Matching Historic Stencils to Period Pictures

Now that I've found so many old stencil catalogs, I noticed I am in a position to hook up some of the period drawings with the actual stencil designs. I thought this would be helpful for those of you still considering stenciling options.

The following room pictures appeared in the 1912 "Home Building and Decoration" by Henry Collins Brown.

Specifications for above picture: Ceiling and Drop - S-W Flat-tone Cream. Wall - S-W Flat-tone Bright Sage. Stencil No. 113.

Frieze Stencil No. 113

This stencil—or one very close to it—is currently available from "The Stencil Library" UK website. It is stencil Border No. 8.

Installed Wood Blinds

After I discovered that mini-blinds were period (1900), I've kept them in mind as a solution for finishing the windows in our bedrooms.

Originally, I had a plan to make quite elaborate applique Roman shades, but I'd never gotten beyond the planning stage. I did have the basic plain Roman shades I could have hung, but I didn't like the fabric with our refinished bedroom colors.

Shortly before Christmas I ran across a good sale (35% off) on Levolor wood blinds. I thought about it for nearly a week, but finally, in the interest of being done, I ordered them.

Unfortunately, our windows were not deep enough to accommodate the 2-inch slats, so I contented myself with the 1-inch. I ordered them with the fabric straps—to match the period drawing at right—in colors that matched the wall paint.

I don't love them, but they'll do. And it will be nice in the morning after we've gotten to bed too late.

Rug Designs from early 1900s

Once upon a time I thought I needed to buy some expensive "arts & crafts" style rug to correctly finish my restored home. But my recent research through old rug catalogs has convinced me that most any generic traditional style rug is appropriate. Machine made rugs were also available by the early 1900s, so there is no need to spend upwards of $3000 per room on hand-knotted rugs.

There are a number of rug catalogs that can be downloaded from Internet Archive:

• Illustrated booklet featuring Rugs, Draperies and Victrolas by H.A. Herz.
• Furniture including everything for the home, office and hotel. (1908)
• Illustrated Catalogue for 1909 by Bigelow Carpet Company.
• Hilger Bros.: rugs, carpets, linoleums, lace curtains, mattings, shades (1910)
• The Passing of the Carpet by Sanitary Mfg. Co. (1904)
• Telfer's Good Carpets and Rugs (190?)

There are more trade catalogs that include rugs, but this is a good start. My skim through these catalogs convinces me pretty much anything goes—southwestern, flowery, plain, traditional persian . . . you'll find it in one of these catalogs.

Again, here are some examples of rugs I copied out of the catalogs.

1910s Stencil Designs

I'm goofing off again digging through Internet Archive.  I need to be sewing...

I hit the motherlode today: I found both a 1910 stencil catalog by Sherwin Williams and a 1913 stencilling guide by Frank Gibson. (I actually found so much more, but this is all I feel motivated to post right away.) Anyway, I'm going to share my favorite stencil designs here for those who are interested.

This is the set I like from the Sherwin Williams catalog:

The Sherwin-Williams stencil colors.

Dog Time

Since we haven't been working on the house, Jeff has had extra time to work/play with Shasta. She's finally doing well enough at the dog agility training that Jeff can start participating in agility events. The weave was the final challenge, and she finally has it!

I signed up on a Northwest Dog email list and occasionally folks offer items for sale. We've gotten lucky the past week and found a couple of fun items for Shasta.

The first is a wagon. The harness is a bit too big for Shasta and needs to be altered, but it works pretty well. It has side panels to hold stuff in the wagon that we'll use once we get her comfortable enough to go to the market.

And another dog scooter.

I don't think I ever mentioned it, but during the remodel (summer 2011), someone stole Shasta's awesome Pawtrekker dog scooter. It was taken right out of our backyard and they didn't take anything else, so Jeff thinks they came just for the scooter. Our theory is one of the day-labor guys that floated through the project thought it would be nice for their kid to ride; you'd just need to pull off the side arm and it was a very nice, solid scooter.

Anyway, I looked into buying another one, but the company didn't make it with the side arm anymore. So, Jeff and Shasta lost their fun exercise option. Last week this one came across the NW Dog list. It isn't as nice as the scooter we had, and it needs some work on the brakes, but it is better than none.

I'm Tired of Mud

Our backyard is a muddy mess. Every time the dog goes outside she comes in with muddy feet, and we're tracking in mud too, so I avoid going into the backyard.

Last year, we managed to lay down a thick layer of mulch so it wasn't bad. But not this year, unfortunately, because the rain started in October and I hadn't thought about mulch in September. Geez, I was still in "summer" mode.

I took this picture looking out my sewing room window. There is a screen is on that window, so it obscured the view, but yup, look at all that dirt. (I'm trying to think of this as a blank slate.)

Even though I would really like to finish remodeling the master bathroom this year, I think we instead need to focus our energy on the backyard. I just can't do another year dealing with this mess.

I think we've got a good idea of what we want to do, but we don't have an actual landscape plan. I'm not sure whether it's worth investing in a landscape design, or whether we can just sort of wing it. I don't want to spend more money on paper, but I don't want to make Jeff crazy either as he tries to embark on the "plan."

As a reminder, among the projects planned are a side fence.

A pergola.

And a chicken coop (plus an enclosure).

Jeff would also like to put in a curving urbanite path from the back of the house down to the back of the yard plus a "paved" area beneath the pergola. Something along these lines:

Pasadena Open House Tour

Playful and permeable paving patterns

I'm hoping we can put together a more precise plan in the next couple of months so we can get started when the rains start to abate.

Medieval Tangent

Jeff and I are obviously taking a bit of a vacation from working on the house. That wasn't my plan; I actually had a few projects I wanted to finish by the middle of January, but it's clear from our total lack of progress they won't happen. We did work pretty hard this last year, so I feel entitled to take a month or two off from house projects.

This week I started a new sewing project: I'm making medieval-style costumes for a big SCA event coming up in Portland, called 12th Night. Jeff and I played with SCA for many years, but we've been mostly inactive since 2008. However, since this event is so close to our home, and we have many friends who still play, we decided we'd better go.

I'm making a style of costume I've never made before—something along the lines of the silk lampas robe from the 12th century (shown on the right)—mostly because it's comparatively fast to sew and comfortable to wear. (No corsets required!)

I'm using fabrics I've already got stashed in my sewing room. My costume is going to be very raspberry color, which probably isn't a period dye. But, I'm making these clothes for fun, and I'm not planning to enter them into any contests. So, I'm okay with using up old fabrics and going to play.

I'll try and take some photos to share once I have more layers of the outfits finished.