LIFE: Photo an Hour February 2016

Saturday marked an unseasonably warm winters day here in the depths of suburbia of Detroit. Somewhat welcome after long cold days, of being able to put aside the hat, the gloves, get outside in the garden, sadly these things never seem to last. The day also marked February's photo an hour link up - a somewhat routine Saturday for us after taking a break from the DIY in the bathroom fix up (mainly because we can't decide on what to do with the floor). So what else did we get up to inside of playing adults ...

With blue skies overheard, waking up to birdsong and temperature not in the minus numbers, 9am was looking rather pretty as we started up the car and headed forth for a morning of hitting some state sales. By 10am were we'd hit a couple of estate sales including one in which the second floor was just full of vintage clothing from the last century - dresses, purses, sweaters, shoes to linens, you name it. I had to resist buying all the scarves - a big weakness of mine.

But I did buy two of the scarves, so 12pm was seeing me giving them a bit of a wash. I often seem to miss an hour during the day, 11am was that, I think we were heading home with hungry tummies, too hungry to snap a picture of nothingness. After a quick lunch and cleaning the scarves, it was time to make the most of the unseasonable weather (1pm) and have a quick tidy up in the garden and spotting some life in the process.

With estate sales done, chores done and the gardening done, time to get stitching. I've been working on this seaside piece for a couple of months and it always reminds me of quaint seaside towns of the homeland. So sofa, cross stitching and going between Hulu and Netflix was the plans for the afternoon. Once 3pm came around, it was time for a brew - hot cinnamon spice tea. Delicious.  

4pm yeap, still stitching ... until 5pm rolled around and the hungry tummies returned. Too hungry to say no to Taco Bell. Another of those weaknesses.

Still sofa bound and trapped under a purring kitty and reading some more of The Unlikely Event that you might remember me mentioning in Thursday's small things post. Over half way through and it's turning into quite the page turner. I missed 7pm sweating away exercising away to Daily Burn which no one needs to see a picture of. Which lead to 8pm and digging my way through my kitted up cross stitch projects wondering which one to add into my rotation. It took me until Sunday to finally decide on a UK themed design. Seriously picking between cross stitch projects is far too hard. 

The rest of the night was pretty much cheap wine, anime and more reading.

It's great having a nice back catalog of photo an hour link ups so I can look back on what we were doing last year for the link up - a day of record store poking, bacon sarnies and of course Taco Bell.

How was your Saturday?

Rachael

LIFE: Photo An Hour - October 2015

Saturday rolled around marking the October link up for photo an hour organized by Jane and Louisa. The morning actually marked the first frost of the year (even snow in some places) and the first weekend getting around to estate sales for nearly a month. 

But enough of the introductory small talk and get to the juicy bits.

9 am // getting ready to go out - finally back to being scarf season, actually wishing I had some gloves to hand once we got outside because of the aforementioned frost. Chilly days.

10 am // admiring pretty autumnal colours

11 am // Joe was poking boxes with old Transformers toys, I was amusing myself admiring various old plates.

12 pm // blue skies ahead. Misleading Michigan blue skies I should add. They always suggest warm days that are now long gone.

1 pm // library trip - dropping some off, picking some up. Also admiring the huge comic book collection that my local library is home too.

2 pm // late lunch of a bacon sarnie smothered in brown sauce mmm

3 pm // on my bulb planting mission trying to plant over 200 of them. It's endless. Also annoying my squirrel friends by disturbing all their nut collections as I plant away. Take this additionally as my 4pm image.

5 pm // so I was a sucker for the lighthouse fabric, cleaning up an old footstool into yet another sewing box (can't have too many).

6 pm // became all about the n's - Netflix (NCIS), nail painting and reading the newspaper. Easily pleased. 

7 pm // tea time - Buffalo Wild Wing leftovers from Friday night - nom indeed.

The rest of the night was basically spent on the sofa watching Netflix and being lazy with two purring kitties.

How was your Saturday?

LIFE: Photo an Hour, August 2015

Another photo of an hour join up for 2015 has just rolled around. You might have caught me sharing my Saturday if you follow me over on twitter or Instagram. The day was pretty unplanned, uneventful and I was somewhat in a grumpy mood for whatever reason, but here's my day either way.

9 am // starting the day poking around my veg patch - checking to see if my brocolli seedlings planted out earlier in the week were still alive (they are yey), picking some hot peppers (double yey), the norm.

10 am // from poking veg patches to poking estate sales, shifting through old boxes of someone's old, unwanted family photographs

11 am // driving under the hazy skies of Detroit, colder more like October days earlier in the week merging with more normal August conditions means crazy humid hazy skies 

12 pm // popped into Target, new shoes, new bed sheets and new notebooks. Happy times.

1 pm // the weekend always calls for bacon, for lunch a yummy BLT.

