Good Things Come in Small(?) Packages: Woolgathering

What the heck?  Evidently you can not be too skinny, too, rich, or too wasteful?   Are ladies petite of size more supersized in trendy/spendy/wasteful habits than the medium-and-up general population of clothes-wearing ladies?  Many times while dumpster diving, I have found what seem like entire wardrobes of XS, S, P and 0- to 2-sized clothing relinquished to garbage cans. In one go, I find a volume equal to 2 big, black garbage bags or 5 or 6 brown paper grocery bags.  Sometimes just a few thing left on top of a garbage can.

Oddly, there have been very few M, L, or XL finds on my excursions in spite of the US having a typical size of 14.  Are these ladies more frugal or or those sizes more difficult to replace? Thrift stores have a more even distribution. A friend tried to donate her size 0 to 2 clothes and was gently rebuffed by a women's shelter as their need was for larger sizes. Clearance sale items in first-hand store tend to have lots of smaller sizes on clearance, not so much in the middle, and perhaps never had large sizes to start with. Few brick and mortar stores offer plus sized clothing--Lane Bryant and Torrid are two destinations I can think of, perhaps more choice of larger sizes online?

Before I had a teen daughter, I washed and dried (on a hot setting) these finds and offered them to my nieces and petite sisters-in-law. I donated to a food pantry that had a clothing distribution. Now my daughter has dresses, velvet gowns, coats and jackets for all seasons and occasions, cashmere sweaters (1 new with a tag that read $120), dresses and cardigans in all colors of the rainbow by
J Crew. A friend said that we must had rich neighbors and that she could never find things like that in her neighborhood.  We bask in the reflected affluence of our neighbors.  High rents and high prices to buy homes nearby.  But! I have also found things near her house too!  I just looked. She was right and she was wrong.

I'm reading/have read/about to read several books on related topics: Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash by Susan Strauser, very interesting and excellent, delicious writing about quilting, reusing, mending, brings to mind boro cloths; others: Where Am I Wearing: A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People That Make Our Clothes; Where Did My Clothes Come From?; Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Secondhand Clothes.

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Oh! Christmas Tree! Whereforth Art Thou Christmas Tree?

This is not our tree. This is not our living room. This pretty tree appears momentarily in a free ad in our local Craigslist. Free listings like pine needles expire quickly. 

One of my favorite heirlooms is a silvery aluminum table top tree from a great aunt and great uncle. It was a treat to visit their bungalow, feeling enveloped in their pink and black tiled kitchen and coordinating bathroom, their sun porch housed a collection of pinned butterflies under glass.  Their home was a time capsule of the 1940 and 1950s in the 1960s when I was a little girl. I was fascinated, the only other kind of butterflies I had seen were the live ones that landed softly on me in the prairie grasses in countryside around St. Charles.  

Where is that countryside now?  Buried under concrete, asphalt, and malls.  One statistic states that only 1/100 of 1 percent of the original prairie and oak savanna exist, that's like one penny out of 100 dollars. Mostly around railroad tracks and desolate Illinois cemeteries. Where are the butterflies?  In my memory, and hopefully in the fringes.  My aunt and uncle also live on in my memories.  Also their nippy chihuahua, he does not rest so quietly.  An annoyed and vengeful neighbor of my uncle's poisoned his dog in retribution for dog droppings in the alley.

As for the tree is with us, quietly waiting in a large box, waiting for it's moment to shine. The silver branches push into a wooden pole with drilled angled holes. The stand is padded with paper to hold the thin stalk upright.  Shiny deep blue and green balls sparkle, a rotating color wheel, prone to overheating, a gift from a coworker, shines up glowingly, alternately blue, green red. 

My dear, unsentimental children sadly regard this little tree as second rate.  They request a live tree. Stubbornly, I am loathe to purchase one.  I silently begrudged the salesperson in the hardware store parking lot the $35 my husband paid one year.  Since then we freecycled one  away from a professor who was getting ready to travel home Christmas week, one Craigslist free section posting of freshly cut one in a nearby alley (it was inaccurately advertised as 10-feet tall, which probably discouraged others from investigating), one I dragged home a block or 2 a day or 2 before Christmas Eve sliding the bottom over a slippery layer of snow.  It still had a personalized ornament dangling from its branches, ie, Joseph and Mary 2014, a clay couple holding hands.  My husband recut the bottom, and it was fragrant and beautiful 'til I took it down after 3 Kings' Holiday.

Clement is "willing" to "compromise" with an artificial green tree, but I'll take a walk around again in our "urban forest" this weekend to see if any neighbors are divesting themselves of their trees early. I'll give a secondhand tree a second home and a place in our memories.

