Vintage Christmas Tablecloths

Hello!  For fans of vintage textile and fabric, etc. I want to show you my collection (meager as it may be at this point) of vintage Christmas tablecloths.  I just love these colorful cloths.  It's not every holiday season that they are all pulled out and used, but I can't help myself, I just have to keep collecting them even if all I do is get them out and look at them.  If others of you adore these as much as I do please comment and let me know about your collections as well.  I'd love to find other bloggers interested in vintage items like these.

  These are two of the first ones I picked up.  The first one is smaller - I tend to like the small ones the best.

One of my favorites - and then a close-up of the
corner.

This is the village scene, which is my favorite.  I'm afraid mine is a bit faded in the red areas, but still very nice.  Here's a close-up of it. 

And the last one which is actually the first one I got.  These were all ebay wins - still looking for more and sometimes at estate auctions (another thing I love).

None of these are very rare patterns, my budget does not allow for some of the more uncommon patterns.  Oh well, maybe some day.  I'm happy if I can add one or two a year.  I'd like to try my hand at making some tote bags out of some of the larger ones that have alot of color.  I just haven't been able to bring myself to cut up any that I've collected so far.  But I've seen some on ebay and they are so cute. 

Speaking of vintage cloths and what not, I found two old doilies when I was getting out these table cloths.  Not sure who made them, but they were in my grandmother's collection.  They do need blocked and pressed, but even so I think they're lovely.

I took all these pics with my new Canon (well, new to me - it's not a new model camera).  I definitely need to spend some time with all the settings, but I don't think these turned out too badly.  What do you think?  Thanks for looking - gotta go pay some bills.

Camera On the Way

My new camera is on its way to me!!  Yay, now I will have my own to carry with me and take pix whenever I want.  Here's the one I went with.  It's a Canon Powershot A530.  I won the auction on ebay on Friday and I can't wait to get it.  I sort of wanted to go with a Canon because we already have Canon software loaded on our computer so I thought that would make it easier.  I read alot of reviews for this and for my purposes and skill level at photography, I think this will be fine.

I'm anxious to play around with it.  One of the reviewers said that if you take the time to read the manual and actually use all the features, you can get some really nice shots.  So, we'll see.

Wanted to show you my african violet.  It's blooming like crazy.  I love it.  This plant is very dear to me because I bought it for my mother over twenty years ago.  She kept it and nurtured it for many years and now that she's gone it's back with me.  I hope you enjoy it.  I just love the color.

As much as I'm not ready for cold weather and snow I am looking forward to my Christmas cactus to be in bloom.  This is a picture of it from last year.  I hope I get as many or more blooms on it this year.

More later.....

Love This Lavendar Top

One of the items I worked on this summer was this cute little top for my niece.  I love the color and the fluttery sleeves.  I used Sinfonia (one of my favorite yarns for clothing).  Not my own pattern but definitely modified by me since it was designed for an infant and my niece is 4.  The designer's name escapes me right now but I did post that on Crochetville earlier in the summer. 

I also made a couple of shrugs to wear over sleeveless tops at work.  I love this red one,

and then a basic black one.

I'm itching to work on a multicolored afghan, but it's been waaaaaay too hot for me to have an afghan on my lap.  I did start one but had to put it aside not only because of the heat but also I discovered thread crochet this summer and found out that I love working with thinner yarns.  Never thought I would.  I am working on a shawl in #3 mercerized cotton, but no pics of that yet.  It's a really pretty cornsilk color and I want to wear it to work this fall with a shawl pin.  Any ideas where to get really unique shawl pins?