This is an unworked small tablecloth, with a cute Sunbonnet Sue design (I don't consider this a Crinoline Lady). I've been trying to decide how to stitch this one - it could look good as a kind of redwork, ie. just done in one colour using outline stitch, because the lines are very simple. But it could look equally as nice using a variety of stitches and colours. Any suggestions?
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From the same opshop mentioned previously, this tray cloth was only $2!! The writing says "Hullo! Good Morning" and the koala and gum blossom are the only motifs on it, but the crochet edge finishes it off nicely.
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I bought this Crinoline Lady doiley at an opshop that was posing as an antique dealer. Even though the design is lovely and the stitching well executed, the crochet edge is coming away, and you can see on the bottom left of this picture where there is a hole torn in the material, thus ruining that part of the embroidery. The saleswoman charged me $5 for it! In a better state I would have been happy to pay $25, but as it is....still, it is nice.
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I'm not sure what this item was meant to be used as, because this is only one end of it - the material has been cut across the other end, so I'll never know if it was a runner or table topper. Had to have it though, for the lovely stitching in this corner. $2 at the opshop!
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Half of a centrepiece, beautifully stitched in crisp blues and white on linen.
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This is stitched on a very light almost sheer material, in a traycloth size, but it is so fine, I would never consider using it for that purpose! She must have been an expert embroiderer; this stuff would be so hard to work on, and the stitching is perfect.
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One of a matching pair. The blue stitch has me so curious - it looks almost like Chicken Scratch, which is normally stitched on gingham.
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On seeing this pair, one of my friends said "ugh, how tacky" - I think she was remembering those flying ducks ornaments that used to be so popular mid 20th century! But this traycloth/placemat and matching napkin caught my fancy...and the stitching is perfect.
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Unusual tray cloth; I've folded it so you can see the opposite corners. Never seen a Spanish dancer on one of these cloths before.
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Forgot to include this older style centrepiece when I was scanning the others yesterday. Nice, isn't it? I have lots of cloths with tiger lilies, but not in a cocktail glass/vase!
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Top half of a cute doiley..
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...and the bottom half!
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One corner of an unfinished tablecloth. Pity the material is such an awful yellow.
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Lovely cushion cover on that brown cloth that seemed to be around during the 1940's...was it because of the War and they could't get proper linen?
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So many new additions to my linen!

I'm sure Ken thinks I have doubled my collection over the last two weeks - the house has had linen draped over everything in nearly every room. I have been cleaning another lady's collection for her, as I mentioned on here last week, which has meant putting as much as I can fit into the laundry tub every evening, leaving it to soak overnight, and hanging it out on the clothesline the next morning. Later in the day, I bring it all in (wet or dry) and drape it over clothes horses and anything else until I'm ready to iron it, usually after tea. Our house looks like something from my linen reference books - they have photos of European manor houses and castles, with their linen draped elegantly over the furniture. Mine wasn't really elegantly draped, but I did love seeing it everywhere, while Ken just got sick of it! Just thought of something - I should take some photos of it while I still have it around.
Mind you, 'K' has collected it from here twice, and I've taken some back to her too, so it's not actually accumulating into unmanageable heaps. 'K' is pleased that one of my friends has been buying some after seeing it here, as it is cash in hand for her without having to list on eBay and then wait for it to sell. Mind you, I've been allowed to choose which items I want to buy first! So, while my collection hasn't doubled, it has certainly increased, helped along with a few more wins from other sellers on eBay...here are some photos to keep my readers happy. I'll post the rest over the weekend.

Square doiley with neat and pretty stitching in one corner.
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Centrepiece featuring an unusual design, very dainty stitching.
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Centrepiece with art deco style floral work.
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More gorgeous stitching on this centrepiece - lovely vibrant colours like the others in this lot.
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Centrepiece doiley with an interesting design...art deco again?
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I was delighted to find this centrepiece - carnations are such a rare flower to be found in embroidery. And they have to be stitched well to be recognisable as carnations, which these are.
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My final post for tonight - the third sandwich tray doiley. So pretty...
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I have dozens of sandwich tray doilies, but couldn't resist a few more. Isn't the one on the left cute! And I am very partial to autumn toned embroideries like this one on the right.
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Not a spectacular piece, but to me it is exquisite in its simplicity.
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When Ken saw this one among the hundreds on the table he said "Ooh that's nice. Is that yours?" And I replied "Well, it is now!"
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Sometimes scanning can never give the true depth of beauty of embroidery. This little doiley is simply perfect.
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Assisi style doiley. I have so much of this type of stitching already, but can never resist another in a different colour scheme!
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One end of the larger doiley in a duchess set of three.
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More about my World War 1 Peacock postcard.