2 pm // took a drive to get some more of the weekly shopping chores done, getting stuck in traffic and hitting all the red lights.

4 pm // (missed 3 pm shopping oops) on a whim Joe brought some scratch cards, I lost, he made up the $5 spent on them.

5 pm // tea made up of warmed up leftovers from the night before. Classy.

6 pm // finishing off the final rows of stitching on Mr Dinobot cross stitch - eventually I'll get around to explaining the whole piece once I get it framed and photographed.

7 pm // final book of my library haul is due back this week, better get it finished!

So that was pretty much my day, how was your Saturday?

VINTAGE: Smart Underthings, 1922

Recently I came across a stack of well loved and used vintage crochet pattern booklets mostly from the 1910's and 1920's. I pounced on them. They were only $1 each after all. There's a number of reasons why I love them - their colouring, their designs, they give a peek into the crafts of nearly 100 years ago, but it's what people wore and what people made. 

But they are far too beautiful not to share, so I'm lining up a couple of posts to let everyone get a quick glimpse inside their pages. First up is one from Clark's - this pattern book Smart Underthings - a collection of patterns for crocheted yokes, edgings for your nightgowns, camisoles and boudoir caps. Published in 1922 it has seen better days but hey it's 93 years old. Clark pattern books from this era have this gorgeous blue tint to their photography, and the ladies and patterns, well they are all just wonderful.

Week-End Set For The Youthful Matron

The Sunflower Camisole // The Cosmos Camisole

Trousseau Set With Fine Crochet

Lazy-Daisy Step-In // The Marguerite Smock

Dainty Set For A Young Girl

Camisole With Star Banding // The Helene Camisole

Pretty huh and nearly too pretty just for the bedroom!

LIFE: Photo An Hour - July 2015

My head is forgetful enough on a Saturday morning to have missed out on June's photo an hour link up's with Jane and Louisa. Surprisingly enough I remembered to tag along with the challenge on Saturday. We actually had a lot more planned for the day, but SE Michigan went under a heat advisory and it was nastily hot outside. So here is what we got up to instead;

9 am // checking over the first lot of stitches of that old printed counted cross stitch sampler in the daylight. My embroidery skills are still a work in progress but so far, so good.

10 am // Saturday morning always means fitting some estate sales so 10 am caught us driving around. With a heat advisory over the weekend, it was far too warm to drive around to too many, but the three we hit we did pretty well out of. 

11 am // at the last sale we scored a huge cabinet of old Lego pieces for $15. After giving our nephews Joe's old Lego last year, we saw this and thought of them. But it the cabinet was incredibly dusty... 

12 pm // still cleaning the Lego, the story of today. Lego orgy was occurring. 

1 pm // Taco Bell lunch fix - trying out the new bacon club ranch chalupa which was pretty tasty indeed 

2 & 3 pm // yet back on the Lego cleaning, well more refilling the drawers ...

4 pm // finally time to poke through some of my other estate sale goodies - including this huge box filled with some more thread & accessories for cross stitching. Estate sales feed my stitching addiction for sure

5 pm // messing around with some of the old Transformers Joe found at the same estate sale that the Lego came from. We're both big kids around ours. 

6 pm // pizza and wings time! 

7 pm // 33 degrees and blue skies and far too much humidity outside. I can deal with Michigan heat a lot lot better, but that humidity, urgh.

The rest of the night was themed around lots of Netflix, beer and hiding inside with the AC blasting.

How was your Saturday?

VINTAGE: Thiel College Yearbook 1946

This 1946 yearbook from Thiel College - a liberal arts college in Greensville, Pennsylvania has become one of my favourite estate sale finds of late. It came from residence here in Metro Detroit, but with a basement filled with lots of Pennsylvania based cookbooks and history. I have to admit, I love pouring over the collages of photographs, reading the somewhat charming and often sarky captions.

Of Dorothy - "fond of history and Bill", to Lucile with a "new hair-do every week". To Suzanne who "has a husband ... lucky girl" and of Norman, a Detroit lad who "treats all women alike", whatever that means. Patricia "used to read a book a day"  and Louis well he's "always with Alice".

But those hair styles and dresses - those are the winners in my book.

LIFE: Photo An Hour May 2015

May's photo an hour challenge rolled around this weekend and I managed to join in for the most part. This weekend also happens to be Memorial Day weekend. Memorial Day is a federal holiday here in the US for remembering those who have fallen serving in the countries armed forces. It's a weekend of lots of local activities - fun fairs, parades, people getting together having BBQs and marks the first big weekend for people travelling and spending time away.

9 am // weekend days start the same as any other - topping off any or all of the three bird feeders we have around our garden front and back. A couple of weeks ago we decided to buy a more "premium" blend - more fruity and nutty and it's certainly paying off (at least in the back garden) with the new bird species that seem to be passing through more often.

