CreativeSpace

the long soak or whitening vintage linens

Being a self-proclaimed bad housekeeper means that I'm usually scouring the internet to find answers for my various domestic quandaries. Margo at Thrift at Home and Heather at Home-Ec 101 are my usual stops so I rarely ever have a good tip of my own to pass along. Until today.

(horns trumpet)

Honestly, I didn't come up with it. This tip comes from my pal Alex. During the day he works at a law firm and at night he's using his genius to remove stains from fabric, and in particular, vintage linens. He's a magician, I tell you, and has generously offered his laundry skills more times than I can count. I've sent him all sorts of old tablecloths and napkins with stains that occurred years before I was born, and he has managed to restore the fabric to its former state of white snowiness and removed almost every yellowed spot. (He considers it a personal affront when he can't make an item pristine.) But now we live too far away for Alex to help, and I had to ask him to reveal the source of his secret cleaning powers.

The answer was surprisingly simple: time and oxygenated detergent.

 

It's all very simple. First I make sure the item has been through the wash and dried to remove any day-to-day food or dirt. I fill our beverage tub (it was given to me as a hostess gift to use for chilling beverages but it gets more use as a linen soaker) with eight quarts of hot water to start and add a scoop of oxygenated detergent according to their measuring guidelines. Stir gently to dissolve the detergent. I then drop in the tablecloth, napkins, etc. and add more hot water so that it's mostly covered. Using a wooden spoon, I poke the cloth around to ensure that it's saturated, and I let it sit. For a full 48 hours.

Alex stressed that time was the most important part of the equation. In his words, "forget about it." The older the stain the longer it needs to soak. I usually stir the contents once a day except that Little Bear loves to help. She pokes at it with immense enthusiasm, sending water splashing all over the bathroom. 

 

After 48 or so hours, I set the washer on delicate and rinse the linens. Most times I make it a double-rinse to get out all the detergent. Then I hang it up to line dry. (According to Heather, over-drying weakens fibers. Not to mention your burgeoning energy footprint.)

I've done this with three tablecloths since our move, and every single one looks good as new. Well, as new as any vintage linens look. If you give Alex's method a try, let me know how it turns out for you.

Happy soaking!

 

wing and a prayer curtains

We knew to expect severe weather Saturday afternoon but that didn't stop me from unpacking a box full of linens and setting up the linen closet. I carefully arranged piles of doilies and linen runners, inherited from my Grammy, as large chunks of hail pelted the house and wind bent the trees. Rain lashed at the windowpane, but I kept at my task, absorbed in the memories of hand-stitched tea towels and appliqued napkins. It wasn't until The Husband appeared with Little Bear in his arms (she had been napping) that I realized the storm had coalesced into a tornado warning.

My first thought: "But I was about to sew curtains!" My second: "We have no basement!"

Luckily we were spared. The closest tornado touched down two miles from us, and if you saw the news then you already know that many North Carolineans weren't as fortunate. It was a humbling experience to be caught in the melee of Mother Nature's ferocity, and my thoughts and prayers went out to those who suffered for it.

After the skies cleared, I returned to sorting and found an old linen tablecloth that I had never used. I operated under the general rule of thumb that if I hadn't used/admired/thought about a household item in over a year, then I thrifted it. It was a difficult rule to adhere to when faced with inherited items from my beloved grandparents, but there was only so much stuff one house could hold. The tablecloth was in decent condition with two minor discolorations, and I knew that if I returned it to the linen closet it wouldn't see the light of day for a long time. Probably never.

If you read Sew Weekly last month then you saw that a tablecloth was never just a tablecloth. Veronica Darling managed to turn a second-hand tablecloth into a fab dress and gave me an entirely new way of looking at second-hand linens. Mena came up with this using vintage napkins which also made my brain churn with inspiration. After Saturday's tally, I had enough napkins in my repertoire to invite the entire neighborhood to tea. (Not that I would do this. I haven't unpacked the tea service yet.) I reserved the napkins for a future project and addressed the tablecloth first.

My approach was loosey-goosey and emphatically unscientific. I measured nothing which accounted for one panel ending up a half-inch shorter than the other. After ironing the tablecloth smooth, I lined up the edges and ironed it in half. Then I took my pinking scissors and cut along the fold line and sewed a rolled hem with the raw edge. I folded down the top of each panel 2 inches (again this was not actually measured) and sewed it in place. The tablecloth needed no further sewing, because the other edges were already hemmed. Voila!