Several people have been very interested in my Peacock Postcard (June 18th), so rather than tack a comment on the end of the original post, I am replying on a new thread. Melissa wanted to know the dimensions of it. It is standard postcard size - perhaps a tiny bit smaller, as postcards are a lot bigger these days than they used to be! 5" x 3" in size.
Pam, this is so old, I am sure there would be no copyright problems if you were to copy it on to your hard drive from my blog and play with it! Would love to see it in one of your CQs.
SharonB, this is the third one of these I have, and yes, they do have a fascinating history. For those readers who don't know, these cards were hand stitched by French girls to sell to the Allies during WW1, so they could send a pretty message back home to their wife, Mum, sister, or whoever. One of my cards has a very touching message written on it by some young soldier, and I will wonder forever if he made it home.

Some fine additions to my collection.

I was lucky to recently meet a lady who has an enormous collection of old linen that she has amassed from various relatives and auctions. She doesn't know much about linens and lace, so I offered to sort it out for her and categorise it, as well as wash and iron whatever I judged in need of it. She was very happy to let me take it all home, and my little car was literally filled to the roof with everything. I took some photos of the car when I got home, and some more when I got everything out of the car and on to the patio in the back yard, before I took it inside. Ken came out and the look on his face was comical - I should have photographed him too! "Have you bought all that??" he gasped, and I said "Yep, I went to an auction today!" then I laughed and told him the truth before he collapsed!
I mentioned on Patra's Other Place that I have two weeks off work, but I omitted to say over there that much of my first week has been taken up in sorting this linen out. It is all over my 'linen' room (aka the spare bedroom) in piles on the floor and bed. I had a friend come over on Saturday to help me, as while I know a lot about embroidery, I am no expert at all when it comes to crochet, lace, etc. but this lady is. We had a wonderful time going through it all, and she was a great help. Most people would think I am mad offering to wash and iron ANYTHING, but I am one of those odd women who actually enjoy ironing, especially vintage linen. I have the chance to study it closely while I am ironing, admiring the handwork done so long ago by unknown embroiderers. So for the past week, our clothesline has been draped with tablecloths and doilies every day, after having been soaked overnight in Napisan which cleans everything up so beautifully. Would you believe the wretched clothesline broke today? Only two lines, but grrrr...bad timing when I have so much to put on it in the coming weeks.
My new friend is so pleased with what I have done so far, she allowed me to choose anything I wanted to keep for myself, before she starts listing it on eBay. She offered to pay me in cash, but I said I would probably end up using that to bid on her auctions! so it suited us both to do it the other way. Here are some of the pieces that I have scanned so far. I have scanned more, but will put them on next time, as I know for some of you still on dial-up, it can take ages for these pictures to download. Enjoy!

I tried for about 15 minutes to improve this scan, but gave up. It is impossible to show the true shade. This is one end of a tray cloth, exquisitely stitched in the one colour, which is very shiny, and looks so gorgeous on the linen which isn't quite ecru, but just a soft white.
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This shows one half of a traycloth or oblong centrepiece in an art deco style embroidery.
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More art deco embroidery, hand crocheted edge as well.
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The other 'sunrise' style art deco doiley.
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I love art deco designs, and this is a classic example - one of two similar doilies.
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This arrived from England today. One of the loveliest runners yet to grace my collection.
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Now this was a real 'find'. A tray cloth put out by Semco, an Australian embroidery supplies company that was very prolific in the first half of the 20th century. The whole cloth wouldn't fit on the scanner, so a brief explanation is in order. The design is not meant to be completely covered by stitching; just embellished in a few places with bright colours. For example, the leaves on the tree in green, the man and lady (not visible here) could have their clothes sewn in red or blue, and so on. There were three or four other designs in the shop, but I didn't have enough cash on me to buy them all.
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Teacosy found in Elsternwick for $5 - what a bargain! Is that crochet in the middle? The edge is hard to see in this pic, but I was wondering if it is tatting?
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I bought these privately from a friend who was going to list them on eBay for 99 cents!! I offered her $5 for them and she was very pleased to accept that. I was very pleased she did too - aren't they a cute set of napkins?
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I found this in a local opshop last week. It looked vaguely familiar, so I was a bit worried that I had doubled up...again! But no - when I looked through my collection, I found one very similar, but with a different church/castle embroidered on it. I remember seeing a set of six on eBay once, but missed out on them. Ah well, maybe the other four will turn up in opshops....
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Vintage items from a variety of sources.

