Pinterest is Broken

Do any of you guys use Pinterest? Have you noticed they broke the feed?

I totally get that they needed to add ads, but why the f**k do they have to add a bunch of unsolicited pins from boards I don't follow?

I follow over 2500 boards, surely there is content available to show in my feed...  I don't see any settings I can change to just see pins from boards I follow, so I assume I'm stuck with this. I used to enjoy poking around Pinterest to find good pins, but now my feed is mostly unusable.

Since it's quite easy to go back and look at my own pins, I still pin stuff in order to keep track of sites for future reference, but I honestly don't see the point of browsing anymore since 90% of the feed is stuff I'm not interested in.

Have any of you Pinterest users found the same problem? Are the pins in that feed actually useful to you?

Update later: Apparently, I'm a little slow on the uptake. I've noticed that my feed was steadily getting worse and worse, but I didn't really realize until today that there was practically nothing in it I wanted to see. Lots of bloggers have talked about the new feed, called the "Smart Feed."

I did finally figure out how to get rid of the unpaid pins. If you click in the box next to the user name and board name, an X appears. Click on the X and then select an option from the menu that pops up. I went ahead and told it to stop using my boards for inspiration. It was tedious, because I had to do it for every board, but I did remove the "Picked for you" pins.

My feed is still full of a bunch of ads for stuff I have no interest in, but at least I can now see some of the boards I actually do want to follow. I guess Pinterest has done me a favor; I now have very little desire to spend hours browsing their site.

Do you guys have any suggestions for what is next? Instagram?

Update in August:

I found an browser extension you can install to block the sponsored content. I just tried it and it WORKS!

You can download it here for free: pinBlock. While I had almost entirely stopped using Pinterest, I may spend a bit more time there again.

1930s Appliqued Quilts

I have a regular search in eBay that sends me alerts when period items I'm interested in are listed; one of them is appliquéd quilts. I'm surprised by how many stunning period quilts are listed right now. I really don't need quilts, because I already have 7 pieced quilts I've made myself for our 2 beds, but it is always fun to see what's out there. Just in case any of you are interested, I'll include some of them here.

This GORGEOUS cotton 30's Mountain Mist "painted poppies" quilt is hand appliquéd and hand quilted, with hand embroidered accents.  There is quilting around the appliqué and in straight line, grid, and poppy designs in the background, all at an even 7-8 stitches to the inch. The back is white, the hand stitched binding is solid green, and the batting is thin.  It measures 70" X 84" and is in excellent, sturdy condition, with a couple of tiny, faint age spots (hard to find) and no wear. $1,195.

The pattern was design in 1910 by Webster and published in the January, 1912 issue of Ladies' Home Journal. Webster's pattern brochure emphasized the "dainty flowers arranged with leaves and buds in graceful trailing vines." The original pattern was done in blue and green only, with a postage stamp border, while this one includes pink flowers with an open/white border. The quilting is superb, with quilting around the appliqué and in 3/4" grid, feathered, and pinwheel designs in the background, all at an even 8 stitches to the inch. The back and hand stitched binding are white, and the batting is thin. The quilt measures a generous 78" X 82" and is in excellent condition, with the occasional light age spot and no wear. $1495.

WELL QUILTED Vintage 30's Grapevine Appliqué Antique Quilt ~GREAT BORDER! This GORGEOUS cotton 80's (some fabrics are earlier) ocean waves/streak of lightning/zigzag quilt is hand appliquéd and hand quilted, with hand embroidered accents. There is quilting around the appliqué and in elaborate straight line, grid, ripple, and feathered designs quilted throughout at an even 10-11 stitches to the inch. The back is white, the hand stitched binding is solid green, and the batting is thin. It measures 76" X 90" and is in very good condition, with some light age spotting in places and no wear.  $595.

Amazing Art Glass Catalog

I found the most amazing art glass catalog recently. There are so many fantastic color pictures I cannot include them all here. It is the International Art Glass Catalogue by National Ornamental Glass Manufacturers Association of the United States and Canada. It was published in 1914. These are just the color pictures I liked. There was also lots of clear leaded glass and beveled glass designs I am not including.

Embroidery Book 1909

I ran across a 1909 embroidery book by Grace Christie a while back but I guess I forgot to share it. It has a bunch of attractive color plates; I'm not including them all. If you want to download the book from archive.org, you can find it here.

A Broad Border

A Doyley (Doili)

A Cushion Cover

William Morris Art Glass 1910

I've been poking around antique catalogs again. This time I found a 1910 catalog from William Morris. It contains metalwork and art glass and if you'd like to download the catalog, you can find it here.

Interiors in Colours 1912

This 1912 book, 120 Interiors in Colours Designed by Modern Artists, was a pretty wild find. It includes some really beautiful interiors, as well as some weird ones. I took screenshots of the ones I liked the most. There were a lot of white interiors I didn't save. If any of you are interested in seeing the original book, it can be downloaded here.

Mueller Mosaic c1920 Tile Catalog

This will be the last tile catalog I include this time around. This is a Mueller Mosaic Tile catalog from approximately 1920.

Minton Tile 1909 catalog

I've been digging thru period catalogs again. I ran across a color Minton Tile catalog from c. 1905 that is quite stunning. Here are many color pictures from it.

Mott's 1914 Plumbing Catalog

Mott's Iron Works Modern Plumbing catalog from 1914. They had some pretty nice tile designs in this catalog.

Trenton 1922 Bathroom Catalog

I'm poking around tile patterns in bathroom catalogs again. These are most of the worthwhile pictures from the book Bathrooms of Character from Trenton Potteries Company in 1922. I'm going to do a series of these posts over the next few days showing pictures from different catalogs.

Lucky Coincidence

I was cruising through the 1907 Mott's Plumbing catalog again tonight trying to work out the shower design (again) and I came across this picture of the Plaza bathroom.

As I looked closer, I realized not only did it use the design I was considering for our shower tile, but it also had a nearly identical pattern on the floor to what we chose. This is pretty exciting for me, because I'm a historic research freak.

I still haven't entirely figured out the plan for the shower enclosure. I can't get a period shower as they aren't made anymore and I'm not rich enough to have one made, but I will do what I can to come up with something that doesn't look too modern. I was actually really surprised to see angle brackets on this shower enclosure from the same 1907 catalog.

If you look really close at the left edge of the glass, there are metals tabs holding it together. That makes me feel a lot better about having to use a few in our shower design. I guess there are really only so many ways to hold glass together, so it's not a huge surprise they thought them up by 1907.

Embroidered Pillow Designs (1910)

I've been poking around some of the period texts I downloaded a couple years ago and I ran across these black and white pictures of embroidered pillows. This particular publication is called "Home Needlework Magazine" and the photos are from the Feb 1910 edition.