I'm very pleased with the results. I can ignore the mismatched length for now and am concentrating instead on sewing tie-backs. The linen weave is loose enough to let in light and for the Hound to move out of his way. (He needs to keep an eye on the small, fluffy white dog across the street. I worry that he thinks it's a bunny.) 

I have more curtain plans for the guest bedroom, but they won't involve such a slap-dash assembly. It will involve several vintage remnants of 1950's polished cotton. Woo-hoo!

settling in

I seem to have stalled out with unpacking. We're still walking around a box (or two) in every room, and I won't even enter the dining room yet because of the score of boxes stacked into towers, waiting to be opened. We're making due for the moment with my sewing table in the kitchen for meals. However, I need to finish sewing a shirt I cut out three months ago, and Little Bear is in dire need of summer clothes. So the sewing table needs to go upstairs but that requires me to industriously unpack things in the sewing room which means addressing the storage problem there...well, you can imagine where this is going.

Instead I choose denial (if I don't look at the boxes maybe they will magically sort themselves empty) and snapping pictures, small glimpses, of our new home. It's my way of making friends with the house, although I can't say yet that I like it here. It's still too soon.

The bird feeders haven't been hung yet, but that doesn't stop a number of birds from visiting our backyard. There's a murder of crows that hop through the thick carpet of pine needles underneath the trees, and I enjoy watching their antics. They're curious about everything and talk about it in raucous voices. There are a couple cardinals that fly through, a pair of wrens, and two robins that routinely strut along their territories with watchful eyes. The highlight of one morning was a visiting brown thrasher who stopped to peck at the remains of a suet cake left on the deck railing.

We now have a deck and two sets of glass doors, much to the delight of Little Bear and Mudslide both. Little Bear will stand beside the Hound with her arm around his neck as they spy on the goings-on in the cul-de-sac. She murmurs, "Mudsy. Good boy." Or sometimes declares, "Hug!" before she squeezes him tight, making his eyes bulge slightly.

Her first full sentence was uttered during the move. She said, out of the blue, "I like cake!" Ironically, I think she's had cake twice in recent memory. On her birthday, of course, and then with her Nonna last month. I appreciate the sentiment, especially since I baked both those cakes.

There are mature pine trees all around our house, planted in a haphazard manner. All the landscaping has that feel, so I doubt it will make any difference to our landlord if I start digging. Our neighbors have tidy lawns and flower beds, and although they're probably accustomed to our shaggy renters yard, I'm feeling the itch to get in the dirt. I'm contemplating raising tomatoes in a container garden, but I'm uncertain if we get enough sun. The pine trees form a deep canopy over the entire lot.

Besides, I have a novel to write.

new creative space

The best thing about our new house is that there's an extra bedroom. When The Husband and I walked through it for the first time together, I practically plowed over the man in my exuberance to see the extra room. "It's perfect!" I squealed. "I'm finally going to have my own sewing/writing room!"

"So I guess we'll share this," replied The Husband, narrowly avoiding my outstretched arms. His comment stopped my twirling cold. "We're not sharing this," I said. "Where do you expect me to have an office then?" he asked.

Uh-oh, his hands were gravitating to his hips. From the expression on his face and the way his forehead turned scrunchy, we were about to enter "the heated debate zone." I had to think fast. I couldn't give up my dream, especially since my fabric and pattern stashes had grown exponentially over the past few months, and frankly, it was starting to look like I might have a serious addiction brewing. "You have an office just ten minutes away, so you won't need an elaborate home office. You can set up your laptop in the dining room. Of course! It's such a logical solution. There are lots of outlets and a great window that looks out front and catches the morning sunshine. I'm sure you'll love it." As I chattered on about the virtues of the office-dining room combo, I gently led him from my new room back towards the stairs. Away from temptation and the future home of my absolutely necessary gazillion patterns.

During the following month I kept my eyes on the prize, despite his superb negotiating tactics and final days of desperate wheedling. Oh no. That room was MINE. And wonder of wonders, my steadfast, smile and pretend to listen perseverance worked. Oh sweet victory!

