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Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Embroidery and Funky Foliage

 

I am hiding.

There are men with enormous ladders at That Old House, getting rather
up-close-and-personal with her, cleaning out her gutters.

I cannot look. 

I'm at the desk computer, which is surrounded by windows, and I've closed the blinds. 
I am so squirrelly about heights that I can't bear to watch someone else
climb a ladder and scramble around on the roof.

Although I guess squirrels don't have height issues.  Rough life for them if they did.

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But it's Wednesday, it's a beautiful crisp October day, and it's picture perfect.
I can prove it.
With pictures.


 Just one little corner of our patio area, right outside the sunroom.
A mum and a pumpkin cozy up on top of the stone wall, right along the steps up to the driveway.
 October brings some pretty funky colors to the foliage at That Old House.
That's a hydrangea right behind the pumpkin, and our psychedelic forsythia in the left background.

Echoes of past lives:
Can you see it in that top stone?  Robert Tuttle chiseled his name there many decades ago.
I'll bet his parents were not pleased.  The Tuttle family owned this home for generations.

Echoes, too, of recent summer . . . cherry tomatoes still ripening,
and a lone geranium duking it out with the weeds in a flowerpot.

I'm taking my Dad to the apple orchard today;
there aren't many of these days left before Winter sets in.

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Inside the house, my newest eBay treasure:


. . . a tablecloth that's destined to make her company debut on Thanksgiving,
on the grownup table in the dining room.

She's all cotton, and 133" long, so she is big enough to have a bit of an overhang
(not the same as a hangover) at each end, even when all the table leaves are in place.

Some details:
That's a tiny blue thread, above, not a mark.



A major confession:
I took a dozen pictures of this tablecloth, and it was not
until I was looking at them on the computer that I realized  . . .
that I'd photographed the wrong side of the cloth!

Doh!

I had to take new pictures, which I used in the first shots, above.
But look at these pictures:
 Ummm... yeah.  Those threads connecting different parts of the satin stitching
belong on the wrong side of the piece.
(Or, as they say in Brooklyn, the left side of the piece.)
Would you believe I used to teach embroidery and I still made this dopey mistake?

 I don't have any pictures of the cloth spread out -- no room! -- but it's got a lovely center medallion.
My eBay price?  $20.00 and reasonable shipping in an envelope.

I thought when I got it that it would turn out to be one of those recent Chinese tablecloths with the slick fabric and machine work.  But it's a heavy cotton, it's got at least some age to it, it's in beautiful shape, but is it hand done?  It looks so to me, but I wouldn't bet the house on it.  Heck, I wouldn't even bet Howard on it.

Maybe it's that I just cannot imagine anyone doing that much handwork!

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Check out what Fall is up to in other people's neighborhoods, at Susan's
Outdoor Wednesday, at A Southern Daydreamer blog.  Click here!


Kathleen at Faded Charm blog hosts White Wednesday.
Visit her by clicking here!


Happy Wednesday!  I'm off to buy apples and pears with Pop! -- Cass

24 comments:

  1. Picture perfect indeed! Love your new find. Envying your crisp October day. **blows kisses** Deb

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  2. Hi Cass,
    That is a beautiful tablecloth and just in time for Thanksgiving. I do agree with you that you had a picture perfect day!
    Valerie

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  3. Hi Cass,
    I do enjoy visiting with you and seeing what you've been up to! Love the tablecloth...either side;0) Thanks for sharing your perfect day with us.
    ~Holly
    P.S. I hope you have a great day with your Dad!!

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  4. Your pictures of the autumn colors are lovely:-)

    The tablecloth is so nice -it is hard to believe you only paid $20.00

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  5. The tablecloth is so pretty. I have a terrible weakness for linens. hugs♥olive

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  6. Ooooh! Love your great eBay find! Gorgeous tablecloth! I love your fall pictures too; I wish we had a rock wall like that in our yard...I'd have a million little pumpkins all lined up on it. I love that the name is still carved in the wall; we have some names carved in the concrete floor of our basement but we can't really read them well.

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  7. Your outdoors look beautiful and so does your indoors! I adore that tablecloth. It was a real find and for a good price, good for you. It will be so pretty gracing your Thanksgiving table.
    Hugs, Cindy

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  8. Love that name etched on the stone. And your tablecloth so love it too. I wish I preserved my moms crocheted table cloth and some curtains. Happy Wednesday!
    The Lake

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  9. Looked like someones Labor Of love to moi.
    Very nice tablecloth indeed. :0)

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  10. Hope ya'll enjoyed the apple orchard loved visiting your beautiful blog.

    Happy Outdoor Wednesday ~
    hugs from Savannah, Cherry

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  11. Loved seeing your Fall pictures. What a pretty tablecloth - someone put a lot of work into it.
    Beautiful Fall day here also.

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  12. That's a beautiful tablecloth!

    xo
    Claudia

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  13. Cass,
    Beautiful stone wall, pumpkin, mum and season change.
    I can see myself photographing the 'left' side of the tablecloth. What a treat that will be at Thanksgiving! I'm already planning my table setting...
    It'll be a great feeling to know the gutters are cleaned out, too!

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  14. The tablecloth and all of it's detail is too beautiful! It's going to look fabulous on your holiday table!

    XO,
    Jane

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  15. Embroidery used to be done so the back looked as good as the front - somewhere along the way we lost that practice. I think it is charming to see pieces that represent that time - and that talent.

    In Japan little girls as young as four years old - are taught to embroider on see-through fabric - so that they will make both sides look the same.

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  16. I love your Outdoor Wednesday photos. Beautiful embroidery.

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  17. Beautiful fall photos...but, the tablecloth brought me home!!! Seriously, it is so reminiscent of my grandmother's embroidery. I've tucked her works all away to a safe place, but I think it's time to bring it out and enjoy once again. Thank you so much for a pleasant reminder!!
    Lisa.

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  18. The tablecloth is gorgeous, Cass. What a lucky find. Thanks for the anniversary greetings and lovely words about my ancestral home...Christine

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  19. Cass,
    Gorgeous tablecloth. Looks handmade to me. I am doing a machine embroidery post for Saturday.

    I can't do ladders past the second step.

    Carol

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  20. Cass, that is one gorgeous tablecloth, all the embroidery and (tatting?) to join it together, amazing amount of work. I also love your stone walls, and the carving. Can never have enough stone, that's my motto, lol. I hope the gutters were cleaned without incident!

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  21. I love the Linen. And the outside of your house is perfect. So very fallish. We don't really have much of a fall where I live so I enjoyed yours.

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  22. I am pea green with envy! That is one amazingly gorgeous tablecloth.

    I don't know about the embroidery but I can tell you with absolute certainty that the crochet borders are 100% hand done. Knitting can be done by machine but there is no machine that can replicate true crochet.

    I am crocheting a tablecloth and have been working on it for over 3 years now, it's about half done. I really should put pictures on my blog.

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