Addendum:  Success!  Midday walk to drop off coffee ground to community garden and finch food to their spot, found 3 bouquets worth of protea, hydrangea, palm fronds, purple liantris, and the highly sought after live Christmas tree, thank you neighbors ;-)

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gift from the dirt under my feet, blue bottle

 I was in the basement when I saw a small, round reflective shape poking  through the packed earth floor.  I got curious and alternately gently dug around  with a sharp plastic implement and

swept around brushing away the loosed soil kinda like an archaeologist on a dig.

 

The photos in the background are color photocopies of photos from my parents' album. 

Underneath I wrote stories from their lives.  These 4 are part of a 12-pieces series.

Project was inspired by Tony Mendoza, a Cuban American photographer, who paired moving stories and photographs about his family and going back to visit Cuba. 

 

I was tickled and delighted to find this intact bromide medicine bottle. 

I remember reading that people buried their own trash on their own properties. 

 

 As a child I found marbles in my mother's garden left behind by the children who live there.

 

Another time several years ago I found a larger, light blue bottle neck sticking

 up out of the soil on a site that houses had been torn down. 

The neck was broken on that one.

 

The little clothes pin girl hanging from the light cord is wearing a crocheted dress.

 

 

It must have had a bottle stopper at one time. I like the shape of the mouth.  It washed up pretty well the first time. The encrusted soil on the inside came out after additional soaking and suds. 

The little outdent (opposite of indent) is a droplet of water hanging out.

Holding it different ways in a attempt to read the raised printing.

Pretty hard to make out from the photos: the lettering says

 BROMO-SELZER

EMERSON

DRUG CO.

BALTIMORE, MD

 

http://www.ehow.com/about_5461048_much-bromo-seltzer-bottle-worth.html

 

According to information in the article above it was made prior to 1915 when the Maryland Glass Company started making threaded necks for metal caps to screw on.

So happy to get a treasure from the past.   And cobalt blue too!  Jinkies! 

 

Also found a vintage porcelain glazed wash basin (white with a black rim),

 aqua tool box or cash box, and mail box. 

Not underground but in piles left in a "junk" room.

 

Thank you to the unknown people from the past for leaving traces and treasures behind.

Impromptu clothes closet

This is a partial view of our back hallway.

I am pleased with my little neatening and repurposing project. 

I found a 4 or 5 tiered plant stand in the alley with little wooden trays. 

One day some of the trays gave up and fell to pieces to the floor. 

So this was the result of a deconstruction.

I looked at the remaining metal structure and a light bulb went off in my head.

The crossbars that face the front and back are more frequent that the ones on the side.

There is enough clearance on the sides to hang jackets for

my 10-year old son above and his little sister below.

The rack is pretty lightweight, so it is good that it is weighted down by her more numerous jackets. 

To save on room I used the kiddie sized hangers for Wisteria.

Above for Clement, I used thin, full sized, yet lightweight hangers, also alley picked.

Clement's jackets used to be on a little, very diminutive coat tree that was too small for his jackets. 

It is shaped like a multiple pencils and painted in primary colors.

 I'll repaint and use for hanging purses.

 Wisteria's jackets and coats were bunched up in a tall, tangled heap on the orange fiberglass chair

(the chair was about 5 dollars at a thrift store and I carried home walking/riding on a bus midday).

It was a hassle sifting though to find what she wanted. 

Also no one could sit down to tie their shoes and now they can! Yeah!

A salvaged low and wide shelf has a second life as a shoe rack. 

It is out of frame to the right of the orange chair.

A big basket on top holds, gloves, scarves and hats.

Yes, many were salvaged (and subsequently washed) post moveout from neighborhood alleys.

Thank you neighbors. 

This a a good solution for now.  I know they'll need a longer space as the grow. 

I purchased coat hooks and will have to figure out how to attach them to the drywall safely.

Years ago in an Anthropologie store I saw some attached to vintage-looking,

 decoupaged paper-covered wood planks. Not sure how they were meant to be mounted.

I have saved bits and pieces of wood from the alleys with the idea of DIYing something similar using old maps, calendar images, illustrations from nature magazines or fairy tales.

The teal bin to the left is used as a hamper for dirty clothes at the end of the day.     

Yard Art in Disarray

Reed fencing, white lace mask, wire circular frames, iron trellises and iron torches, red velvet ribbons

dumpster dived at different times.

Iron and plastic flamingos.  Plastic swan planter is inside for the winter. 

Granite headstone used for stone carver's joke, one side is romantic vintage flower patter with name (perhaps unclaimed,) flip side has martini glass and guy identified by name and labeled a$$hole.

 The wind blowed Frosty down.

Unemployed gnome and elves. Headless penguin cookie jar.

Santa's sleigh will have to do.  Dune buggy is in the shop.