Cute as a button

This week I did something that I have been wanting to do for ages.
I designed an almost perfect little knitted button.
100% wool.
No other ingredients except maybe a splash of cuteness.
Oh and I think I can see a little cat hair as well knitted into the loop, must fix that up.

tomato plants at dawn

The movie is based on a series of essays by Jean Kerr who was a playwright .
Her book of essays Please don't eat the daisies was published in the late 50s and I have a copy of loan from the library now.
My little copy of the book still has the all the date stamps from the late fifties and early sixties, it seems it was a very popular book, it was taken out many many times in those first five years.
The movie was made in 1959.

Enjoy.

Vintage scrumminess

Some months ago I found two lovely vintage ( read 1970s, from my youth) bed sheets at the op shop.


All cotton, very pretty, the one you see above and another blue and mauve floral affair.



I thought I might cut them up for something, it seems to be the thing to do so I bought them home, washed them and hung them on the line, all the while knowing in my heart of hearts that I didn't really want to use them for anything but a bed.
I would have so loved this pink sheet when I was a girl and I had sheets very similar to the other mauve and blue one I mentioned.



I needn't have worried, Kate took one look at them and said they had to be for her bed.

So she sleeps under a pretty vintage sheet and woollen blanket topped with a spectacular op shop crocheted rug.


A girl after my own heart.


Here's a closer look at that rug.
It's in fine 4ply yarn, each square is stitched together rather than crocheted and it is a good single bed size.
Just wonderful.

It's all about Lily

Yesterday was our 23rd wedding anniversary.

Mum and Dad gave us these beautiful white lilies.

On our wedding day the flowers in my hair were agapanthus , individual flowers wired onto a circlet with gypsophlia and something green, can't remember.



I wanted hyacinths but as it was high summer I settled for aggies instead.


Their more romantic name is Lily of the Nile.








And Mum grew this fabulous Lily in her garden, the fragrance is a sweet as the colour.

Home

I want to share some very local blogs with you.


I live in a very beautiful part of the world.


The Tamar Valley is a wonderful place to live.







First up is Amanda of The Vintage Rose.


Such a lovely home and set in quintessential Tasmanian bush farm setting.








Now Tanya, whose blog Suburban Jubilee I discovered only recently.







And Ness at Marley and Lockyer who does everything beautifully (on a budget).


Enjoy.

The Change

I woke up early, too early this morning and couldn't get back to sleep.

This time of my life, this change that is happening is forcing new rhythms into my life and that's OK but it sometimes puts me out of sync with the rest of the house.



It is a gift, a chance to see life differently and follow new paths.

Menopause, it sounds dreary doesn't it.
It isn't a happy sounding word.
Mind you none of the official words used to describe anything to do with our monthly cycle are particularly enlivening.









But 'The Change', 'The Change of Life', now that sounds exciting.

Do people still use that term?

I am sure that is how menopause was described when I was young, before it became a medical condition to be treated, ironed out flat, just another part of the life cycle to be hidden or commercialised in the sense of drug companies coming to our rescue.



The saying, attributed to Gandhi, 'Be the change you want to see in the world' has become the catch phrase of so many organisations and individuals hoping to inspire us to a better world.


Change is good, yes?
A chance to learn, to grow, to discover.

Change is an empowering word.

Change is never easy, sometimes we are dragged along kicking and screaming, sometimes bedraggled and bewildered, sometimes wide eyed and wondering.










Changes put our lives on a new footing, let us see opportunities that had been hidden, bring us to new places and new people, new understandings of others who have walked this path before.



This Change brings us closer to our mothers, brings us to a place were we can look back on the stages of our female lives and see how far we have come, lets us look at our daughters and appreciate how far they have to go.
It puts us firmly in our middle age, a time of wisdom, not the wisdom of old age yet but the wisdom of experience.
It gives us a glimpse of the journey ahead, not to frighten us by reinforcing our own mortality but to show us that we have so much more we can do.


The end of our bodies need to invest in a monthly preparation for new life gives us the chance to use that energy in a creative surge that is frighteningly magnificent but oh so wonderful.


So, 'Be the change you want to see in the world'

and you will find that

'If one advances confidently in the direction of one's dreams, and endeavours to live the life which one has imagined, one will meet with success unexpected in common hours.'
Henry David Thoreau


It really is true.








Just a note about comments, I have changed back to the normal blogger comment system, hope this helps anyone who has been having difficulties.

Vintage ads

Today Kate and I went to town to buy her new school books for her new school year that starts in about three weeks. First year high school!!!!

Town was busy, but Kate had a list and we got all our errands done, in good time and home again.

While I rested my sore feet and sipped a quiet cuppa I looked through some of my old Home Journal magazines from 1951 and 1956.

I especially looked at the ads to see how many of the products I recognised.




Do you think she had success?









Kraft Cheddar was the cheese we always ate as kids. I could never understand why it was just stored on the shelf in the supermarket and never in the fridge section with all the other cheese.





I don't know if these are still available but I can remember the radio ads for these pills when I was a child in the 60s.
I am not even sure what they do - everything it seems.






They are yummy biscuits aren't they especially with a spread of butter.





Now Ford pills, another mystery to me.
My Granny took these and I couldn't figure them out. Now I see in the fine print that they are laxatives.
I always thought they were advertised as some kind of slimming pill.








Aunt Jenny and Velvet soap, what a combination.
Still use this in the laundry, do you?






We never had Bon Ami, my mother was an Ajax girl.







Now I think Betty King was perhaps an Australian version of Betty Crocker.
I do have some of her cook books that Mum had in the 1950s.





Imagine, they have been Snap, Crackle, Popping all this time.












One of my favourite ads. Don't you wonder where all these beautiful little girls are now.










Another favourite, those beautiful triplets and their helpful big brother.





Scotch tape - so that's how we all got those amazing day-before-school-photo haircuts.











I think she is lovely as well as her hands.
Off to her Art class, good on her.








OK, time to get dinner ready now and jump back into 2010

( If you want see the ads a little bigger just click on the picture)

Just a note, if you are having trouble commenting on this or any other post could you email me and let me know as at least one reader is having problems - thanks.
my email address is littlejennywrendolls(at)live(dot)com(dot)au.

free from the garden

This year we didn't plant any tomato plants or new strawberry plants.


We have lots of new strawberry plants from the runners of the old plants, snipped off and planted.


We have lots of tomato plants, more than twenty , from the seeds of dropped fruit last summer.
Lots of different types, shapes and sizes.
The first to ripen are the little babies, don't know what they are called but they are yum.

New cuddles in the shop

Two new little people in the shop today






Cute







and cuddly.