A Sham for Sharon

I finished a project last week that I've been working on for a while.  My friend Sharon asked if I would make a pillow sham for her.  She's an occupational therapist and has taken on a new kind of job traveling all over the country for temporary assignments in hospitals.  She's been in the south, Washington D.C. area, and New York among other places.  It's the perfect thing for her at this time.  What an adventure - seeing the sights and making friends all over the country! 

Sharon asked me to make a sham so she could have a piece of home with her no matter where she finds herself.  She gave me carte blanche, which can be a dangerous thing... if you're like me.  When pressed, she said she liked birds and thought perhaps a two sided sham could be seasonal.  

Birds?  Seasons?  Complete creative freedom?  I said yes.

I am obsessed with homey Granny Chic these days 

and my 70s fabrics were calling my name.

Add a few doilies, embroideries, birds...

plenty of ingredients for a two-sided pillow sham.

I wanted a patchwork and needed to lay it out

on the computer to get the right balance.

(I'm visual on top of visual.)

Any good Granny Chic piece is going to have embroidered words.

Finding the perfect poem by Victor Hugo for Sharon and her current situation, 

I stitched it onto a piece of vintage linen.

"Be like the bird in flight... pausing a while on boughs too slight,

feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings,

knowing that she had wings."

I moved and moved the lace, the bird, the swatches,

the doilies, the embroidery around for the longest time

until I was satisfied with the layouts for both sides.

I had to pack it up for Christmas, so this is when the computer layout

became the key with stapled corners of the fabrics.

Yes, I am sloooow at these things, but the sham is now finally finished.

It is lined in cotton and opens on either end with 16 matching

mother-of-pearl buttons I was lucky enough to find in my collection.

After considering big mismatched 70s buttons of blues and yellows,

I decided to let the shell buttons calm down the overall design instead.

The warm side.  Summer and fall?

A beautiful old piece of embroidery.

A bird applique cut from a vintage tablecloth. 

It was fun to create this sham.

I hope you like it, Sharon.

And I hope you enjoy pausing

on your latest 'slight bough'

in Rapid City, South Dakota.

See you the next time you wing your way home!

Resistance is Futile

If you execute a Google image search on the word, "Borg," you're going to see a lot of this: rigid and not very aerodynamic, the space ship of the drone-like, assimilating, arch enemy of Captain Picard and his Next Generation crew, the Godzilla of the galaxy, the Borg.

But this isn't my Trekkie husband's blog.  It's mine and as you all know, I like to talk fabric.  Did you know there is Borg fabric?  Made by Borg Textiles.  It's vintage, too! 

Here's a woman in a cube -- but not a Borg cube.  An ice cube!

And she isn't cold at all because she's wearing a Borg fur coat.

Apparently it was easier to find a needle in a haystack

than a coat made out of this soft, luxurious fabric - mostly sold out of NYC.

Enjoying it's heyday in the 1950s-70s, Borg Fabrics was said to be the largest producer of "deep pile" textiles in the world with manufacturing plants in England, Canada, Belgium, Connecticut, Georgia and whaddya know - their headquarters right here in my back yard in Delavan, Wisconsin!  I consider them the pioneers of fake fur - soft and yummy fake fur.  Or should I say "faux?"  If you believe this ad for their high quality coats, it's "soft and shimmery, pours like cream, light as a whisper, warm as the Golf Stream, and scoffs at moths."  And of course, "looks more like fur than fur itself."

According to this ad that probably wouldn't fly in our PC world of today, you shouldn't "blame the hunter" for mistaking this chic woman (see mounted head) wearing a Borgana coat for a prized hunting trophy.

Do you think turbans will come back any time soon?

 Not quite Zoolander's trademark "blue steel" look.

"You'd think it was born in the jungle."  Among the names Borg used for their fur lines were, "Borgana, Borgazia, and Borglura which was a short-lived longer pile fur which was not popular because it made women "look too fat" according to a 1957 Milwaukee Journal article.

Borg for the whole family.

Borg fabric coats are still popular with the vintage crowd because they have held up well.  You can find cozy coats of all kinds on sites like eBay and Etsy.  Here's a recent offering from Goodwill's online store.

