Vintage Thingies 12

This is the last Vintage Thingies Thursday for me this year: Next week it is Christmas Day on Thursday and the week after that it will be New Year's Day already. Coloradolady is hosting again, and there are many links on the list to visit.



The first thing I'm going to show is a genuine Swedish Angel Chimes set I bought in 1973 for my first Christmas I didn't live with my parents any longer. I remember this from my Grandmother's home, so it must be a traditional decoration. I have kept the box as well.





When the candles heat the air, the fan will start turning and the angel go round and round, and the chimes will jingle.

Remember the happy reunion of my table brush and dustpan, and how I hoped to find the kettle for the copper lid I had in my cupboard? Well, several weeks ago I found the kettle in my own cellar. I had kept some dry flowers in it, naturally without lid, and so they got separated. Now they are together again:

The kettle is specially designed for cooking porridge or other meals taking long to cook. To avoid burning in the bottom, there is water boiling in the outer kettle and the food is cooking in the inner one. Pardon my kitchen terminology, these expressions are not easily found in a dictionary!

Finally I want to show something my Sister P sent me with her Christmas card:

She had found it in the church thrift store and for the astonishing price of 10 c she rescued it for me to keep. I think it may have been used as a collar for a lady's dress. It hurts to see that someone's work of several hours has ended up being donated from the family and valued for only 10 c. My luck this time.

The postman is busy

Yesterday I opened the first box of Christmas decorations. These three little angels came to stand on the fireplace edge. I don't know if this can be called a mantelpiece, as there is no wooden shelf (like I dream of having). I made the angels many years ago.




Last night was also the last sewing group meeting. We gave our teacher an Amaryllis, and I made this gift bag for it using Suzie's tutorial:


The buds will be open before Christmas!

I did some opening before Christmas, too. Yesterday I reaceived a heavy parcel from Melanie. She is such a sweet friend and seems to have endless energy. Inspired by my vintage copper things she had found this set of three small copper pans for me.

Have a closer look at the little basket filled with sweets:

Three Santas with the lovely gifts and Christmas trees with stars on top like we have up here. Thank you so much, Melanie!

Today my good luck continued. I had mail from USA, my Secret Stitching Angel Swap partner Marie sent me the swap gift together with a giveaway gift I won at her blog:

A quilting magazine, thimble brooch, snowman and snowflake buttons, dark chocolate (yumm...), embroidered towels ...

and the swap pincushion big enough to hold long quilting pins safely. Thank you, Marie!

This is a wonderful time of the year! We remember our friends near and far, and even if we don't keep contact all the time, at Christmas we send cards and updates and letters ... and even gifts to people who are important for us. I really like making and sending cards and little presents, and receiving them is at least as much fun. OK, I admit, it is even more fun, and many times also fattening. Which is often the same thing.

Vintage Thingies Thursday 5 - Maija

This week I will be showing my sister Maija's vintage thingies. She has no blog of her own, yet, and my faithful readers know her a little already, as I have been showing pictures of her stash challenge quilt last summer. Last week I visited her in Germany for a couple of days, and took these pictures.

She wanted to show you a little vase with forget-me-nots. Our big sister P has painted this, like she painted my Moomin plate I showed earlier. Imagine this with forget-me-nots and lilies of the valley!

Maija also has her share of old copper things from home. The coffee pots are from our parents/grandparents, but the kettles may be from her new country as well.

I thought you might be curious to see what the pictures on the wall behind the copper were, so I took pictures of them was well. Some of these are really old, some are made after old originals. The Bahlsen cakes factory is a big employer in this area.

Even big ships can sail all the way to Hamburg. We came there by flight and took the train for the remaining bit to Hannover and to Maija's town. It must have been quite different at the time shown here, when it was possible to get in six days by ocean liner from Hamburg to New York! The ladies have cute and practical dresses for the little trip, don't you think?

Soap is also needed for washing:

Babette has a nice hat:

In the garden was an old wash basin put to better use. It is unbelievable how Maija's garden flourishes. She and her DH must have green thumbs. There are many flowers we can only dream of, because our winters are so cold and the summers so short. (A good excuse for my lazy gardening!) This basin is in the back corner of the garden, obviously not for the best flowers but maybe for growing new ones.

This was all for today. Maija reads this blog so you can leave your comments here as usual and she will find them.

For other Vintage Thingies this Thursday you will find the links on Lisa's blog.

Vintage Thingies Thursday 3

It's Thursday again and time to show some thingies with the Apron Queen Lisa. In her blog you find links to other blogs showing their goodies. Click the photo to get to her blog.






Exciting things can happen when you blog, and lurking readers may come to the daylight with some unexpected news. Remember this brush I showed two weeks ago in my first Vintage Thingies Thursday post:

My sister P, who lives near here, had read my post and came to visit me last Thursday after I had already written my post, so this had to wait until this week. She had something for me:

Our mother had given her the copper dustpan years ago, when I was still going to school but she was living on her own already. Mother had told her that there should be a brush to go with the dustpan, but she didn't know where it was. Well, it was somewhere, because she gave it to me all those years later. Now dear P gave me the dustpan, and the pair can live happily ever after. If I had not posted about the lonely brush neither of us would have known that we shared the set. Next week I must remember to show the copper porridge kettle I have; I received it from my mother without the lid. Just this week my brother with his wife came for a short visit to get some apples from our trees. We talked about the copper cake moulds in my kitchen and they told me that they have several copper lids on their kitchen wall. I just might get lucky again!

Back to my sister P, who is the eldest of us. She was always "a big girl" already, when I was little; we have nearly 9 years between us. When she was in the upper grades of school, they got to try painting china in the art class. I was a little girl who just learned to read, and I loved the Moomin books. She painted this Moomin plate for me, from the lovely hole book I showed earlier in my Vintage Children's Illustrations post.

The plate is Arabia, the blue stripe was on the original plate and I think the milk can is therefore blue. P told me the blue spots were just to make Moomin look a little more colourful. As a child I always thought he had caught measles on his long and dangerous way trying to find Little My. I had measles at the beginning of my very first summer holiday from school.

I ironed an old tablecloth for the background of the plate, and as it is an old one, I'll show a closer look of it as well. This is a linen cloth for a small table or a really big tray. There is the border area for cross stitch decoration. I have seen tray cloths with very decorative cross stitch monograms in this border. You can click the photos to get a closer look.

That is all for this week from the vintage department. I hope to post something about our sewing group's textile art project tomorrow.

Vintage Copper Thingies

For several weeks now I have been admiring the vintage thingies Eileen has been showing in her blog on Thursdays. The hostess is Lisa and her blog is Confessions of an Apron Queen. This week I decided to join the fun for at least some weeks.



Today I want to show you my vintage copper. The first thingie is a little brush for sweeping the crumbs from a table cloth. The brush originally came with a matching dustpan, but unfortunately it has been misplaced before I got the brush from my mother. This is almost antique, from the early years of the 20th century.

The next picture shows two cake moulds and a water scoop. They are hanging on my kitchen wall and not used any longer, because the tin layer inside is not intact. I think the wedding cake of at least one of my elder sisters was baked with these and another, bigger mould.

Here I tried to show the stamp, blogger insists on showing the picture turned this way. The year 1607 is not when the mould was made but when the company was established!

This last picture is of my biggest copper thingie, an oval tub where I keep my dry flowers. I'm not sure wheter this tub was used for washing the dishes or clothes. I like the shape very much.

If you click the picture with the apron lady, you will find other blogs showing vintage thingies.