10 am // out in the garden watering the veg patch and I noticed in the border that is home to all my poppies that seem to have been on the edge of blooming for the last couple of weeks. Luckily the frosty nights of the last week haven't scared them off and the first poppy bloomed. 

11 am // driving around for estate sales we hit the end of the Memorial Day Parade in our old stomping ground of Madison Heights while attempting to get across John R for the post office. We decided to watch the end of the parade and caught a glimpse of this rather pretty old car (although in the Motor City old cars are ten penny but I rather like this colour scheme). 

12 pm // came home via our cities local community centre which was having a craft (not so much crafty things there) and bake sale again over the Memorial Day weekend. The food was all too tempting so we stocked up on home-made plum jam, zucchini bread, fudge and carrot cake. Nom indeed! 

1 pm // I decided to take my work outside and work on the deck when I noticed the first Iris had bloomed. Strangely enough in the same border as the poppies. In the couple of hours we were out for estate sales, it had sprung to life.

2 pm // work being organising all today's purchases including a great pile of 1930's and 1940's crochet edging pattern booklets. Hopefully I'll find them some loving new homes. 

3 pm // working on the final back stitching piece of my shed themed cross stitch design I've been working on the last couple of weeks. I love how colourful this design has been to work on. 

4 pm // getting in a sequin and beady kind of mess. I'm not the most logical or organisational kind of gal, but seeing them all messed up in a craft box I picked up for like 50c, calls for organisation. I've been eyeing up a cross stitch that using sequins so this'll come in handy. 

5 pm // well basically 5 through 10pm was spent at a friends house having a BBQ. A lack of phone signal strong enough to update, too much yummy food to ignore and basically lots of chatting and photo an hour kinda fell out the window. I donno, too many pictures in such circumstances seems rude to me so I called it a day there. 

Memorial Day weekend marks pretty much the start of summer. Hopefully the end of frost warnings, getting out to more estate sales and enjoying the outside a little more. 

How was your weekend?

LIFE: Photo an Hour Jan 2015

I was happy to hear that Louisa picked up the #photoanhour organizing baton for 2015 and it's a little mission of mine to hopefully take part in each monthly challenge throughout this coming year. This weekend marked our since Christmas of going out hitting some estate sales which, with the +2C "heatwave" (we've been stuck at -13C and colder for the last couple of weeks) it was a nice cure for the cabin fever of late.

 9am // starting the day right with a brew, i was actually aiming for an Earl Grey tea bag, turned out I picked a smokey tea. Took me about 5 minutes of drinking to realise this, well after Joe asking if I was drinking a smokey tea and I was like noooooo ... apparently I was after all. I guess I wasn't full awake. 

10am // driving to an estate sale we took I-75 which is basically a freeway to test your patience and humanity levels. Otherwise known as everyone forgets how to drive and does triple lane changes. But anyway we timed it well with seeing a train passing overhead, which being a train geek I am, is always a welcome sight (we can actually hear trains honking from our house - doubly awesome). 

11 am// third photograph of my day hit while we were at our second estate sale and sadly I couldn't take any fancy photographs of the mountain of tupperware in the basement, this old piano would do.

12 pm // prior to this estate sales were kinda lacking on the score front - actually this next estate sale where we found all these vintage cookbooks was the only decent one. Not only did we find a load of cookbooks but also a load of vintage crochet and cross stitch stuff too.

2 pm // quickly glossing over the fact I forgot about the 1pm photograph, well carry on. On the way home we popped into our favorite local liquor store and did some stocking up - some gin, vodka and rum. Stereotypical packaged in a brown paper bag.

3 pm // after getting home, sorting out a vinyl we found today. Boney M will probably go over most people's head but they were a German pop group of the 1980's. They are one of my first vinyl memories growing up as a kid, my dad pretty much had all their records and I always loved playing them. They actually weren't big in America - so it's probably quite a score coming across it, although their recording of Mary's Boy Child that gets played over the festive period that they became more known.

4 pm // I love pouring through cookbooks old and new for some new inspiration, we picked up these at the estate sale I mentioned before. A girl can never have too many cookbooks I reckon.

5 pm // It was still feeling a little spring like as 5pm rolled by and we were buying a parking ticket in Ferndale, the sky was looking rather pretty too.

6 pm // so the reason why we popped over to Ferndale was to try M-Brew - a little local cafe that specialises in Michigan made products - from food to drink (as seen in the photograph enjoying a local beer), while it has a cafe feel upstairs, down in the back basement they have a collection of vintage arcade and some pinball machines. I'm hoping to get around to talking about it more in a future post.

7 pm // home and my plans for the evening - netflix, the internets and a glass of whiskey.

So that was my Saturday, how was yours?!