Sunday Evening

Our rains have returned in earnest after almost 4 1/2 months without, and instantly the house is cast into gray gloom. I'm used to it, though, so apart from having to peer and squint a lot, it's life as usual in the Pacific Northwest.

The garage sales have dwindled to just about nil, though I did make it out to one on Friday and one on Saturday. I'll show you the goodies I acquired in a bit, but first I wanted to tell you about something that happened last weekend.

I was filming our granddaughter, who was pleasing her grandpa immensely by playing with the telegraph key, pretending to send Morse code. My daughter-in-law nudged me to point out Peppy and Wickham, playing a game tug-o-war with a floppy toy. You might think, "Yeah, so what?" except that, until Peppy's surgery, he wasn't able to join in with the other dogs to play much. Now, with his repaired back knees, he's able to be in the thick of things. Again, I thank all the buyers who supported MyPalPeppy's Etsy site, helping to raise the money to pay for his operation. You helped make this possible!

I wish I could post the video, but my computer isn't cooperating.

I also want to report that I'm continuing to whittle down the mountain of unfinished sewing/crocheting/knitting projects which I committed myself to accomplishing a few blog posts ago. This week I hemmed another vintage coat and put it on my MelmacParadise site:

I also finished sewing some gift bags I'd had cut out for quite a while. So to reward myself, I allowed myself the luxury of starting a new project: making two Santa Claus bags out of this wonderful vintage screen printed cotton fabric.  I was quite pleased how well they turned out, and how enjoyable a project it turned out to be. Perhaps I've finally conquered my reluctance toward making drawstring bags!

Isn't this a fabulous print?

Ho Ho Ho!

 
Okay, about those garage sales...  

It seems to have been my week for finding interesting vintage paper items, or ephemera, as they're referred to on Etsy. It sounds so much more classy that way, doesn't it? 

Among other goodies, I found:

a big stack of 1967 Christmas Seals placemats

,

 

an assortment of unused 1930s shelf paper,

a 1980 Avon "customer appreciation" bird calendar, unused,

and a 1980 Circus Souvenir program

with a full sized poster inside, never removed!

Oh, and how could I forget to mention this?

A big double-size roll of vintage mod wallpaper!

All of these goodies will be appearing in my Etsy shops eventually.
First, though, I need to bake some cookies for my son's college care package, and that means I'll be sharing a recipe or two with you this week. Meanwhile, enjoy the beauties of autumn--they're all too short to miss.