A Christmas Walking Cane

On Friday, I remember a single moment from the past week.

“Hand me down my walking cane”

The most unusual Christmas gift I received this year was from my older daughter who thought that since my 84-year-old bones can’t handle much walking any more, I would enjoy a cane that commemorated all of the walking I’ve done in the past in some beautiful, wonderful places – most of them with her at my side.  She found just what she wanted at an antique store in Lebanon, Ohio – a vintage cane with metal tags commemorating hikes the owner had made.  It so happened they were tags from German places which we had visited over 25 years ago.  She bought a few more tags on eBay and I have a good start on a cane that reflects some of our trips:  Berchtesgaden, Herrenchiemsee, Schloss Neuschwanstein, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Indiana, Monticello, Gettysburg, Antietam, and Gateway Arch – St. Louis.

I love the worn and well-used look of the cane right on down to the tip.

I know more tags will be added – we haven’t even touched on Ireland and Switzerland yet, not to mention numerous places in the U.S.  I might need another cane.

The walking cane will have a treasured place by the fireplace where I can see it every day and think of all of the memorable walking I’ve done in my life.

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Joy Ginger Snaps

One of my readers commented on a vintage recipe for molasses cookies (recipe here) and asked if I had a 1940s era recipe for ginger cookies.  As a wedding gift in 1952, I had received the 1952 edition of Joy of Cooking which was a later edition of the 1931 cookbook.  I think these cookies come from the 1930-1940 era.  They are easy to make and yield a big batch of spicy, old-fashioned cookies.

• Servings: Approx. 80 1-1/2-inch cookies
• Print

1 cup margarine, softened
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup molasses (Grandma’s, sorghum)
1 Tblsp. red wine vinegar
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
4 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp cinnamon
2 Tblsp. granulated sugar for dipping

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

In a large mixer bowl, beat margarine and brown sugar together until well blended.  Add egg, molasses and vinegar – beat until smooth.

In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the flour, soda, salt, ginger and cinnamon.  Add to margarine/sugar mixture and beat just until flour is absorbed.

Drop by measuring teaspoon full onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Dip a small juice glass in granulated sugar …

and flatten cookies to about ¼ inch thick.  Leave 2 inches space between cookies.

Bake in preheated 375 degree  F oven for 7-½ minutes.  Remove cookies immediately to rack to cool.

Will make 80 cookies 1-½ inches diameter.

For 2-½ inch diameter cookies, drop dough by measuring tablespoon full onto sheets and flatten with glass dipped in sugar.  Bake for about 8 minutes.

Collectibles of the Week–Memories of School Days

I  have so many wonderful collectibles acquired over the last 80+ years.  Some were gifts, some were part of my life growing up, some are inherited, some were purchased at antique malls and thrift stores  – all are precious to me.  Some items are kept up year-around while others are brought out seasonally and on holidays.  Unfortunately, many priceless-to-me objects go undisplayed and unseen for years.  Each wek, I’m going to pull out an item and post COLLECTIBLE OF THE WEEK.

The day after Labor Day will always mean the first day of school to me, even though my grandchildren and great-grandchildren have been in school since the third week of August.  It just seems appropriate for school to begin again in September.  I brought out my antique granite ware alphabet plate (pictured above), made in Austria.  My daughter painted the old-fashioned school scene.

Birthday gifts one year were this 1930s era pencil box with the Scotties along with a little case that has a 1929 postage stamp affixed.

Inside the box are all the items needed to start out a successful school year, including a holder for a pen nib.  We used these pen holders and dipped the pens in an ink hole on our desks for penmanship lessons and adding new spelling words to a thin pad of paper that was covered in oilcloth.

I’m lucky to have my father’s two arithmetic books which he would have been using in about 1918-19.…

…and four of my mother’s books with notations from her eighth grade class in 1929-30.

I loved school from the first day to the last day of the last year and enjoy seeing these old keepsakes.

Collectibles of the Week–Time to Make Concord Grape Pie

I  have so many wonderful collectibles acquired over the last 80+ years.  Some were gifts, some were part of my life growing up, some were inherited, some were purchased at antique malls, gift shops or thrift stores  – all are precious to me.  Some items are kept up year-around while others are brought out seasonally and on holidays.  Unfortunately, many priceless-to-me objects go undisplayed and unseen for years, so each week, I’m going to pull out an item and post a COLLECTIBLE OF THE WEEK.

Once a year, if I’m lucky, I find Concord grapes at a farm market and make Streusel Concord Grape Pie.  It’s probably my favorite pie and I get out my vintage pie-baking utensils to make it.

There’s a little bit of work involved, including putting the cooked grape pulp through a food mill ….

The dough is rolled out with a one-piece rolling pin my mother gave me over 40 years ago.

I use a pie pan that my toddler children gave me for Christmas in 1956 after they carefully saved up enough Wilson evaporated milk labels to get it.

Actually, I don’t use the pastry blender at all but have it among my collection of depression-green handled utensils.  I once heard Alton Brown, TV food expert, say that mixing with the hands provided exactly the right amount of warmth for making good pastry and that’s the way my grandmothers, mother and I had been doing it all along.

I used my vintage kitchen items to make a Streusel Concord Grape Pie on this past Sunday and it’s still my favorite.

 

If you’re fortunate enough to find some Concord grapes and don’t mind spending a little time peeling them, here is my recipe.  https://lillianscupboard.wordpress.com/2007/09/24/streusel-concord-grape-pie/

Vintage Scenes Scrap Wall Hanging

I’m still working on my goals for this year of using up all of the small scraps I have.  I found a lot of fussy-cut scraps from some material I bought 5 years ago to make this apron which won a blue ribbon at our county fair.

