Day One Completed: Tear this Kitchen Down!

Today the old kitchen was torn out. The original cabinets were saved to be re-purposed for basement storage later. The soffits were torn out. The rug and two layers of linoleum were torn out.

It took four people to do the tear down.

 This is the corner where the sink and stove were.

And this is the wall where the refrigerator once was.

The contractor wants to remove the 3/4" thick plywood floor. It appears there are two layers that thick. The cork flooring is 1/2" deep and she wants the adjacent flooring to be more level with the new kitchen floor. So that's more tear-down ahead.

Kamikaze loves the sunshine

Our doggies weathered the ordeal. I spent the cool morning with them outside in the back yard. Kamikaze loves to sit outside. Suki only likes to be outside at night! All afternoon we stayed in a bedroom. I read, fell asleep, read some more. The doggies just slept.

 Its what they do best.

Day One: Tear Down

Good bye, old kitchen. My folks bought this house after my grandfather's death and my grandmother moved in with my family. Mom used to cook, and Grandma cleaned up. My brother was eleven when they moved in here, but I was at college.

I didn't do much in the kitchen until after Mom died. Then I would cook and clean up when visiting Dad. I inherited the house after Dad passed. A year later our son moved in after he finished college. And last June, a year ago, Gary and I moved in after he retired.

So this kitchen has seen four generations of my family.

We already have a new stove. The 1984 one had been the second in the house. When my folks bought the house the appliances were Harvest Gold. The lighted hood does not even have a circulating fan.

The empty spot is where the refrigerator was originally. Our new didn't fit.

The new refrigerator will stay in this corner. Mom once had a glass front hutch full of her Depression Glass collection there.

We have set up a coffee and microwave station in the living room. The family room carpet will be torn up also. We are having the same cork flooring in the kitchen and the family room.

Its going to be difficult for our doggies. Kamikaze is spooked by loud noises. Suki will be upset she can't get into her favorite room, the family room corner.

Kamikaze and Suki in the family room

But it is exciting to finally be starting the project!

Dad a few months before we lost him

How to Lure Men: Wear Gloves?

Continuing to share from the 1968 book  I Haven't a Thing to Wear by Judith Keith's, the chapter entitled Conversation Pieces beings with the wearing of gloves.

my haul from the flea market last March

Accessories, Keith suggests, should not be overused. Edit, edit, edit; and when in doubt--don't!

Gloves can be used to provide 'distinction'. Keith suggested short cotton gloves be worn with a simple cotton dress on a supermarket visit! "Snappy leather shorties perk up popped-out plaids, prints and suits." Pant suits were to be paired with pigskins, which were also great for driving, riding, and hiking. Wool and black leather in winter, and long white gloves with a gown, are still worn today.

In 1969 I wore long gloves to the school dance. And wings. Had to have those wings.

And, she contends, gloves can be conversations starters.

Take a simple pair of gloves. In fact take two simple pair of gloves in the most basic colors: one pair black, one pair white. Walk into any party or any place where people gather, wearing one white glove and one black glove! You will certainly create conversation!

Carry it off with e'lan and elegance. You will make many new friends. Strangers will ask, "Do you always do that?"

"Do what?" you smile.

"Don't you know you are wearing two different gloves?" they continue.

"The only thing I know for sure, is that I have another pair at home, just like these," you reply easily.

Once at a cocktail party in San Francisco a handsome distinguished gentleman came up to me and introduced himself stating, "I have always wanted to meet a woman who wouldn't let her right hand know what her left hand is doing." The next two days in San Francisco were just divine.

My mother and father's 1949 wedding. Mom and her sister in white gloves.

Vacationer's Souvenir Handkerchiefs

Handkerchief Designer Tammis Keefe created souvenir handkerchiefs for cities and tourist stops across America. Collecting handkerchiefs and other souvenirs from places one visited was a craze in the mid-twentieth century. These types of handkerchiefs are easily found.

John Wanamaker Department Store, Philadelphia by Tammis Keefe

Independence Hall, Philadelphia by Tammis Keefe

Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia by Tammis Keefe

New York City Bronx Zoo by Tammis Keefe

Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, MI by Tammis Keefe

Greenfield Village, Dearborn MI by Tammis Keefe

Chicago, by Tammis Keefe

Williamsburg by Emily Whaley

Wilmington, Delaware by Tammis Keefe

The Great Lakes

With the automobile people began to travel across the United States on vacation.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike, rayon

New York City, 1930s?

