Kitchen Remodel Update: Putting Things Back

This past week we have been unpacking and arranging things in the kitchen. That also means giving the new dishwasher a work out. And the whole house needed cleaning due to deconstruction and construction dirt and dust migrating everywhere.

Our contractor Jen Czach this week installed the Quartz top on our half wall and finished other little jobs. Next week the glass front cabinet doors and built in organizers will be installed.

We put our tea pot on the cute little shelves.

We picked up this vintage set of canisters at a local antique shop. Spun aluminum is a motif! We have the spun aluminum pendant lights, too.

We have had this stainless steel bread box for many years.

I am trying different things on the shelves that will have the glass doors.

When the project is completed Jen is bringing in a photographer to take photographs! I will have to 'stage' the kitchen!

My Newest Handkerchief Finds

I have added to my collection these past weeks. First a friend notified me of a local garage sale with 4 for a $1 hankys! I bought eight. Then I bought two from an antique mall while vacationing 'up north'. Last of all I brought home three shared by one of the gals in my quilting group.

 The brown floral is a heavy cotton fabric.

 The checked above is linen. The concentric squares below is 8" and cotton.

This "F" initial handkerchief was hand appliqued and hand rolled. She used white thread for the hand rolled edge. The fabric is linen in a dark navy. The white is the background showing under the camera light.

This cotton pink floral one has a hand tatted edge. I find quite a few printed hankys that ladies embellished with tatting. Most common are white cotton or linen with fancy, deep crocheted edges.

This sweet cotton hanky has a hand appliqued, scalloped border.

 A cool graphic linen hanky is likely from the 1960s.

 I bought four sheer nylon hankys. I have below the three printed ones; the dotted Swiss didn't photograph well.

 And this one below is hand painted silk.

 This 1986 hanky came with a paper lady holder.

The summer is still young! Who knows what yard sales, flea markets, and thrift shops await!

Ladies in Hats Go Places: A Guide with Illustrations of What to Do... and What Not to Do

 Late for a show one day in New York, I hurried into a cab, exclaiming, "Could you please take me to the Plaza Hotel as quickly as possible?"

"Lady, with that hat, I'd take you anywhere!" the cabbie grinned. 

In her 1968 book I Haven't a Thing to Wear Judith Keith writes ecstatically about hats making the difference between drab and stunning.

A hat lends an indefinable magnetism that draws people. The lady looks elegant, distinctive, individual, important, regal, chic, well-groomed and very very special.

I love hats! I have always loved hats! In high school I had floppy brimmed hats and straw hats. I had pill box hats to wear to church in junior high. I have a big straw hat and a little brimmed straw hat today for sunny days and a knitted cloche for winter.

I look absolutely horrible in them; always did. Any kind. I have a round face and straight hair and glasses. I don't worry about my hair, or how the hat fits. I don't worry about standing out. All the excuses Keith attacks don't apply to me. I just look lousy in a hat.

Dad and I (in a hat) Easter 1958. 

Perhaps I just never learned the RULES.

So here is Keith's advice on HOW TO CHOOSE A HAT.

Prepare Thyself

• Have your hair set the way it will be when you are wearing the hat. 
• Make sure the design is scaled for your frame, balancing your overall proportions as well as complimenting your face.
• Chose colors that are kind and set a mood.
• DO NOT BUY A HAT until you check it out in a three way mirror.

Meet the Hats

• Small brims and tall-crowned hats look best on little women, lengthening their silhouette.
• Berets and flat crowns add elan to long hair. They shorten a long face, but don't look well on short hair or pulled back dos.
• Soft brims and profile hats look best on women who wear glasses.
• Turbans are for those with perfect features. Stuff it to keep it high and full. (A good place to stash an extra pair of nylons in case you get a snag). A widow's peak looks exceptionally good in a turban.
• Pill boxes and up turned brims are for lovely hairlines and happy faces.
• Round, bubble types and bowlers are best for long and slender faces.
• Chin straps and helmet type hats are for youthful faces and figures.
• Flowered hats seldom look elegant. 
• Big floppy straw hats look beautiful on most women.
• Black hats are best in fur, velvet, and shiny straws. It drains color from the face and is harder to look young wearing one.
• White felt is a basic hat that can be worn year round.
• Rain hats in vinyl or leather can be spiffed up with a tie or link chain.
• Hats sometimes look better worn backwards.

things you can do with a simple sailor type hat

Slip cover a hat with a scarf for a new look.

Women on the run can use a scarf in glamorous ways; don't wear it babushka style.

I guess I never learned about not wearing a babushka.

Me around age six

Me at age 20; I wore the babushka backwards.

When I was a girl we wore hats for church. 

My family at Easter in early 1960s. Grandma in a fur pill box hat.
 I have a floral headband. Mom in a pill box with flowers. And little brother a cute boy's hat. Dad didn't wear hats. Ever.

Mom and Dad's wedding in late 1940s; Mom and Aunt Nancy in fancy hats.

Now when I was a girl we all wanted to be cowboys. Even the girls wanted to be cowboys.