I used a few more pieces in small projects but still had a lot of scraps that I couldn’t bear to throw away.  I used them along with some green/yellow scraps to make this wall hanging.

I pieced the squares on-point and for the corners found a vintage pillow cover fabric among my scraps to use as corners.

I still had some odd-shaped pieces of fabric left and put those together with scraps to make a cover for a large cushion.

I’m down to one large bag of scraps to work with now – brown, tan, and orange shades.  I might make my goal of emptying all of the bags by the end of the year.

Collectibles of the Week – Covered Dishes

I  have so many wonderful collectibles acquired over the last 80+ years.  Some were gifts, some were part of my life growing up, some were inherited, some were purchased at antique malls, gift shops or thrift stores  – all are precious to me.  Some items are kept up year-around while others are brought out seasonally and on holidays.  Unfortunately, many priceless-to-me objects go undisplayed and unseen for years, so each week, I’m going to pull out an item and post a COLLECTIBLE OF THE WEEK.

I love all of the covered dishes I’m sharing this week.  The rooster and hen are on my kitchen window sill throughout the summer …

In September, I take down the chickens and put up the squirrel and acorn …

In November, naturally, the turkey has the prize spot …

The mini-dishes which are about 3 inches across the bottom are perched somewhere in the kitchen year around – a hen

…and a cobalt blue scottie

All of these dishes were birthday gifts throughout the years.  The rooster, turkey and squirrel go back to the 80s and 90s and are reproductions.  The large hen and the two small dishes are vintage, probably from the 1940s.

 

Collectibles of the Week – Vintage Wall Pockets

I have so many wonderful collectibles acquired over the last 80+ years. Some were gifts, some were part of my life growing up, some are inherited, some were purchased at antique malls and thrift stores – all are precious to me. Some items are kept up year-around while others are brought out seasonally and on holidays. Unfortunately, many priceless-to-me objects go undisplayed and unseen for years. Each week, I’m going to pull out an item and post COLLECTIBLE OF THE WEEK.

WALL POCKET
A vase usually with a flat back for attachment to a wall

I have a small collection of vintage wall pockets that are displayed year-around. Three of them were gifts from my daughter …

 

…and one pocket I bought about 25 years ago because it matched my 1952 wedding china.

These pockets hang on one part of the overhang in my kitchen.

Another pocket from my daughter is another horse/horse shoe combination that hangs over my living room door …

I’ve heard some people say the horse shoe should be pointing up to hold in all the good luck and others say it should be pointing down to pour forth good fortune. I have one of each, so I’m covered either way.

A Swan Cushion Set

A few months ago, I bought a vintage folding chair at an antique store and made a cushion set for it.  I thought it was time to have a change of cushions and looked through my scraps to see what I could come up with.  Recently, I’ve been embroidering in the evening while watching TV.  My embroidery skills demand simple designs with basic stitches.  Actually, I prefer the kind of 1930s-40s embroidery that all of the women in my family did while I was growing up.  This design of a swan holding summer flowers seemed just right for summertime cushions.

I used a quilt pattern named Children’s Delight from my EQ6 software to make 5-½ inch blocks. The pillow measures 17×17 inches.  When assembling the top cushion, I added a 15 inch piece of 2-½ inch elastic on the back to hold it in place while on the chair.

I made an unquilted fabric seat cushion to keep the focus on the top cushion with the swan.

I had just put the finished set on the chair and left to get my camera.  When I came back to the room, I found that Addie loves the new cushions.

Collectibles of the Week–Scottie Cookie Cutters

I  have so many wonderful collectibles acquired over the last 80+ years.  Some were gifts, some were part of my life growing up, some were inherited, some were purchased at antique malls, gift shops or thrift stores  – all are precious to me.  Some items are kept up year-around while others are brought out seasonally and on holidays.  Unfortunately, many priceless-to-me objects go undisplayed and unseen for years, so each week, I’m going to pull out an item and post a COLLECTIBLE OF THE WEEK.

In line with my love of anything Scottie, I have a small assortment of cookie cutters.

The green-handled cutter at the top is one of my favorites, part of a larger collection of vintage cutters with depression-green handles.

I also like a red-handled Scottie and two plain vintage aluminum cutters plus a copper one from the 70s.

The card with the Scotty and recipes was a St. Nick gift one year and the red plastic along with the small aluminum cutter with an upturned tail give me a wide range of size and shape when I want to bake Scottie cookies.

Collecting Collectibles

Sometimes I wonder how I’ve managed to accumulate so many collectibles.  Here are two recent examples.

Yesterday, my older daughter and I stopped by an estate/yard sale and rummaged through the small items.  I found this small Hull pitcher for $3.00.  It has a repair on the handle, but I like these small containers for flowers, so that doesn’t bother me at all.

I worked in an office for most of my life and enjoy vintage desk accessories.  I saw this note/calendar pad for $1.00 and picked it up immediately.

 

Then I opened it and saw my father’s name “John Applegate” (he passed away in 1978).  That cinched it.  My father kept his harness horses in Barn A at our local county fairgrounds and we thought there was a very slim chance that the notation “BLD A” might refer to him some way.

I Googled the company name, Shepard & Young Tool Co., and found it was a business based in Birmingham, Michigan, incorporated in 1956 and dissolved in 1986.  It’s not likely, but possible, that someone used this corporate giveaway to make some notes here in Ohio.  Either way, I like the piece which has a 1960 calender.

So, I have two more collectibles to enjoy.  The pitcher will be used throughout the summer for the fresh flowers that my daughter arranges and the desk pad will set right by my computer with a refill of fresh paper.