Serviettes /napkins.

Most of these are wanted by American members of the DTE forum, which is great because I don't know anyone in Australia who uses cloth napkins any more (except me)!  So, Beulah and Stephenie, here is a preview of what you will be receiving soon:
These are damask, which is a kind of woven linen or cotton.  If you click on this to bring it up close, you may be able to see the design woven into the fabric.

Three sets of embroidered ecru cotton napkins with crochet edges.  There are three of the one on the left, and four of the other two.

Three napkins and two matching placemats of cotton with beautiful crocheted edges.

  One single napkin of a kind, cotton with crocheted edge.

Two white cotton napkins with a yellow flower in the corner, and one older linen one with blue flower and crocheted edge.

Larger pieces, more whitework.

1

2

3 these three are cross stitched.

4

5 Beautiful drawn thread border

6 Machine lace border

7  These are two very long runners, plain cotton with drawn thread borders.

8  Some readers may remember these hideous cloths from the 70's when seafood was the 'in thing'!  This is machine embroidered.

9

10 Those round cotton things are covers of some kind with an elasticised centre.

Whitework and embroidered linens (including cotton)

Here are some more of the linens I wish to get rid of.  Some of the ladies on the DTE forum have requested specific items, so girls, have a close look at the following photos and let me know what you want.  Photos are numbered as previously.
1

 2  Guest/hand towels (2 huckabuck)

 3 Two duchess/dressing table sets.  Edited 30.3, the set on left is taken.

 4 Two duchess sets in cutwork.  The left one is pale green.

5   Sandwich tray doilies

 6 assorted round doilies

 7 assorted round doilies

 8 assorted round doilies

 9 Embroidered piece possible meant to be folded over and sewn at edges to create teacosy or other cover.

 10  Circular mat about 12" in diameter

 11 Centrepiece doilies

 12  Centrepiece doilies

Crocheted and lace items to go.

I have finally got around to sorting out two boxes of linens given to me in recent years.  There wasn't much in them that I wanted to keep for myself, so they have been sitting there until I made time to sort and photograph them. 

The photos I took today are just the lace and crocheted items.  I hope to have time tomorrow to photograph the embroidered linens, mostly doilies, a few hand towels, and other items.  Let me know if you see anything you would like.  I have numbered the pictures for easy reference.

1

2

3

4

5

 There is also a very long piece of crocheted edging, obviously meant to be added to a tablecloth at some time in the distant past.  I am very reluctant to cut it into pieces, so if somebody can make use of this in its entirety, I would be very happy for them to have it.  For this photo, I laid it out on the dining room floor to give you an idea of the size.

Quilt Show at Lower Plenty.

Today I visited the TPG Quilt Show at Lower Plenty.  It is on again tomorrow from 10 am to  4 pm and is well worth a look.  The venue is the Senior Citizens Clubrooms at 68 Lower Plenty Road.
I took a few photos which can be seen on my Needlecraft shows blog here.

Replying to the comments on previous post.

Glad to see some interest in this lot of vintage work.  My response to the first five people is as follows:

Sharon – you are welcome to those two sandwich doilies,  let me know when you can come over and collect, as I have some other stuff you might be interested in.

Valerie – I have heaps of beaded jug covers already, so am happy for you to take these.   Please email me with your postal address.

Sylvia – I’ve emailed you direct  :-)

Cheryl – can you email me direct so we can discuss your linen collection further?  I have more that might interest you as well.

Lynette – glad to see someone from DTE, even if I don’t know your ‘AKA’ on the forum!  I am so sorry, but the hand towel went today....my husband’s cousin was over here and I was showing these to her.  She was admiring the towel so I asked if she would like it, not really thinking that anybody else would want it!  However, the crocheted collar is yours.   Email me your address.

In case some of you don’t know where to find my email address on the blog profile, it is

gandkwil@hotmail.com

Gifted linens now sorted out.

I have washed and pressed all the linens that the generous lady sent me last week.  I laid out a piece of dark blue fabric to put the crocheted items on to show up their patterns.  I will only be keeping a few items from all these, as I have so much already, so I'm hoping blog readers and members of the DTE forum reading this will take some off my hands!  Whenever I am given big collections like that, I am happy to give away what I don't want, so just email me with any queries, or leave a comment here.  I've put notes underneath the photos indicating which items I will be most likely to keep.

 The crocheted "Success To The Allies" will stay with me.

 Will probably keep the above doiley as the stitching is beautiful.

 Will definitely keep this little gem!  Can't wait to embroider those little chickens :-)

Still deciding on this...I have had hundreds of unfinished cloths over the years, but ended up selling or giving them away to other people, as I never seemed to get the time.  But there isn't a lot to do on this one to finish it off, and it helps that the threads were kept with it.

Linens found at Geelong.

Some friends took me to the Geelong Vintage markets today.  Ken wasn't well, so they offered to take me out for the day.  We had great fun going through the two markets, and bought some interesting bits and pieces.  There was a bit of linen around, but I'm guessing it gets picked through regularly by people who go to the markets often.  I found lots of doilies, but these two were by far the nicest for quality of stitching. 
The Australia cloth is of course printed, but it is huge, and will be great when we have a lot of people over here for lunch outside on two tables pushed together.

This small cloth would not look like much to anybody else who didn't look closely at the stitching, but as soon as I saw it, I knew it was something special.  The second photo is a closeup where you can see the fine work.

Purchase of linens from Etsy.

I don't buy much or sell anything on Etsy; eBay was the site that I haunted for years, but rarely these days.  I still receive emails from Etsy alerting me to sellers with something that I might like, and for the most part, I usually delete them without even looking.  But this time last week something must have caught my eye, and I'm so glad it did! 
An unfinished apron,with the remaining threads needed to finish it.  Not that I will, mind you - the stitching is exquisite - way past my standard!  So if I don't keep it as it is, I'll ask my colleague at the EGV if she would like it to finish.

The duchess (dressing table) set below was a real prize for my collection.   Embroidered fuschias are uncommon on linen - flowers are usually daffodils, daisies, roses, etc.  Years ago I paid nearly $100 for a tablecloth that had fuschias embroidered on it, so as soon as I saw this set I had to have it!  Beautifully worked, and the gorgeous crocheted edge sets it off perfectly.