The first thing I did in my new space was to polish up my writing desk. It's one of my favorite pieces of furniture, built by my Uncle Jeff. In our old house, it was squished beside a radiator and a bookshelf with the guest bed hemming in the front. Here it's out in the open and shining beautifully. (So maybe I'll emerge from the pit of despair after all. See previous post.) My computer feels right at home on the fold-out table. I like to think of it as a mini-drawbridge to writing land. That's a corny thought, I know, but I've been so inspired by the new set-up that I'm going to check out a local writing group this weekend. *gasp!* Scramble for your fainting couches, my dears. Which means that I'm dragging out my novel re-write that has been stalled for months and months. (I'm afraid that if I don't finish it once and for all I'll be doomed to wander the earth like Marley's ghost, but instead of chests of money chained around my body it will be chapters of this dang novel.)

So the creative juices are flowing even if we're still living as savages amongst towers of boxes. The favored saute pan has been located, but I'm still on the hunt for the ricer. Really, how is one supposed to live without the basics?

finders keepers

I've decided that moving is the masochist's way of cleaning and organizing. At one point in our history The Husband and I moved every 12 months or so across half the country. At least twice. Thankfully that ended with our settlement here, but up until that point, we had moving down to a crazy, practiced science. Our possessions were few and streamlined and we constantly had a supply of cardboard boxes stored in our attic.

The move we're going to make in less than a month has assumed bigger proportions. First of all, we have actual furniture. Furniture for grownups. Like a solid walnut buffet and an antique china cupboard. Of course we'll be moving The Husband's living room furniture, remnants from his bachelor days. Frankly, my romance with the oxblood leather couch and cub chair has waned, and I've developed a full-blown loathing of the coffee table. It looks perfectly serviceable, but it's a monolith of marble and solid wood, and you need to hire the Incredible Hulk to move it. I'd rather rent a chainsaw and bust the sucker into pieces, but I doubt my husband would ever forgive me. How he could possibly love that behemoth is beyond me. And he has actually vowed, with a hand placed over his heart and perfect dramatic presentation, that it's the ONLY piece of furniture that he has ever loved. The only one! I wonder if the moving people can accidentally lose it along I-95...hmmmm.

This time our move is going to be different. Mostly because I'm not allowing The Husband to toss his crap, er, stuff in a box without sorting through it. No random receipts from three years ago, no Christmas cards that he forgot to mail (complete with stamps) but was too embarrassed to confess, no odds and end electronic equipment that somehow manages to all look the same. Of course I'm obeying the same rule. And with a much better attitude, I might add.

Just yesterday I stumbled upon a collection of perfume bottles that I had as a child. At one point my Grammy worked at a cosmetics company as a bookkeeper, and being the consummate frugal, she saved every sample and tester they gave her. This was years before I was born, and when I was deemed old enough (first grade), she began giving them to me. Every time I visited, she would disappear into a closet and emerge with a tester of perfume or tiny face powder that had never been sampled. Needless to say, I was fascinated by the stuff and wore the perfume in copious amounts. I remember my father having a heart-to-heart with me about how a little bit of perfume went a long way. I listened to him with a grave expression, all the while wondering why we were discussing this completely random topic. I figured he just didn't have the good sense to recognize a sophisticated perfum like Intoxication Toilet Water. Good grief, you must have been able to smell my approach from a mile away. I was a seven-year-old who smelled like an octogenarian. One without functional olfactory nerves. I believe the term toilet water has become self-explanatory.

When I pulled out the perfume bottles, some of them had evaporated into a molasses-like consistency but others looked perfectly the same. I felt compelled to open them, even though I could easily smell the scent that emanated from it a yard away. The perfumes got all over my hands, despite my ginger handling of them, and I mistakenly overestimated the distance and smeared Evening in Paris on my nose. Evening in Paris? Dear ones, if I ever make it to Paris and it smells like that, I want a full refund.

Other re-finds weren't as stinky. I had a lovely reunion with my Victorian butter dish. (My eternal thanks to Kitty for his sharp eye at estate sales and generous gift-giving.) Please excuse the tarnish. I just can't seem to find the time these days to polish the silver.

The Victorians knew how to set a table, didn't they? I've decided that the hooks on the side were to hold the butter knife.

And I rediscovered this:

Is it a bud vase? A knick-knack? Regardless, I like it too much to donate it. Even if I'm uncertain how to use it.

Every day has become one of discovery. I'm either loving the things I re-find or asking myself, "what the holy blue blazes was I thinking?" I hope to have more of the former in the weeks ahead and a whole lot less crap to move. Amen.