11 February 2014

Some things I collect are not books...

Moving empties all the closets. Bits and pieces packed carefully away are unpacked, looked at, shared with others, displayed, repacked, or discarded. Theoretically, skeletons may walk about. My mother-in-law, Betty Meggs Pipes, recently moved from the large family home into a much smaller assisted living apartment. These are a few treasures that have found a new home with David and me.

 The pottery we bought for David's mother, mostly in the late 1970s and 1980s during our vacations in NW New Mexico and SW Colorado, have moved from Betty's bookshelf to our entry.
When the Pipes family was stationed in Roswell, NM, where they lived when David started First Grade, Betty fell in love with the beautiful black on black Santa Clara Navajo pottery. A newly minted USAF captain with a growing family could not afford such luxuries, but David remembered her wishes and over the years we bought her three small Santa Clara pots:

larger pot by Hovenweep Navajo Manuel (Manual) or Janna (Yuana) "Morgan" AdaKai

pot with the turquoise by Johanna Herrera, Santa Clara,  our favorite although one notes the lesser quality of this pot in its wide, thick, unglazed opening;

the first piece we bought by the great Santanita Suazo, mother of Candeleria Suazo and Mae Tapia.


The small black and white "seed jar" is the very early work of the premier potter Robert Patricio, Acoma, NM.

The pot with the lovely colors is "Moving to Mesa" by Mountain Ute artist Norman Lansing.

My dining room table is piled with linens.
Some more lovely pillow cases which Betty bought
during her Asian travels. I had previously inherited some of those she gave to her mother. I love linens and have a number displayed in our guest bedroom.

I have been enchanted by the table linens and have spent a week working on stains in  a beautiful white on white embroidered panels and lace tablecloth. Finally succeeded. Cold water always. Finally, the last resort:  a long soak in dishwasher detergent, Cascade. The stain is gone. Now to iron. I seriously need to weed my collection of table linens and storing all these old/new additions will be an incentive, I hope.

Some things from Betty's house fit perfectly in mine. Some things will be a perfect fit soon: the Asian brass candlesticks that Charles had converted into lamps--need to be rewired and something done about the shades--are going to look great in our dining room. Some things are a bit more problematic like trains sets and bright red "sandbox" toys.

Not to mention the books.
So far no skeletons.




3 comments:

Unknown said...

Sara McLane here: I would love to re-home some of your extra linens if you feel the desire to weed some out. :)

K Cummings Pipes said...

Yes! Mary Nel asked me to pull outof Betty's cut-work white tablecloths. Pretty sure she intends them for you. There are also several more of Betty's on stained. I use a regular wash in cold water then check. Pretreat withmy table that I know I'm not keeping. So I'll find a box. The tablecloths may be Chlorox Stainfighter then wash again in cold. Still stained, step it up to OxyClean to pretreat, wash. If any of these steps made progress, I repeat them sometimes again and again. If that does not work, I try a wash at the hottest water I think the fabric will take. Still no luck, then it's the long soak: very hot water to dissolve powdered dishwasher detergent (Cascade) then soak for at least 24 hours. Do not ever put it in the dryer until the stain is gone.
Yellowed linens may be whitened by adding a cup or so of white vinegar. Mostly it takes persistence--almost any stain will come out of any fabric except polyester given repetitions.

Unknown said...

Fantastic tips!