Mason City and Clear Lake Iowa Trip

So this weekend I went on an adventure.  I got into my 59 Chevy wagon and went down to Mason City and Clear Lake Iowa (only a two and half hour drive from us).  Unfortunately it was a hot weekend and my wagon does not have air conditioning so it was quite a hot journey and while I did try to search out some antique stores on the drive they led me nowhere but lost on dirt roads by corn fields and cow pastures.  So on I went to Mason City.  The purpose of this trip was to meet up with some other vintage loving indivuals from the Midwest (and the Netherlands) that I know from the forum the Fedora Lounge .  If you have never visited the Fedora Lounge I highly recommend it as it was actually what led me to the blogging world.  I found the fedora lounge about a year  ago when I was looking for more information about vintage hair styling.  I found that and whole lot more information to fuel my love of all things vintage.  Now on the lounge I personally prefer to area for ladies called the powder room but after this trip will be investigating other areas more as I have made more friends outside the powder room.

Here I am by my car in Mason City wearing by the way my Swirl dress I had just on in the mail as I was leaving for my trip.  It was very hot this weekend in Iowa so I couldn't stand have my hair on my neck so I also am sporting a new snood in the pictures as well.

The first stop we made was in Clear Lake at the Surf Ballroom.  If you are not familiar with the Surf this was the last concert that Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper played before their ill fated plane crash. The ballroom originally built in 1933 burned in 1947 and was rebuilt in 1948.  This is a wonderfully preserved old ballroom with most of its authentic features still in place.  I tried to take some pictures for you on the inside but silly me I did not have my camera only my cell phone and it was not well it enough to do it justice but if some of my friends send me some of their pictures of the inside I will be sure to post them.

  The final picture is inside the dressing room (which is surprisingly small by modern standards) and our group picture.  We got lots of questions about what event we were in town for or if we were in a play.

I found clear lake to be a great little town with an old main street that while many building not still in their original function are still standing and many have been turned into antique stores which is what we were doing there antiquing.  The photo was of a local theatre that looks like it used to be the opera house in town.  Mason City also has some great attractions like Frank Lloyd Wright walking tour but it was really too hot for it this weekend so we chose the air conditioned antique malls of clear lake instead.  Overall it was a fantastic weekend and I hope to visit this area again in the future when the weather is perhaps more favorable.

Things Made, Things Found, Things Not Forgotten

OK so earlier this year I committed to a make a month and then never said another word about it on my blog.  I also committed to The New vintage ladies Make Do and Mend which I did say one thing about in a post but have been quiet about.   Another reader recently suggested I post my wash cloths (very beginning knitting projects) but OK here we go all that has been made lost and forgotten all in one blog.

Ok so this is my purple peasant blouse made months ago then lost I found it just last week in a bag of my sons I must have put it in there to transport and then forgot about it hence the wrinkles.  It is a bit on the large size it was made from Advance 4091 size 18. The 18 says it has a 36 bust but let me tell you that bust is anything but a 36 and therefore is very generous on me so I am now drafting a new pattern for a peasant blouse today.  Oh and also that skirt is one of my repairs I fixed the hook and eye on it.  Its straight up 70's but it has a 40's feel to it so I like it.

This is another dress repair.  I call this my ruffled wrap dress.  It fell apart on me at the Back to the 50's car show in June while I was wearing it!!!! Luckily I was sitting down when the wrap pulled out and I had a change of clothes with me and was near a restroom.  So above just one of the repairs I needed to make to the tie and side seem of this dress.

So as you can see I sewed up the side seam reattaching the wrap tie and also replaced the inside tie with the white ribbon as that came about in the laundry also.  So New Vintage Lady I have been busy.

The pillows I made with some Ikea Fabric from my stash so  I think they qualify for the New Vintage Ladies challenge of using a fabric you already have. I learned how to make french seams on these babies.  I made them through a craftsy class with Dianna Rupp.  I decided to take her class as I would classify myself as an advanced Beginner in the sewing world and only really started sewing a few years ago.  Now while I did take a class or two when I started nobody really taught me how to use my machine properly and this class was excellent for that.  My next craftsy.com class is sewing a saron dress with Gretchen from Gerties Blog for Better Sewing.  I have a feeling I will be taking my sweat time on that one.

Finally here are the said wash cloths. As I said these are very beginner knitting you can see the first on I made the ill shapen one with all the holes then the smaller ones beside it. Then I learned to purl and make a stockinette stitch and added knit stitches to keep them from rolling.

So readers thats is that.  More later I hope.  Have a great weekend everyone.

