Mexican tea towels

Love... and a burro. Can it get any cuter than this?! Here are some Mexican cuties on an unnumbered sheet. I have 5 of the 7 tea towel designs - my sheet is cut and incomplete. Also on this sheet are some Mexican-style borders for guest towels, a cute panholder design, a pattern to make felt baby shoes, a bib pattern, and small floral designs for baby clothes.

this pattern donated by

Little Girl DOW

Okay, I'll admit I squealed with delight when I saw these sweet little girl days of the week patterns. It's quite embarrassing for me to squeal with delight, so I'm glad there was no one around... :) There are 7 girl designs with the words: Cleaning, Baking, Washing, Ironing, Shopping, Mending, and Resting. I love the 40's-style drawing - it reminds me of old Blondie funnies. Also a cute winter hats border to use on clothes, some nautical designs (which give me terrible 80's flashbacks - ugh), a floral motif for a tablecloth, and 3 cute baby designs, one of which has a baby with a crown and scepter as if to say "I'm the man..." :)

I have one complete, uncut sheet from Eydie.

this pattern donated by

Mailorder 2-937 - Kitten DOW

This is a large, red-lined sheet with tons of different projects. The cute kitten days of the week towels are 1 project, with this cute fuzzy kitten doing various tasks with the words: Cook, Wash, Shop, Sew, Iron, Clean, and (for Sunday, I presume) Worship. Lots of lazy daisy designs in flowerpots for kitchen curtains and a panholder, and a big amazon parrot design for a luncheon cloth or "yard ornament" saying (as all parrots do, I suppose) "Keep off the Grass." :)

I have one complete, uncut sheet from Eydie.

this pattern donated by

About Workbasket patterns

The Workbasket was a mailorder magazine that began publication in 1935. It was filled with project ideas, lace and needlework patterns, and iron-on embroidery transfers.

Unfortunately the embroidery transfer sheets don't say "Workbasket" on them anywhere! But they're usually very large, red-lined sheets with many different project ideas and stitching directions. Also most are numbered, somewhere on the page, with these numbers or these numbers.

More about the Workbasket:

• a great history of Workbasket magazine
• index of Workbasket embroidery transfers
• index of Workbasket embroidery transfers #60 - 100
  

A very special present!!!

So, it's time for me to tell you about a very generous blogging friend of mine, Eydie! Not only does she make some of the sweetest embroidery pieces I've seen, she recently surprised me by mailing me some vintage transfers she wasn't using. I went to the mail expecting to find one or 2, but there were so many I could hardly count them! A modest count of this motherload is over 50 transfer sheets!

I'll be sharing what she shared with me over the next few months.

Every time you see this little icon (embroidered by her) you'll know you're seeing a transfer donated by the generous Eydie.

Chicken romance

Yes, chickens do have romances. This is in addition to cats, birds, and puppies, whose romances you are already aware of... So, long ago, 2 chickens fell in love, and that love was immortalized the way most things were in the 50's... with awkwardly rhymed phrases on tea towels! The chickens didn't seem to be an ideal pair at first - he being of an "old batch" and she being a trifle proud looking (albeit cute) catch...



The romance was turbulent at first, and one might say that there was "plenty scratch"... but within time it was clear they were a "perfect match." (By the way, if you're not inwardly groaning yet, you should really get that checked out... your inner groan mechanism may be faulty or nonexistent) :)



The two chickens settled down in a "cozy thatch" and before 3 shakes of a lamb's tail had 4 lively chicks and had settled down into smug married-hood. (They are SO smug marrieds - just look at them!) :) Extra points to anyone who can explain to me the meaning of "natch"...

Polly put the kettle on

Polly's kinda cute, eh? I found this pattern wedged in with some other finds recently - she'd been cut out and traced over unflatteringly with black, red, and blue crayons. I took out a little tracing paper and did my best to find and re-create her original lines. This is a red-line transfer, maybe Workbasket, but it's not identified in any way. And, is it just me or does it look like Polly's got a pet boa coiled around her neck?