This 1966 moss green (some might say "avocado") green bath set spills the beans that Borg Fabrics might be branching out from their lux coats roots.  Remember toilet tanks wrapped in fur?  I do.  But let's not stop there when we can also cover the scale, the waste basket, the tissue box, and the TOILET BRUSH HOLDER!!! In addition to apparel and home furnishings, Borg fabrics were also used for industrial applications including car shammies, paint rollers, work mitts and gun case linings.

The reason I researched Borg Fabrics?  While trolling around my local thrift store a few months ago, I noticed a large box (which I bought) of fake fur samples all with Borg tags.

And I didn't accept my husband's suggestion

that they had something to do with the Star Trek Borg...

...even if the Borg Fabric logo is surprisingly similar to the Star Trek Insignia.

Assimilate that.

Stocking Up

I'm a big believer in creating traditions!  My family members can attest to that.  When my kids leave home, I want them to remember all the fun they had growing up here participating in Valentine treasure hunts to Halloween songs.

One tradition (perhaps my first) was started sort of by accident and long before any of them was even a twinkle in somebody's eye -- a yearly Christmas stocking for my husband.  Here's how it started.  In order to ensnare my candy-loving boyfriend, I made him a stocking way-back-when in (oh my gosh this seems so long ago) 1976.  Gasp.  My diabolical plan worked!  I delivered the handmade sugar packed treasure on Christmas eve and sure enough he planted that first kiss on me the next day - Christmas!

Made from a McCall's pattern, it was a felt track shoe with one of his high school nicknames on one side and track team number on the other.  Little did I know that stocking would be the first in a long line of candy-filled creations that have inadvertently summarized our life.  I didn't plan to do it... but the next year I made another and another after that.

 Then he served a mission in Tokyo and I had to make one to send to him there.

Well, then we got married.

These stockings are simple: felt, puffy paint, glitter glue -- 

never taking much more than an hour to create.

Always celebrating milestones in my husband's life.

Like graduating from college

or the birth of a baby daughter.

Or a year jam-packed with buying a house, having a baby,

getting a master's degree and holding an extra part-time job.  Yikes.

 And we can't forget the Packers!

 Or the big Y2K scare...

 In 2000, Larry researched his deceased father's prisoner of

war experience and wrote a book about it for family members.

And then 911 happened.

 In 2006, my husband wrote a book about all the president's inaugural addresses

and their faith related comments.  Check it out here on Amazon.

 Here's the year Larry had very serious neck surgery in January

and visited Mt. Rushmore in August.  Notice George's cervical collar.

You may remember two summers ago when all my kids

came home to roost for a couple of months between semesters.

This is a take off on the old woman who lived in a shoe...

And this is the latest stocking edition... from 2011.  There was a lot of political turmoil in our state last year and teachers... well, I don't want to get into it.  But this stocking illustrates how it was stated that some teachers live high on the hog... so I made light of it by planting a picture of Larry in his '99 Ford Escort waving a fist full of money.  Perhaps a bit sarcastic... 'nuff said.

What will be the subject of this year's stocking?

I'm starting to think about it.

Several things happened this year...

a cross-country trip to drop Chelsea at college,

s son who performed at Summerfest,

the death of a beloved brother, 

knee surgery,

Keaton's Band Revue...

Well, whatever it is, it will be the 37th edition of the annual stocking!

Merry Christmas!

May all your traditions be meaningful and fun.

The Curious Case of Beautiful Button... Cards.

They just don't make them the way they used to.

I'm talking about button cards.

 Who designed these mini works of art from days gone by?

"Hi, What do you do for a living?"

"Oh, I'm a button card illustrator."

Button cards of today couldn't be plainer,

but cards of the past sometimes gave us a hint at their era...

like this one tells us mid 1920s by the hair and clothes!

This beautiful card shows us how the freshwater clam shells

were harvested from the Mississippi  River
before the buttons were stamped out of them.

Though tattered and old, this beautiful card is like an etching.

 The colors and tropical influence tell me this is from the late 40s.

I'm not so versed in children's fashions, but this card seems like 1920s, too.

Does anyone know why pearl buttons are always sewn onto foil backing?

These gold painted wooden buttons and card

seem like they're from the 1890s.

What do you think?

The hat, the hair... 1930s?

The illustrator of this card is suggesting these

tiny pearl buttons are for children's clothing.

I say we bring back creatively illustrated button cards.

Let's start a petition or something!