i use to get these magazines also and noticed a lot of some of the things on pinterest. i have a question i really hope someone can answer is there a book or magazine that has some of the bathroom sets that pinterest has pictured like the owl and etc.and the toilet tissue covers that hang on the wall. also some of the weird shaped doily patterns all to crochet i have looked but they don' t have any around here. i sure would like to know to order and make some for christmas. if you can let me know i sure would apprecite it my email is diannemccoy2@aol.com

Vintage linens and doilies are very useful in many ways if you have a cottage, Victorian, eclectic, or casual style but might be a challenge in other decor. I have a lot of crocheted and embroidered pieces from relatives and I also buy them at yard sales and thrift shops - some have been free as many people don't value them and I hate the thot they might be thrown out. I've used them in various ways - sandwiched in embroidery hoops and hung as art, in a hutch 'dripping' over the shelves as an edging, center of table on top of a table cloth under centerpiece, in my cottage bedrooms on side tables and dresser. I have an old ladder I sometimes hang some on in one of my guest rooms. Sometimes I serve myself tea in a bone china cup on a vintage crocheted doily on a silver tray. Very reminiscent of a bygone more 'genteel' time. Many of my old treasures stay in drawers much of the time but I treasure them for the time someone spent making them. One of my favs is a very old piece whose provenance I do not know that is falling apart from age. Recently I washed it and blocked it and will use it again soon despite the stains and wear. It is a real treasure for me even tho I don't usually like things that are extremely shabby.

Susan_on, would you be able to share the recipe for the homemade concoction you spray with? We have problems with mice at our camp every fall/winter. Currently, I put moth balls in the campers and cabins when we close camp in the fall, but then we are left with the smell of the moth balls to air out in the spring. Would love to hear a good alternative! Jemdandy, the heck with thoroughly cleansing! I hate the filthy little buggers so much, that if I catch one in a trap (which happens a few times a year at the camp), I handle it the same way that I do dog droppings! I put my hand in a plastic bag, pick up the trap, pull the bag down around it, tie it shut, and straight to the garbage! Yep, I know I spend more on mouse traps that way, but I just don't want to rehandle them after they've caught a dirty disease spreading mouse! I know, I'm extreme, but I sure don't like 'em! Never have! I found a dead mouse in the spare bedroom the other day, right out in the middle of the floor. That was sure a puzzle. We live in an old, turn of the century (1900) house with an unfinished basement. We've been here five years. We do get mice in the basement, and other 'livestock' (a chipmonk once or twice) too, but have never seen a sign of one on the main floor or upstairs! All I can figure out is that maybe he came into the house in a box of something??? But even so, how did he end up dead on the floor? We once lived in a house for a number of years without any real mouse problems. Then, one winter they got really bad. Some came into the house, but the worst part was the ones that were in the walls. We could hear them there all the time. They actually chewed a few small holes in the ceiling panels! Poison, and lots of it, was the only way we made a dent on the populations. I wonder if someone burned down a barn in that neighborhood!

I like to do a little or a lot of needlework every day, knit or crochet. Right now I am crocheting a filet design cotton thread tablecloth for our dining room table without the additional leaves. I decided I needed another project, and this time it is for me. (I mostly work on baby items, but the stork has slowed down in our neck of the woods. I knit hats and fingerless mitts for homeless youth in San Francisco too.) I should be finished with my project in another 3 or 4 weeks. My goal is to have it done for Easter dinner. I have made small table topper cloths just for fun, and I spent a few years making another filet crochet cloth for our dining room table with both leaves in it. That one I would put away for months at a time, and so it took longer.