Thats a whole lotta Bakelite

OK I wish is was jewelry but still pretty cool and if I told you that I paid the same amount for a Bakelite brooch would you believe me?  Well its true.  My husband and I picked this up at an antique store up by the cabin a few weeks ago and since I have been a lazy blogger I thought I would post it.  Other than that I have been working on some sewing projects but nothing I wish to share as of yet.  I have also been knitting more wash cloths but am ready to move on to a bigger project.  I also started working on some embroidery something that I have wanted to get into for years and have played with but haven't jumped into a project until now I am also most done and will post results soon.  How about you how are all your projects and summers going?

flooding, painting, and purling oh my

OK this may be a bit of an exaggeration but we did just have some major rain and well the water table really filled up and or basement got wet.  I was woken up yesterday at 6 am by my husband because our basement was starting to take on water.  The good news was that the room that was starting to take on most of the water was almost empty.  The bad news was that it was empty because it was the room I was renovating to be my sewing haven.   I was supposed to spend yesterday completing my paint job on the room then Monday my husband and I were going to tile the floor.  Instead I spend the first too hours of the day try to keep the water from doing much damage with an inadequate shop vac and some towels.  The good news is that I did manage to keep the water from doing any damage.  The bad news is that it may do this again.  We did have this happen about 6 years ago when we first bought the house but we changed the landscaping outside and thought we had solved the problem but no such luck.  It only seems to do this when we got a major torrential down pour which seems to happen every 6 years or so.  I really shouldn't complain because I think some of my neighbors had it much worse than we did I know two doors down they had standing water in their sons bedroom and laundry room.  I heard of some cars floating  in some underpass areas so all in all we were pretty lucky.

So here is a picture that is our new wall you can see the towel soaking up the incoming water and that is my dads shop vac that we borrowed as ours was too small to really make much of a difference.  The boxes up on the file cabinet are the tiles we were supposed to be putting down this week end.  As you can see I had painted the new wall ( my husband hung the sheet rock but I did the mudding and taping which is why you haven't heard much form me as I have been busy).

On a positive note I have taken up knitting I have started with simple wash cloths.  I have made 3 with just a knit stitch and friday I learned purling and I finished a wash cloth with a stockinette stitch last night. My end goal is to make something like the sweater above but it may be a while before I am whipping up sweaters no breath holding please.  Oh and the above sweater is a free PDF here

Antiquing Finds from the Holiday Weekend

I have recieved my parcel that I forgot at the cabin, so know I can show you my finds.

I almost passed on this sweet little couple but them my husband walked up and commented on them and I know I had we should get them.

I got this cute little after shave jar for my husband to put on the back bar of his barber shop.

I got this little Florida pink flamingo creamer to go in my pink flamingo florida themed kitchen.

I also got these hankerchiefs I am particularly found of the one with the little yellow birds on it (please excise me for not pressing it before posting).

Well that was it but I could easily have spend thousands if I had had it to spend but as we are generally on a tight budget at  my house I generally look for little inexpensive things and I think the lady running the shop could tell that as she double checked me before ringing up the asian couple making sure I know they were 18 not 8 dollars and yes I did know that but it was nice of her to check.  

Take care for now readers I will be looking to do a give away soon as I am very close to a 100 follower mark so stay tuned and take care.

The Holiday Weekend

Hello lovely readers.  I have been pretty busy the last couple of weeks even though I am not officially working  right now I am have been going to meetings planning curriculum both for my self and my school district so I haven't had as much free time as I always think I will have.  I also have my children and while I love them they are little attention vampires and they keep me pretty busy.  This weekend of course was a big American Holiday our Independence day.  My In-Laws are lovely people and have a fabulous cabin up in the woods of Wisconsin so we made plans to go up there but first some lovely friends of ours got married on Saturday so we waited to go up so we could celebrate with them.  Here is a picture us at the photo booth our friends had rented for the wedding.  I have to say that it was very fun to look through the strips at everyone's pictures.  I think I would have gotten one of these for our wedding reception if I had know how fun they might be and if you are getting married in the near future look into it the pictures are a hoot to look at later.

Well that was probably the best part of the weekend but there were some down sides too.  On Friday a really big storm hit the area of my in laws cabin and lots of damage was done to the entire area.  My in  laws only lost power for the day a a few tree the luckily none fell on the cabin or garage or out buildings.  Unfortunately they did lose an old growth pine that will be sorely missed by us all as it was a lovely large tree but it was by some luck that this tree did not fall on the cabin as it was right by it and enormous.  Many others in the area have lost much more there were 11 deaths including an 11 year girl that was camping in the area.  Lots of property damage including our friends Mr and Mrs H who used to have us up at their cabin before my in laws bought one of their own.  My husband and FIL when and helped them cut a path down their driveway (I always feel bad getting stuck supervising the kids in these situations I would rather pitch in with the labor).  We felt so bad for our friends as they has such a beautiful tree covered lot and there is hardly a tree left standing on their property.  Their dock was lifted out of the water and bent and they had several holes in their cabin roof as well as their new garage.  When you look at the property it looks like it was clear cut.  The H's seemed to be in a state of shock and to tell the truth I could hardly blame then I saw at least 3 trees on their roof and large holes made by said trees.  On our way in there were power lines down right next to the road and while we did see utility companies out working on these there seemed a lot to do.  People in the area had formed cutting parties as their roads were covered in downed trees and no one could get out of the area.  The picture below is taken from the drive and you can see how it is still blocked and the trees down  as well as some of the trees on the roof.

Of course I did do some antiquing in the area when we drove in and just in case you think this is callous in the face of the disaster, I did feel like i was helping the local economy as I talked with the women at the antique store about how she needed to buy a generator for her daughter who was out of town but had lost power to help her out when she comes home.  I will have to post pictures of my finds another day as I forgot my parcel at the cabin.