Delightful, Delectable Brattleboro!

Carolyn and I spent several days in delightful Brattleboro in July.  We stayed in the roomy (which we promptly proceeded to fill with clutter) 'purple room' at the historic Latchis Hotel.  From our large front windows we could view the Connecticut River, bridges, New Hampshire mountains, and old train station (now a very good art musueum; closed, unfortunately, during our visit).  The art deco hotel, whose website motto is "It's Artful; It's Downtown," has a beautiful old theatre where movies and live performances are held.  The rates are very reasonable, a nice continental breakfast is available in the corner lobby.  The staff were wonderful!

Brattleboro is a thriving small city in Southern Vermont and provides a lot of nice walking through various parks and neighborhoods, plus lovely window shopping on Main Street.  One of the first shops I always head for is Delectable Mountain (display windows below), a shop like no other in the world!  The shop, which caters to fiber artists, designers, dollmakers and more, has been around for decades.  The owner is a trip!, and really knowledgable about textiles, jewelry, buttons, and everything she carries in the shop.  The way that items are displayed is very clever; for example, using stemware to create small glass shelves on which jewelry is displayed.  Buttons (antique and new) are everywhere in small glass plates and bowls.  I usually spend at least an hour perusing the button and antique trim offerings!  Then it's on to the gorgeous collection of fabrics.  Do not try to hurry your way through this shop!

A display in one of the Delectable Mountain windows, these enchanting porcelain dolls:

Delectable Mountain business card:

Our parents, Lulu and Arthur, were married in Brattleboro in July, 1941, at the 'House of Flowers Tourist Home.'  I don't remember why they went to Brattleboro, as they lived and worked in Hartford.  Probably there were a lot of elopements during World War II.  Even though their wedding predates the war, people knew a war was coming.  When Arthur graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Lulu remembered the speaker telling the graduates they would all be in uniform within a year. 

Lulu told me the evening they eloped she was waiting for Arthur in front of her office building.  A friend stopped by and asked if she wanted to go out for a drink, to which she replied she couldn't as she had a date with Arthur.  So secretive!  After they returned to Hartford Lulu continued to live with her sisters until an apartment could be found.  Her sister, Marie, saw the wedding announcement in the newspaper!

This amazing 'House of Flowers' is still on Main Street in Brattleboro!  Though the building looks in great condition, sadly, store fronts have been added and extend the front of the building to the sidewalk.  Eeek, I think one of them is a sub shop!  Carolyn and I wanted to find out more about the house, so we went across the street to the public library (old library photo below; the current library is newer).  In the local history section we looked through a couple of notebooks and found several pages relating to the house.  It was built by George Dowley in the late 1880's.  Mr. Dowley was president of the Vermont National Bank. 

The building, over the years, had many owners and tenants (Mr. and Mrs. Dowley had no children), including, naturally, a florist shop, Western Union offices, New Method Dry Cleaning, law offices, etc., and from 1937 to 1947, the 'House of Flowers Tourist Home.'  Presumably the hosts of the tourist home, Carl and Mary Hopkins, were also JP's and married many couples during the war years.  Lulu said that after she and Art were married their wedding dinner consisted of hamburgers at a local bar in town!

Brattleboro has several antique shops, and new and used book shops!  Carolyn and I sometimes race each other to the knitting and needlwork sections of used book stores!  Here is a charming book I found at one of the shops:

The Tasha Tudor Museum is in West Brattleboro, just a few miles from downtown.  There was a wonderful exhibit there of several dresses that were collected and / or made by Tasha Tudor.  They were beautiful examples of the mid 19th century style of dress that she loved to wear.  The museum is small, and the curator was on hand to give us a personal tour of the museum and costume exhibit.  Membership in the museum includes a lovely, color newsletter published two times a year.

One of the wall panels on our floor at the Latchis Hotel.  Please note the shiny spots, presumably made by a juvenile male staying at the hotel! 

Want more information about Brattleboro?  Click here. 

Lulu's Hats

My mother, Lulu, had a pretty good wardrobe of hats the last decade or so of her life. We invited people to take one of her hats at a reception we held in her honor after she passed away, and several people took a hat to remember Lulu by.

Here is Lulu in a hat that I now wear.

And here is a photo of Lulu, wearing a cute little pink number, sitting on Tom's bike in 2003. She looks very cute, like she is really ready to take off on that thing! There is a funny story behind this photo. I can send extra photos if requested.

