In the Pink!

Despite waking up with the headache that I went to bed with and grousing with my husband, today is definitely moving in the right direction.

My husband and I made up and decided to be nice to each other again after a few days of general crankiness.

I have a baby shower to go to this weekend, and had grand fun putting together a little gift basket for the occasion. Was able to find this lovely pristine basket at a thrift store and had hung on to the pink wired ribbon from a Christmas past, so felt downright resourceful as well as getting to be uber girly!

I have a spa day to look forward to on Friday, with a facial and massage giving me a glorious 2 full hours of me time at the lovely Avant Salon where I get my hair cut.

I just shipped off a pretty little package to Florida of one of my favorite Etsy items, which is going live on a handmade feather tree (squeeee!).

I also received a package from Bobo's Oat Bars this morning of three of their delicious and nutritious coconut oat bars to replace one that I found mold in prior to opening. You've got to love the smaller independent companies! These bars are great food for babies, organic and yummy and soft and oh so portable!

My headache is starting to get better and my baby is asleep, so I'm going to see what else I can do with my burst of positive energy!

What kind of project will this be?

I have this vintage table runner that I've been hanging on to for God knows how long. I've never used it for a couple of reasons. 1. Wasn't really in the place in my life where I had occasion/desire to put it out 2. It has a somewhat unsightly stain in a conspicuous spot.

Now that I have my little girl and Easter is just around the corner, I have lovely notions of putting out my little bunny figures and sweet, festive decorations. I pulled this out by chance and felt it might be just the thing.

I've hand washed it in Woolite, using Grandma's Secret Spot Remover on the stain, and hung it to dry. This did wonders for generally livening this little linen up, but did not do anything for the stain, and has made me aware that one end of the runner is a shade darker than the other.

With the prospect of simply not being able to do anything about the stain, I'm entertaining camouflaging it with coordinating embroidery motifs. I've found some really good candidates/inspiration here. If I were to do this, I'm also considering tea dying it so that the color fade is not so obvious.

It's vintage, but I don't know where it came from and have no sentimental value to attach to it other than I think it's very sweet.

Is it passe' to add your own embroidery to a vintage piece? Are there stain removal secrets I'm not aware of that are suitable for this task? Should I tea dye the whole thing, or will the discolored end just dye darker than the rest? I'd love to get some input!

What's on my wall: Inspirado

This little darling has always been in my life. It hung in my mother's room when I was growing up and she was nice enough to let me have it when I moved out. I don't know where it came from, or who it was made by.

On the back of the frame, in two places, is written B 350. It almost looks like a price, but I don't know if it is, or even if it is, if the price refers to the frame or the entire piece. My good friend KatinkaPinka used to have a storefront in South Austin with a couple of other ladies and they would have initials on their price tags to indicate who made what; that's my best guess for the B.

It hangs on a little strip of wall just big enough for it right outside my bedroom door. I look at it a little bit every day, some days more than others. I never get tired of getting up close and examining the variety of careful stitches that are so much more than they even needed to be. The extra touches of detail in the stitches is what gets me every time. I love to embroider and it seems to be somewhat of a fading art.

Someone doing a piece like this today is probably a fractional likelihood compared to when this was probably made, but even if someone were to take the time to do it now, I doubt that they would include all the nuance and care that went into this. I look at it and think, well, I can do that stitch, or I could probably figure that one out, or how did she do that? But I'm almost always struck by how the artist "went the extra mile" in a way that I'm not sure I would have. This is somewhat sobering, as I pride myself on being someone who "brings their A-game" most of the time, especially on craft projects. I have to imagine that it came from a time when there was simply less to occupy yourself with. No computers, TV etc. It must have been quietly lovely, but I won't get all romantic about times past, there's no point to it really. At any rate, it wouldn't be as inspiring to me if it were more on my level. My mother, the art teacher, summed it up with "If their work is better than yours, learn from it. If it's worse, feel better about your own."

That's not entirely fair though, because artists who are less practiced or comfortable with a medium than you can still inspire with their ingenuity, style, spirit or sheer drive to create.

Anyway, was taking another look at it and thought I would share my little moment.