My collection has been greatly enhanced the past few days by these four items. The first two scans are of a suppercloth that was started by Ken's Mum around 70 years ago. There was only one corner to do, and the edges to finish off, but she never got around to it. I don't feel quite so bad about my UFO's when she gives me hers!! I finally finished it off last week, and a friend is going to crochet the edge for me.
Ken and I took his Mum to visit some elderly relations on Sunday; Ken's Uncle A. who is 91 and his wife G. who is 88. They still live in their family home, as does Ken's Mum, but they hadn't seen each other for a few years, as at that age of course, people don't get about like they used to! It was wonderful to see the three of them catching up on news of grandchildren, and reminiscing about the past. When I brought out MIL's suppercloth to show her, the conversation switched immediately to the 'fancy work' they all used to do in their youth. Auntie G. disappeared for a few minutes, and returned with the napkin pictured below. She said it was all that was left from a set that she had stitched, and she had forgotten it was still around until she was looking for something else recently. I asked if she had kept anything else that she'd stitched and she said "No, I gave most of it away to friends and family for gifts. Anything I kept for us, wore out eventually and ended up in the rag bag". Ken and his Mum looked at me and chuckled - I had nearly choked on my cup of tea!! I was given the napkin, as Auntie G had no further use for it.
Finally, some lovely items via eBay. Another crinoline lady teacosy from England, and a magnificent apron from N.S.W. When I saw this on eBay, I pounced - put in a huge bid, but nobody else wanted it, so I got it for the listed price of $25. Hard to tell in this pic, but the stitching is superb, and the apron has been hand crocheted all around. There are no ties though, so I suspect this was done to enter in a show, as so many of these beautifully stitched aprons were. You could hardly wipe your floury hands on that now, could you!!

This pattern is on all four sides of M.I.L's cloth.
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One corner of the suppercloth started by my mother-in-law.
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Teacosy from England which arrived in today's mail.
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One napkin is all that survived from a complete set including the tablecloth. Everything else went into 'the ragbag'....sob!!!
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Sorry about the wrinkles - I was so excited I couldn't wait to iron this apron before I put it on the blog!
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Car accompanying the lady in green on this apron. Looks a bit like a Packard to me...which would make the apron's vintage around the 1920's.
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This is a tea-towel that was stitched for me by a lady in a Yahoo Embroidery group I joined. I sent my tea towel to another person, as it was a 'secret exchange', so I don't know yet who did this one for me. I will find out eventually I guess, but I am having awful trouble with Yahoo - everytime I log into my Yahoo Groups site, my PC freezes. EVERY time! Why????? Can anyone help me?
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This is one end of a gorgeous table runner from the U.K. One of my e-correspondents over there tells me that this kind of thing is seriously UNDER-rated in the U.K., and they just love it when the Aussies snap them up on eBay!
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The Calico Cat is in Melbourne!

I just had a lovely chat to Amy, who is over here in Oz on her honeymoon. They have only had three days in Melbourne and are off again first thing Friday morning, so we didn't get a chance to meet. But she assured me they will be back in Oz as soon as they can, because they are absolutely loving us (of course, we Aussies are very lovable ;-) So hopefully next time they are here we can get together for a coffee or a nice Aussie wine at one of the wineries they missed out on yesterday...SSSSHHH! I am not going to steal Amy's thunder and tell you here where they have been, as she tells me she has heaps of great photos to put on her blog when she gets back home. Keep watching The Calico Cat for updates!