Lately I have been building up my wardrobe of hats, having inherited Lulu's thinning hair genes. This past summer, on my drive up north, I stopped in Granville, Ohio and took a felt hat making class with Gail Maraman of Windy Crest Designs - click here. Gail is an artist in felt, and teaches classes in the history, culture, nature, and art of feltmaking, as well as the techniques for making traditional felt, nuno felt, watercolor felt, and needle felt.

I got a good start on my hat and finished it when I got home a month later. I did some more felting on the hat and realized it had shrunk more around the circumference, but the crown was a little tall. After I had needle felted yarn embellishment to the hat, to reduce the height of the hat I pinned folds into it, then starched and steamed it. After it had dried, folds intact, I then added a few beads and sequins. A buttonhole stitch was embroidered all around the edge of the brim. I like the way it turned out! Next year, on my way up north, I'm going to take more classes with Gail!

Displaying Special Hats - Decorative Head Mannequins

I have a couple very special hats, and for these I created a special way to display them. Here is a 1920's cloche, probably given to me by my mother 40 years ago. It is very fragile and cannot be worn. I purchased an inexpensive styrofoam head and painted it with several layers of Gesso; the last one or two layers I added a touch of color by mixing in some acrylic paint. I used a little powder rouge on the cheeks.

The wooden base was painted in a color similar to the hat. I then gave the head a necklace, using some antique beaded trim. The ribbon ornament, looking sort of like a bowtie, was made using Candace Kling's wonderful book, The Artful Ribbon.

Here is another special head mannequin. This time I strung beads and pinned them to the styrofoam (in case I need them later for another project!)

Here is a most special hat, one my mother wore in the 1940's. She loved this hat and kept it all those years. When she gave it to me I tried it on, and it was very small! I made this special head mannequin and put it on it, and it fit perfectly and made the hat look just right. Once again, the head and base were painted, with a necklace attached. The scarab pin my father brought home from Africa, where he was stationed in WWII.



A photo of Lulu wearing the hat, and my father, in his Army Air Corps uniform. My mother told me a sad story was behind the photograph, as they were attending the funeral of a college friend of my father. He was a training to be a pilot in the Army Air Corps, and died in a plane crash. I cannot imagine living during WWII, but my mother told us many interesting (and sometimes sad) stories about the experience. They sacrificed a lot for us.

My house is very dusty. I devised a way to keep dust off some of textiles. I use the many MANY vintage hankies I have collected over the years. When a guest stays in this room, I remove the hankies. It's easier to shake the dust from a hanky than it is a hat.

Lulu's Christmas Corsage

I should be wrapping packages, or putting up the fake tree, but I didn't feel like it today. I was thinking about my mother and how she always wore a Christmas corsage. She was good at arranging greens and table decorations, maybe she created the corsages herself. They were usually made with holly leaves, red berries, maybe some evergreen twig, and little white bells that looked like sugared Easter eggs. I wish I could find those bells today! Lulu always looked cheerful and upbeat during the holidays.

So instead of doing something practical today, I made a Christmas corsage! Not quite like the ones Lulu wore, which I wish I could reproduce, but it was fun to be in my studio and I like the whimsical finished product. Did I go to far? There is a lot of stuff in it -- pine cones and seed pods, tiny bells, leaves and a vintage red blossom, paper rose, stamens, feathers, even cats whiskers! (I knew I was saving them for something.)

To make the little bird I glued birch bark to card stock, and when it was dry I used my "Martha" craft punch to stamp out the bird.

I really like the cats whiskers.

Creative Women in Our Lives

My sister, daughter and I dedicate our crafting/living blog to the creative women who have influenced us the most in our lives -- our grandmother, Emma Vania, and our mother and Kathy's grandmother, Louise (Lulu) Vania Webb.

Although we did not meet Emma, we are fortunate to have a few of her embroidered and sewn pieces. Lulu told me that Emma was an excellent seamstress and, as a mother of six children, could take apart clothing from an older child to fashion a new garment for one of the younger siblings. She also made lovely embroideries in a variety of techniques.

Lulu was also a creative stitcher and an excellent knitter. Most importantly, Lulu encouraged all of her children and grandchildren to follow their creative paths through life, and she supported us in that endeavor in so many ways. She was our biggest fan! When the muse was away, I could always count on Lulu for a great idea to get the juices flowing again.

We will be posting photos of Emma's and Lulu's work here, and will share what we have created as well, with patterns and instructions when the design originated with us. We hope our "sketchbook" will inspire us as well as visitors to take a little time every day for the artist within.