Lost and Found – Part 2

Today’s lost and found treasure is one of the ones I had completely forgotten about: sheet music from the 19-teens.

The Hawaiian theme must have been popular.

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They're Wearing 'Em Higher in Hawaii - 1916
In My Dreams of Waikiki ( Maids of Honolula Danced the Hula Hula) - 1917

I am not a musician, so much of the charm of written music is probably lost on me, but sometimes I can’t resist these beautiful old booklets. I suppose I originally planned to frame these, but that obviously never happened, and they made their way to the bottom of a drawer.

A nice surprise on the back of In My Dreams of Waikiki:

 

The colors on the cover of Rose Waltz – mint green and red! – are gorgeous.

1913

 

The combination of the river drawing, the scrolly frame, and the multiple fancy typefaces on Swanee Ripples – WOW!

1912

 Aren’t these wonderful? The last thing I need is another vast collection, so in the future I will have to avoid the music section of antique stores!

 

Coming up in Lost and Found: more music, lots of books, and, of course, fabric.

Katrina

Lost and Found - Part 1

Here I am! I’m back! Did you miss me? I missed all of you – I didn’t even have a chance to keep up with everyone’s blogs.

After the craft room upheaval last month, I thought I would put things away and get back to sewing. Ha! I got completely distracted by all the wonderful treasures I discovered. Some of them I had completely forgotten about, while I’d been looking for others for years and had just about given up on them.

I have just about finished scanning and photographing all these goodies and I want to share them with you.

The first treasure is something I found in a giant stack of random papers in a local antique shop. I think it’s pretty cool because of its age, and because the German is printed almost entirely in the old script.

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The Housewife
Bulletin of the Women's World in America
1904        January           1925
Happy New Year!

 

My grandmother came to the U.S. from Germany in the 1920s as a young woman, all by herself. She probably had culture shock and bouts of homesickness. I imagine she learned to speak English very quickly, but it would have been a great comfort to read a magazine like this.

There are photos of winter fun in Switzerland.

  

Short stories, serialized novels and poems (along with gorgeous nouveau style art).

 

Because no German lady would waste a moment in idleness, a page of “Modern Handicrafts for Spare Time” – subtitle “to pass the time on long winter evenings”.

Under “Everything for Home and Hearth”, ladies asked for their favorite books and records in German, shared recipes and stories, and one asked if other readers could send letters or cards with stamps for her son (who probably now has a priceless stamp collection!).

Here is my best effort at a translation of the almond cake recipe. It’s interesting to see how different it is from the detailed directions we are given in modern recipes.

Almond Cake

A half pound of chopped, raw (unabgezogene?) almonds are added to a mixture of 6 eggs, ½ pound of sugar, and the grated peel of a lemon, that has been beaten until foamy. Next add 2 ounces of flour, as well as the "snow" (I assume this means beaten whites) of 6 egg whites. Line a cake pan with butter, then spread finely crushed zwiebacks or toasted breadcrumbs, fill the pan with the cake batter, and bake at moderate heat for about ¾ hour.               From Mrs. Laura M., Iowa

 

The advertisements are mostly straightforward and understated, which surprised me. There are none of the cure-all claims one usually sees in publications even today. There is a full page dedicated to a hemorrhoid pill, but other than that, they are mostly one-column ads like the ones above.

Of course no women’s magazine would be complete without fashion, and here we have the pattern section. 

The reader could order these patterns from the magazine itself. (I wonder if anyone still has these mail order patterns stashed away somewhere.)

And that’s Die Hausfrau – January 1925!

Katrina

A Fine Mess

It was such a simple plan: I’d move some of the stuff off the shelves so I could brush the feather duster over the top layer or two of grime. Then drag the fabric bins out into the hall and run the vacuum around. A good couple of hours and I’d be done, with a nice clean room.

That was Tuesday morning.

This was the situation by Wednesday afternoon:

 

My simple plan did not include allowances for investigating the contents of each and every container, deciding I didn’t want half of it, then deciding whether I wanted to throw it away, give it away, or sell it, and then reorganizing the remaining half.
 

The good news is that as of Friday night I had all of the to-go stuff out of the room, and it’s looking pretty clean, open, and conducive to creativity again.

 

The bad news is that all of the stuff I took out hasn’t really gone anywhere, it’s just sitting in the hall. I guess that’s some sort of progress?

 

Katrina

Is It May Already?

Looks like two whole weeks flew by while I snoozed (actually sneezed, mostly).

There are a few things going on, but my daily activities don’t lend themselves to photography or blog updates. Examples:

I sat in a spot of shade on the patio, while a hummingbird visited the flowers on my bright red shorts.

Of course I did not have my camera at the time.

 

After two weeks of daily workouts and no pie (okay, minimal pie), this number refuses to get any smaller.

 The scale must be broken.
 

I pulled this dress out of a pile of UFOs from last year, made some progress on it, then ground to a halt again.

It should be cute though, if it ever gets finished.

We have hit our first 100-degree day already, so I’ll just use the summer sun as my excuse ... for everything.

 

Katrina