nov. 16th, 1986". She died less than a year later, in August of 1987, so I'm guessing she must have known that her time was almost up when she wrote this card.
After I was done taking my pictures, I wrapped each figurine in a new tissue paper and tucked them safely away in my treasure box. I promise I'll share them with my kids when they're a little older, Gramma, and can recognize just how important and wonderful they really are.
Happy Knitting Everyone.
So today I want to talk about buttons. When the Fall Twist Collective came out a few weeks ago, I was immediately smitten with the Piper hat, and thought wouldn't it be great to find a kickass vintage button for it. Then when I finished Amelia (pictures coming soon, I promise!), I had a really particular idea about the kind of button I wanted to give her just the right finishing touch. I had buttons on the brain, people, and it was time to pay my mother a visit and hijack her Bucket o' Buttons.
Ever since I was a little girl, I have coveted this bucket. I mean... just look at it! First off, it's got CANDY on it. Not only that, but it's got this whole illusion thing going on where the bucket has a picture of another bucket, which has another picture of a bucket on it, and so on and so on.... Fascinating (you know, when you're seven).
And in it were hundreds of what I considered to be jewels for me to sort through and categorize and count and play with. Honestly, getting my hands on this bucket was always a special treat, so I was really looking forward to diving into it now and finding the perfect vintage buttons to give my projects just the right effect.
Now, I've got to be honest. Most of the buttons in there weren't that great. I'd say about 80% were my grandfather's old dress shirt buttons, your standard white plastic schtick.
But there were a few in there that, even though they didn't work for the projects I had in mind at the time, I still got a kick out of looking at. And who knows, I might just find the right project for them someday.
Happy Knitting Everyone!
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