That oil lamp again

It took a couple of tries (miscommunication on my end) but I got the chimney and the collar for that old oil lamp. NOW I find that the collar does not fit the burner that goes with the lamp. I jammed the burner on there temporarily so the lamp can be used while I figure out what I want to do about it. I do love this lamp.

Update on that oil lamp - good news!

I just received this email from Dan Stout of Accrete Hardware:

Maria,
Thanks for writing.  I will ship the order to the new address tomorrow.
I will include with the order, the collar and the collar putty you will need...
You have a beautiful lamp. It was made about 1880. The jagged edge on the neck of your lamp is original. 
It is never a good idea to use epoxy. If the collar ever needed to be replaced in the future, trying to remove the epoxy would destroy the neck of the lamp.

Dan

Garage sale score: Tall glass parlor lamp

Tall glass parlor lamp, a set on Flickr.

Yesterday after work Miss A and I hit a few garage sales in La Crescent on our way home. She got a shoebox full of LEGO, which made her very happy. I found 6 stems of my crystal pattern, which used to be el cheapo stuff at Target but is now hard to find (Cristal d'Arques Longchamps), and some bed linens. I also bought this lovely old antique parlor lamp from my friend Karen's sale. It belonged to her great uncle. (Karen, did I get that right? Great uncle?) She no longer uses it and wanted to pass it on. I made sure she was certain about this before snatching it off the table.

It's damaged at the top of the font, where the collar should be. Looks like the collar broke off and took some glass with it. I have a email in to a lamp restoration expert on whether I can just epoxy a new collar onto what remains of the glass so that the burner will stay in place. It's a nonthreaded Queen Anne burner, a #2 I think. I am ordering a very tall chimney for it too.

Dresden Plate quilt

This little sweetie came from a garage sale near my office in La Crosse on Friday. The seller said it was made by her great great aunt and given to her by her great aunt (daughter of the maker), her Great Auntie Marlys or maybe Marlis (I did not get the spelling) of Hillsboro, Wisconsin, and that the family name Markee is involved somewhere, possibly the last name of the maker. She has my phone number to call me if anyone in the family remembers more.

It's a cute little Dresden Plate, machine pieced/appliqueed in individual squares which were then machine sewn together and then hand quilted. It was self bound and the binding is worn. The backing is a printed cotton. It was dirty when I bought it, and I thought it started as white and had darkened with age and use; however, when I removed the whisker guard, I found that it had originally been a nice yellow and had faded. The top of the quilt where the whisker guard was is at the bottom of my photo. See the difference?

I soaked it gently, rinsed it carefully and dried it on the freshly mown lawn (backing side up, I only flipped it to get this photo). The 1930s prints are still vibrant. Only one fabric deteriorated. I'm thinking of using the fabric from the whisker guard to rebind the quilt. Not certain about that.

Houston County Fair Entries 2011

Here are two garments I entered in the fair. The black apron I'm proud of, and it won a blue ribbon. The eyelet blouse I entered because I said I would enter a blouse and I did not have time to make a better one. It's okay. It won a red ribbon, and probably did not even deserve that much.

The apron has a little story behind it. Last spring, when Lisa Fruitful were making costumes for The Sound of Music, I quickly made a black half apron with colored rickrack trim for one of the older von Trapp girls. It was very striking from a safe distance, not so great close up because I was in a huge rush by that point and it was, after all, just a costume. But the drama coach Tammy Manning just loved it. So I redid the idea, taking my time and finishing seams and putting the rickrack on for keeps this time, and now that the fair is over, I have given it to Tammy to keep. I took a picture to keep with the blue ribbon it won.

On Sunday, when Lil Miss A and I drove back to the fair to pick up our stuff, we passed a pile of free stuff on a curb. Caledonia has a lot of garage sales during fair days because of all the added traffic. I had not gotten to go to any of them and was sad. Yet here was a lovely pile of garage sale leftovers with a big FREE sign on them. Even better! Look what I got:

It's an old suitcase with real travel stickers on it, mostly from Europe, though I see Florida on there too. I'm very excited. Can't believe nobody bought this at whatever price they were willing to take for it rather than leave it in the free pile, it could not have been much.