Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Farm life and feed sacks.......

Ginny Helphinstine Reeves grew up on a farm in rural Fleming County and has fond memories of her mother and grandmother putting feed sack material to good use.

Ginny’s recollections of rural life bring back fond memories of her mother and her grandmothers cooking and sewing and how her family made “many a garment” with feed sack cloth.
“In grade school about all I wore were feed sack dresses. Mother would save the material and send it to aunt Tootsie in Harlan, KY, she was an excellent seamstress, still is”, Ginny said. “If she had your measurements she didn’t need to see you, so even though she had a large family of her own she would make all these feed sack dresses for my sister Fran and I and send them to us by the time school started. So my sister and I had all these feed sack dresses for school. Everything was ironed back then. Even our dish towels were made from feed sacks. That’s the way it was for everyone in our community, we made do with what we had. I have dried many, many dishes with those feed sack towels”.



Collecting and trading different patterns of feed sack material was a favorite pastime for farm wives.
“Sometimes daddy would go to the store without mother, and when he did she would bring out a piece of material for him to find a piece to match, if they didn’t have it you would find someone to trade with”, Ginny said.
When Ginny was in the fourth grade she made her first apron.
“My first sewing project for 4h-H was an apron made out of feed sack”, Ginny said. “I worked on it for a long time to get the stitches real small. Christine Hurst and Mamie Morrison were 4-H leaders back then and came to the lunch room at Goddard school and helped us cut our patterns out. Miss Mamie would say” now Ginny you gotta make smaller stitches.
It seemed like I worked on that apron forever, trying to get the stitches as small as possible. I still have that apron."

Monday, April 25, 2011

A Pocket full of Memories


I love vintage aprons.

With each well-worn apron there is an interesting story of a woman, her family and the life she lived woven deeply within the fabric.

My collection consist of aprons that belonged to mamaw Petitt, my great aunt Frankie(mamaws twin sister) and Kevin’s mamaw Jolly and some were bought at estate sales.

Mamaw was a janitor at the Bethel Elementary School and the pockets on the aprons she wore held everything from buttons and pieces of string to chewing gum and a dime for each of us kids to spend at break time.

My siblings and I all remember the pocket with the comb and how mamaw would grab us as we walked through the school hallway for a quick comb-over.

Those handed down garments that were worn often by family have a certain kinship attached to them and when mamaw passed away it was an apron we each wanted as a keepsake.

With each vintage apron comes a story of a woman and a family and the life they lived.

For me aprons worn by women from an era long past are such tangible pieces of history, a collection of journey’s actually.

I wonder about the person who once owned the aprons I find at estate or garage sales, what she was like, how she chose to raise her children, what her favorite activities were, what her home was like and the kind of meals she cooked.

Collectors have found uses for their vintage aprons that go beyond merely displaying them on a few pegs in their kitchen.

Some ladies are opting to make curtains, swags and cozies from their vintage aprons to add a real down home feel to their kitchens, baths, and pantries.

Someday I will figure out how I want to use the aprons have to decorate my kitchen, but right now they are tucked away for safe keeping.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that “old-time apron” that served so many purposes.

Treasured Cookbooks


Some came from yard sales, others were borrowed from family members, yet to be returned, some were gifts that kept adding up.

But I never set out to start a collection of cookbooks; it just kind of happened.

What started as a way for me to learn some much-needed kitchen skills, slowly grew into one of my most treasured collections.

Tattered pages from years of turning to favorite recipes stained with vanilla or some other ingredient fill my mind with visions of favored treats, recipes that our family continues to turn to during the holidays or for any family gathering.

Those handwritten recipes makes me think of special family gatherings, the food and the laughter, loved ones who are no longer with us and how their recipes will always keep their memory alive.

'48 Fords & "good junk"!!

My Dream ride!!

Remember the television sitcom “Sanford and Son”? It was that very show that fueled my interest in being a junkie and awakened a truth within my soul that would surface many years later.

Sanford and Son starred Redd Foxx as Fred G. Sanford, a 65-year-old junk dealer living at 9114 S. Central Ave. in the Watts neighborhood of southern Los Angeles, Calif., and Demond Wilson as his 28-year-old son, Lamont Sanford. Sanford was a sarcastic, stubborn and argumentative antique and junk dealer, whose frequent money-making schemes routinely backfired and created more troubles.

I enjoyed the hilarious antics created by the show’s characters, but it was all the “good junk” Fred and his son had piled up in the yard and all through their house that intrigued me the most.

I am not sure when the fever actually hit me, then again I have come to believe I was born with the love for “junking” and that trait was directly inherited from my daddy and his people.

Daddy has always had several jobs at one time, one of which included making extra money from scrap metal that he would load up and deliver to a junk yard.

One time my little sister April and I had this idea that we would paint “Sanford and Son” on the door of Daddy’s old tan pickup truck but changed our minds after thinking about the trouble we would get in if we pulled such a stunt.
To be known as a junk collector back then was taboo, believe it or not!!

Truth of the matter is year’s later I would come to realize how much I love junking and I still dream about driving around in a 1948 Ford or Chevy or a Dodge, loaded down with some "good junk"!

Mamaws Biscuits

When I was a little girl sometimes my siblings and I would spend the night at our mamaw Petitt's.
Every morning at the crack of dawn mamaw would wake all six of us up for a hearty breakfast before she left for work as a janitor at the Bethel Elem. School.
This is when I learned to love me some good hot coffee!!
Before the sun even peaked through mamaw was in her kitchen stirring up a batch of homemade biscuits.
In the corner of that kitchen was an old stool that held this lard can full of flour, mamaws rolling pin, the biscuit cutter,(made from a tiny tin can) and her flour sifter.
What I wouldn't give for one of those tiny fluffy biscuits today!!
Below is all the original stuff from mamaws kitchen.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Happy Easter


Sing to the Lord a new song!
For flowers and bunnies and
birds that sing.
We thank you, Lord,
for everything.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Tea Pots & Lilacs

Lilacs are my all-time fave spring blossoms!!

A B C D can I ask my friend to tea?

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Quilted Love

My husbands mom, his paternal grandmother and his great grandmother hand- pieced this quilt from some of their old clothes sometime back in the early 1960s.
Someday I hope to have a backing on this family quilt. Maybe I need to learn to sew!!
Then again I am hopeful that one of my two girls will learn to sew and finish the quilt for me. Hey, a mom can always dream right?

This is a rare gem for me, it's the only full size hand-sewn quilt in my possession.

Neglected Orphans

Some of the things I have dragged home over the years are yet to find a cozy place to call home.
Shameful of me, how I have neglected these poor little orphans.


Cheap-Skates & Vintage Powder

Damp, cold, windy, March weather sure can put a damper on treasure hunting.
But there is still hope in hidden treasures tucked away.

A couple of items from my forgotten collection of Ice Skating stuff turned up after an afternoon of some much needed spring cleaning.

Today I discovered two pair of dusty, dirty, pairs of ice skates and a vintage Avon Perfumed Talc Tin.
Memory fails me as to where I bought the skates, but an old friend from long ago gave me the Avon Tin 8-10 years ago.


Friday, April 1, 2011

Thrifty Thursday....October Bell Witch

Here is what I found at the local secondhand store on Thursday.
My sister bought this cute little witch for me for just two bucks.
1990 Marjorie Sarnat,Licensee, Enesco Corporation, made in Taiwan.
Nothing fancy, but I thought she was just so very cute!