Me about age six at Frontier Land in New York State

My role model, cousin Linda, sporting her cowboy hat. I am in the babushka.

 Here I am around age 14 wearing a knitted hat and trying a hat out on a friend.

Somehow the Northern girl pulled it off but not me.

And yet, after reading this advice perhaps I will still find the elusive hat meant just...for...me...

Kitchen Remodel : Nearly Over!

Just a few things lef to do...glass doors and half wall top, organization pieces.

 We used  blue paint in our hallway last year. It went perfect with our kitchen!

 A few of the roses we cut before the Japanese Beetles ate them.

These lights are so perfect but the arm had to be modified to fit the pendants.

It's hard work fitting things into a new space. But hard work that is exciting.

Some missing doors and top of half wall...but nearly finished!

A Year With the Fairies: The Insect Orchestra

The Insect OrchestraWhen we with our horns and out trombones appear,
All the birds gather round us to see and to hear;
While we're scraping and squeaking an picking the strings,
They applaud us all loudly by flapping their wings.

When the music begins they shout "hip,hip, hurrah,"
As they hear Strauss's waltz that goes "tra la la la,"
And the grasses enchanted are bending and swaying
To the swing of the music our orchestra's playing.

from A Year with the Fairies by Anna M. Scott, 1914

+++++

It is that time of summer when the insects have taken over.

We have been deluged with Japanese Beetles, especially attracted to our new beautiful yellow rose. The buds and flowers of the second flowering have been eaten away. We also found the Japanese Beetles eating our flowering quince and apple trees.

The other evening a giant Stag Beetle was settled on the screen of our patio door. Lightning bugs flit about in the dusk.

It's hard to believe we are halfway through July. The kitchen remodel, and consequent trips to get away, have caused time to fly so quickly.

It's time to stop and listen to the insect orchestra. Apparently they play Strauss.

Kitchen Remodel - Just a Few More Days!!!

This week has been exciting. We have a sink and the dishwasher installed. The back splash tile behind the range is up. The undercounter lighting and one ceiling fixture is up. The pendant lights are giving the electrician problems; they cost a pretty penny but are from China (I didn't know this when I ordered them) and have plastic parts that are already stripped. Tomorrow the hood and range will be put into place, and Saturday painting will be done. It is looking SO GOOD!

Just a little glimpse....waiting now for the big reveal!

Tales and Legends, History and Truth: Daisy Turner's Kin by Jane C. Beck

Jane C. Beck, founder of the Vermont Folklife Center, has preserved the remarkable journey of one African American family from the shores of West Africa to the hills of Vermont.

Daisy Turner's stories covered 178 years of her family history, her father's stories dating back to his father's life in Africa. Beck spent several years interviewing Daisy, resulting in the 1990 Peabody Award winning documentary film Journey's End: Memories and Traditions of Daisy Turner and Her Family.

After Daisy's death Beck continued her research, investigating the authenticity and recorded history behind the stories.

Daisy's father Alexander (Alec) Turner (1845-1923) told tales of the family history every night after dinner. His father Alessi was the grandson of a Yoruban chief. His mother was a European woman who survived a shipwreck off the coast of Nigeria. Alessi traded with Europeans; around 1830 traders kidnapped him. After a torturous and eventful passage he landed in America and was illegally sold into slavery to the wealthy and sporting Jack Gouldin of Port Royal, Virginia. Gouldin made Alessi his champion in boxing and cockfighting. Alessi married Rose, who was Cherokee and was knowledgeable in herbal remedies.

Alec felt a strong connection to the Gouldin family; he later named his daughter for the kind granddaughter of his master. But he longed for liberty. During the Civil War he ran away when he was fourteen, and took the name Turner. He was mentored by surgeon and Northern Abolitionist Ferdinand Dayton. As contraband Alec could not join the army but worked as Dayton's personal servant and orderly, carrying wounded men from the field of battle to the hospital. After the war Dayton helped Alec get an education and found him employment. Alec fell in love with a frightened, newly free fourteen-year-old refugee, Sally Early, and she became his wife.

Alec's work took him to a slate mine in Maine and to the lumber mills of Grafton, Vermont, where he established bought land and built his house.  He employed the knowledge gained from his plantation life, patterning his home on the Gouldin manor.

The Turners were extraordinary people. Alec had pride and charisma and ingenuity. He was resourceful, and his strength was legendary. His work ethic and honesty garnered respect from white society. He held a deep Christian faith and taught his children to face trials with "contentment and understanding".

The Turner women were also hard working, proud, and upright. Alec's wife Sally has a strength beyond imagining. And she could write poetry. Daisy learned her facility with words from her parents; she could recite from memory improvisational poems she had created years before.

Turner heirs include Rev. Veronica Lanier, the first African American Baptist minister in New England. During the 20th c the family demanded equality under the law and continued to break down racial barriers.

The Turner family will amaze readers.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Daisy Turner's Kin: An African American Family Saga
by Jane C. Beck
University of Illinois Press
Publication date July 15, 2015
ISBN: 9780252080791
$24.95 paperback