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Sunday, August 21, 2011

Everyhthing Old is New Again....

I forgot to show you the new apple tree yesterday...So now it's old. Yes, it is unusual to see an apple tree growing in a jug, but in Zar's world anything can happen and usually does. He says that he is feeding it special plant food that keeps the roots small and not too many leaves, but produces an abundance of juicy fruit. Sounds good to me.

April and I met for coffee this morning. After we were finished we headed to Bookman's used book store just a few doors down from Beyond Bread, where we usually meet.

She had credit and I found a couple of books that I couldn't resist. I told her if she let me use her credit, I would supply her with a bunch of books to take back and get more credit.

The first one is one that I drooled over back in the late 60s. At the time it was a very expensive book for the size. It is a book on early textiles and the reason that it was so expensive back then was, it is all color. Not one black and white photo in the whole thing. I am thrilled to find it again. I wore out the Tucson library's copy at the time. I was probably the only person that checked it out for a few years....I loved the photos for ideas for needlepoint designs.
The other book is from 1944 and is called "Square Knot, Tatting, Fringe and Needlework"....They could have saved a lot of printing costs if they would have just called it Mostly Macrame and A Few Pages of Related Work... OK. So they wouldn't have saved any money, but the description fits better.

Tessie and I were rolling on the floor laughing at it before we passed the first few pages and the merriment didn't stop until the last page.

Take a good look at the diagrams on the first page....What's wrong with this diagram? The knots are done right, but....Look again. The tier of knots is a man wearing a dress shirt and suit jacket! I don't think that I have ever seen that before....Who wears a suit to do macrame???

Mind you, in the front of this book there is a book plate and several pages are embossed with "Harvard Library"! Poor Harvard probably discarded it so that they wouldn't be a laughingstock if anyone found it in their stacks! Maybe that's why there is a suit and dress shirt pictured. Could it possibly be that the only person that they could find to pose for the artist was a lawyer? Or maybe this is what they teach lawyers to do in their spare time at Harvard....It's possible!

There are patterns for dog harnesses and leashes, cigarette cases, many belts, lots of purses/bags, and bath slippers. There is even a bathrobe cord, described as a wampum belt....OK. Enough about lawyers doing macrame...

April had a surprise for me. It was a box from Seth's mom. She finds wonderful things in Phoenix thrift shops. She sends boxes of goodies every once in a while....This one has been hiding with Seth's photography equipment for about a year. April just found it yesterday when she was cleaning.

You may have to poke the photo to see everything. She sent Tessie a tiny silver witch on a broomstick and Zar immediately grabbed a square finding and a stud earring and made the flask that is in his lap. He also found a tiny silver frog. It is in his left hand, but very hard to see.

Anyway, thanks Jill for all the goodies! Tessie and Zar loved the selection of beads, chains, shells and other items. They are now divvying them up. No fights so far....

Last but not least, all of those macrame recipes got me in the mood to tie knots....That is, if I can stop reading that thing and laughing. I stopped long enough to string up the beading loom for a door mat for the trailer....Maybe....Or maybe I will just keep reading and giggling a lot.

See you tomorrow.

8 comments:

Lucille said...

Keep on reading and giggling, Casey. It's good the soul!

Kathi said...

Only you would notice the suit and sleeve doing that macrame! Cracks me up too! I really want to make a mini macrame plant holder. I've seen them on blogs but haven't tried it yet. I remember your owl.
Can't wait to see the rug!

Mary said...

Great apple tree, I wish I had some of that plant food. What great books. My husband worked at Harvard for two years, you don't see too many suits there anymore, things are much more casual today. Keep giggling and keep telling us about it, so we can giggle with you.

Drora's minimundo said...

Even with no suit on, we hardly see men doing macrame, but it takes you to notice and laugh about it. I love the apple tree too! Keep making me smile, these days here I really need it.

Unknown said...

Love your blog as always. I just reopened my blog under a new name. was thisandthatminiaturesandlife. Been awhile so I had some catching up to do.

Sans! said...

That is really funny, macrame men in suit!

Anonymous said...

I really like the apple tree. I have not been posting before because blogger would not let me and I found out that blogger did not work well with internet explorer. I have now switched to firefox and as you can see I can now post comments again.

Cris Bottaro said...

Hello, I'm a follower of your blog, and the more your eye works, the more I fall in love with him, is fantastic, really wonderful. Congratulations