Content/Sidebar/Sidebar

 

On Sunday I met up with Kelly.  You remember Kelly ~ the one that gave me five boxes of linens?  She said she had a couple of lamps for me.  Let me tell you one of the great things about having a blog is that people sure do get a feel for what it is you like.

That sounded a little greedier than I meant it to.

Anyway – I got there and she, in typical fashion, had way more than a couple of lamps for me.  I left with four paper grocery sacks full of stuff and a hand-hooked rug.

Why can't I crochet like that?  Why can't I crochet at all? 

I left there with linens, frames, plates, lamps, a clock, a rug, vintage millinery and lace.

Isn't this clock lovely?  I think it used to belong to Marie Antoinette.  Okay maybe not, but she would have loved it.

Last night I had a bunch of bits of lace and crocheted doilies soaking in the bathroom sink and my oldest son came home with a friend and then came to me, rather horrified, asking what was in the bathroom.  I think he thought it was my underwear or something.  I had to show him they were doilies.  He was not convinced. 

   

I haven't been posting much this past week because I've been polishing silver.  And it is time consuming.  Miserably time consuming.

I started off using Wright's silver polish – the purple stuff in the tub.  It has served me well for the past 25 years.  But it just wasn't cutting for the heavy duty tarnish on the new (to me) set.

If you look at the tarnished bowl on the right you can see how the tarnish is a slightly different color half way up the bowl.  That's because previously it had been polished using the aluminum foil/baking soda and salt method (a method I do not recommend).  The set was placed in a sink or tub and the water only partially covered the pieces.   That part that soaked tarnished differently than the top part.  It is MUCH harder to get that tarnish off.

Even after polishing one of the pieces with a ton of elbow grease you could still see that line of demarcation.

So I went back to the store and bought a product called Tarn-X.  Nasty smelling stuff.  Smells like rotting eggs.  It is a clear liquid that you can either soak the pieces in (if you buy the industrial sized container) or you can dab at your tarnished silver with a cotton ball soaked in the stuff.  It's still time consuming but it does a great job of getting rid of the tarnish. 

You dab for a few minutes and then rinse the piece in cold water.  I guess you don't want the liquid to stay in contact with the silver for too long.  What I did was take a Tupperware container and sit the piece I was working on in it so any drips were contained.

It gave the piece a slightly yellow cast so after I finished removing the tarnish I went over the piece with the Wright's silver polish.

So here's a question for you silver aficionados – why would a silver set have two bowls?  One has handles and the other doesn't.  One has a lid the other doesn't.  Is one for lemon slices and one for sugar? 

Oh – and notice the frost on the deck railing?  Baby it's cold outside!

 

I would like to share with you a little e-mail exchange between Rick and I last week:

To: "Andrea"
Date: Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 7:59 AM

Good Morning,

How are things going this morning?

It was my mom calling yesterday when I was talking to you. She wanted to know if we would like her nice silver set that is in her dining room. I said I like it, but don't think we have room for it right now, but would check with you to see if you would like to have it now.

 

What time are you coming up today/tonight?

I love you,

Rick

To: "Rick Paulin" 
Date: Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 9:01 AM
 
Are you kidding me!?  I've been coveting that silver set for 25 years!  We'll make room for it.
Why on earth does she want to get rid of it?  
I love you too.
~A

Can you even imagine the utter casualness of the "I don't think we have room for it" ??  I think my eyeballs just about jumped out of my head when I read that.   Honestly.

There is something going on with my camera and my pictures are turning out really grainy.   It's too bad because I don't think I can adequately convey, in words, how gorgeous it is.  It has this unique coffee pot that it pivots on a stand for pouring. 

The set weighs about eight million pounds and is in desperate need of a polish.  And, needless to say, is now in my hot little hands. 

 

I can't believe it's January 5th already and I have to go back to work.  What happened to my vacation?  Where are all those projects I was going to complete? 

I did work a little bit on my table runner.  But not enough to post any pictures of the progress.  Let's see – what else did I do?  I bought material and a pillow form for a new pillow using a vintage scrap of a quilt.  But then I thought I really needed to work on my other unfinished projects before adding to it.

We did start the year off with a sparkly clean house and yard.  Scrubbed everything up and all took care of all the piles the pile fairy left laying around. 

Hopefully things will pick up around here and you won't have just a boring old candle display to look at.  I'm hoping 2009 is a creative and fulfilling year for all of us.