Hi from Anne, Actually, the cross stitch and other embroidery kits were not pieced. They were what we call wholecloth quilts. You got the size of the bed with the embroidery kits. Bucilla was one of the kit companies for those kits and I think they are still available today. They had many kits and the cross stitch and other embroidery kits were really popular. It kind of went with the 50's where the people considered all the hand work to be kits. Men often did leather work and copper work (not to say women didn't do that but the men considered those manly man crafts) and the women did tole painting, crocheted bed dolls (they were plastic dolls with crocheted big skirted dresses.), crocheted and quilted potholders and some quilts were made too, but mostly people were trying to get their lives back on track to recover from WWII, and then Korea came along on the heels of WWII. And there was the communist scare, and people were busy building bomb shelters in their back yards. I wonder today how many of those are still intact? We had men returning to work and women leaving the more industrial world, though they did still work, but more things like teaching, nursing and secretarial work. There was a focus on getting women to "act like women" whatever that meant. It meant women worrying about cooking nutritious meals, housecleaning, having their hair look just right, having frilly and basically useless aprons, and very pretty dresses with shoes and purses matching and women wore gloves and hats to church and going out. People focused on banning books. Did you know that there is a list of banned books every year. In the 1950s, I think was actually an attempt to ban Nancy Drew books as being shallow and poor literature, but in reality, Nancy Drew represented the new woman, having a nice car and able to be proactive and solve crimes (they were not mostly what we could consider crimes today). I read them all, and to this day I still could go back and read them again and enjoy them as much as then. A childhood friend and I would read the same books and then act the parts in her backyard of Nancy Drew. So much fun in those days. We did not have shopping centers or plastic (i.e. credit cards) yet, so we traveled on the bus to go downtown, visit all the five and dime stores as they were called then, try on hats and go visit Mode O'Day shops. How many remember those? How truly wonderful they were. And we had layaway. It was exciting to buy something on layaway and look forward to getting it. I guess cars and appliances were sold on time payments. Did you know that the sewing machine was the first thing to be sold on time payments, and within a year of when they came out, some 75% of households had one. It is funny to see a quilt of those times, for often they were almost totally hand sewn, but they would always use the machine to show that they had one for it was prestigious. And they often hired women to sit in the store windows and sew what are recognized as heirloom quilts with fancy quilting (I actually saw an exhibit in Los Angeles of quilts Barbara Brackman, our favorite quilt expert collected, and it had one or two of those as I recall. I always say that because some days I don't recall what I had for breakfast the other day. Chuckles. Well, that era brings back a lot of memories. Gals wore summer dresses that were full and pretty and those underskirts that made the skirts stand out and we had matching sweater sets and beautiful straight skirts with pleats in the bottoms and other beautiful styles. When women wore pants, they often were capris with men's style shirts with sleeves rolled up and the bottoms out with curves on the sides. Saddle shoes and pedal pushers were common at school. And the men and young guys looked so cool with their duck cuts and their cool pink or gray or turquoise shirts and nice pants with belts. No bums hanging out with ugly underwear, tattoos or shaved heads or beards and long hair in braids or pulled back, which comes from the prison crowd. Ask me how I know that. I am a student of criminal justice, and next year when I am almost 75, I should graduate. Whoo hooo! So I see a lot of documentaries and photos of the criminal crowd in prisons, and that is exactly what these guys wear. Pretty ugly. I love the days when men always had nice haircuts and nice shirts and pants and they were all handsome. Have a great Thanks Giving everyone who reads this. I purposely spelled it that way. We can give thanks for all we have and we can give to those who do not. Anne always

Urf. Not good news on the Reno_fan front. DH had his yearly review yesterday. Glowing reports. He met or exceeded all of the goals, both locally and nationally. His "reward" is that he gets to keep his job, but at roughly 80% of his former pay, starting TODAY. (They already cut his pay once this year, so this cut is substantial.) Others were cut even more severely, and a few were let go, so I suppose we should be happy that he still *has* a job. Unfortunately, this means that I will have to give up real estate for the time being, and get a full time job. So chances are, I won't have too much time to do any projects, and definitely won't have the budget for even the smallest of decorating "splurges" until I can find gainful employment elsewhere. I feel like someone punched me right in the stomach. Last year was killer for us, and nearly everything that could come our way DID come our way, and I was really, really hoping that '09 would be brighter. UGH.

Hi Suzieque - Yes, that is the correct name. You have the same thoughts that I did when I saw that the plaid was called "moire!" It didn't look the way I remember moire looking either, and I wondered if it might have too much of a silky/shiny look for my space. On the site it looks like a lovely fabric though, so let us know what it looks like in person when you receive your swatch, will you? Thank you again for all of the kind words and helpful comments! I feel slightly guilty for spending the $ on (unnecessary) drapes when what we really needed next was work done on the exterior of the house, but sometimes a girl's just gotta do what a girl's gotta do. ;-)

When I was married for the first time 50 years ago, my father's brothers and sisters (I think there were 5-6 still living at that time) gave me a silver tea service. They asked to me choose the one I wanted and I choose Reed & Barton's Winthrop Hand Chased. It is silver plate, not sterling. They were unhappy I got plate - hard to tell them the check needed to be WAY bigger for sterling! It's lived first on a Victorian chest and then on two different side boards for 50 years. My previous side board, though not as fine as my present one, was a better size for a set that is so large - that tray is HUGE! If I were choosing today, I'd choose antique silver-plate and a more classic, plainer style. But I love it and I love that they gave it to me, so it stays on my small sideboard. Here it is decorated for Thanksgiving a few years ago. At the moment, it needs polishing - yard man's doing a major silver polish next Sat!