Milwaukee

Sault Ste. Marie, Canada, silk

Hawaii

And with the airplane and jet liner vacationers could travel across continents.

France

Bern, Swizterland

Souvenir handkerchiefs were pretty, and useful, reminders of one's visit. Plus, they took up very little room in one's luggage!

Switzerland

Australia

New Zealand

The Taj Mahal, India

Bath, England Museum of Costume

The British Isles

Ireland

Spanish bullfighter

China?

Russian silk handkerchiefs circa 2000

Where will you travel this summer?

Dispelling Myths and Extolling the Unconventional

About ten years ago my Dad picked up a trunk from along side the road. When he got home and opened it he found an unbound quilt.

Carolina Lily owned by Nancy A Bekofske

It is not well made. The appliquéd flower stems were applied after the blocks were sewn. The quilting is primitive, the batting is bulky and, and the quilt weighs a ton. The fabrics include Gingham, florals, solids, and bandanna prints.

 

And yet there is an exuberance to the quilt; it makes one smile. I love the orange backgrounds in several blocks.

This is the kind of quilt considered in Unconventional and Unexpected: American Quilts Below the Radar 1950-2000 by Roderick Kiracofe.  Kiracofe sees his new book as an extension of  his 2004 landmark book The American Quilt: A History of Cloth and Comfort 1750-1950.

The quilt collector, author, and artist says that in 2004 he suddenly questioned, what were the everyday quilts between 1950 and the end of the century? The quilts that were made to be used? He started collecting quilts from this era.

These quilts will not win a prize in a national quilt show. They break every rule we quilters have been taught to obey. They are individualistic. They can inspire artists to use what they have and express what they love. They are 'functional' not show quilts that have been "under the radar" and only recently appreciated by collectors and historians. They tell a story. Their energy and a vision is unique to the quilt maker. The artist will discover that the untrained eye knows instinctively the importance of rhythm, value, and line.

Kiracofe's quilts were ten years in collecting. They are wonderfully portrayed in oversize images that allow us to see the total quilt as art, some with quilt back or detail photos. The essays included offer insights on quilts as history, as art, and as a craft.

Never Seen a Blanket by Natalie Chanin tells the story of growing up in a Southern community "raised to work cotton" from picking bolls to sewing garments. "In the South cotton is your birthright, your way of life, your punishment, and your legacy," Chanin writes. 

Amelia Peck, Curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, discusses the artistry of late 20th c. quilts in her essay In Dialogue With an Anonymous Quilt, considering color and pattern, vision, and how the quilt speaks to the viewer.

We learn about "M-provisational" quilts in A Texas Quiltmaker's Life: An Interview with Sherry Ann Byrd by Robert Kiracofe and Sherry Ann Byrd. Byrd explains that family use quilts were different from those made for sale, having "more swagger, colorfulness, and a bit of jazzy bling and slang."  

Detail of Eastside Detroit 'make do' quilt

Unconventional Wisdom: The Myths and Quilts that Came Before by Janneken Smucker, history professor, author, and quiltmaker, dismantles what we have believed about quilts over the last hundred years. Her research shows that scrap quilting was not part of our early heritage. 

Professor and author Elissa Auther discusses A Brief History of Quilts in Contemporary Art from Rauchenberg to the AIDS Quilt.

Barkcloth and Decorating Fabric Quilt circa 1960, found on eBay

From Under the Bedcovers: A Culture Curator's Perspective by Ulysses Grant Dietz, decorative arts curator, considers the "Gees Bend" phenomenon and the cultural and historical background evidenced in quilts.

1970s Gees Bend quilt owned by Anne Soles

Quilts Are Quilts by Allison Smith, artist and professor, explores categorizing quilts as art.

Kaffe Fassett writes about The Joyous Anarchy of Color and Pattern considering how these quilts give permission for quilters to break free into imaginative flights of fantasy.

The Beauty of Making Do by Modern quiltmaker Denyse Schmidt gives permission to experiment with materials on hand, taking the risk of improvisation.

This Picture is Not a Family Heirloom by Abner Nolan considers things not kept, not heirlooms, that find meaning in a new context.

This is a beautiful book that will inspire many.

Improvisational scrap quilt by Nancy A. Bekofske