CT Sheep Fair

Hey, you want to have a good sheepy kind of fun, come to the CT Sheep Fair in Tolland, CT next year.

You can see a mama sheep and her lambs.

You can see really amazing sheep dogs and their owner herding sheep from giant open fields into tiny little pens.

OK, this is me being silly.

You can see alpacas, and bunnies, really any animal you can spin and weave from.

You can listen to live music.

You can buy all kinds of stuff. I got some alpaca socks, light and warm.
You can also eat all kinds of lamb and other food.

And here you can watch a sheep getting sheared. He's kind of cute, huh?

Anyhow, we had a good time, maybe we'll see you there next year.

Guilford Antiques Show

Welcome to the spring Guilford Antiques Show down by the coast in scenic Guildford, CT. Cy and I had a good time looking around and visiting with old friends. Everyone was in a good mood due to large crowds. I guess everyone was tired of the snow and wanted to get out the house and look at beautiful antiques. Here is Nancy Fischelson and friend Robert Perry (who is also set up) in Nancy's booth. Nancy loves the old linens.

Here is friend Lew Scranton writing up a sale. Look at all the classic antiques from CT.

Great early smalls in the booth of Axtell Antiques, www.axtellantiques.com

Karen Wenhiser in her booth with a great selection of silver Native American and Mexican jewelry, and look at all the hooked rugs. www.WendhiserAntiques.com

Just the best early iron is always found in the booth of Marvin and Barbara Eliot from Windsor, CT. They are really the experts.

Here is a fun booth from Jeff Puklinski from County Seat Antiques, www.countyseatantiques.com

Another nice booth from Zuna Antiques.
Hope you enjoyed this brief visit to a very pretty show in Southern Connecticut. Come and visit next year.

What is it about Cutting Boards?

 What is it about cutting boards, pastry boards, dough boards, bread boards? The everyday homey boards we all use in our kitchens, and our ancestors did the same. Cut the same bread, kneaded the same dough. Maybe that's the appeal, we use pretty much the same boards to do pretty much the same things. OK, I don't guess they served brie and crackers, but maybe they did!

 I'm showing a few groups of antique boards we've had over the years.  Look at the two taller boards at the back here, they have pencil writing on them and looked to be used as a carpenter's tally sheet.

Here's another big group from last year.





How old are these boards? What are they made of? How are they made? How can you collect them?

Most of the boards you will run across at shows, online etc. date from the late 18th C. (1780 or so) to the 1940s or so. You can pretty much tell from the color of the wood, the shapes, etc.

Here are 2 18th C. ones from my collection. The larger one, a pastry board only has 2 edges. Very unusual. The smaller one is an 18th C. door panel converted to use as a cutting board. Look at the deeper colors and the wear to the soft pine wood.

Here are a group we had from MN, probably late 19th early 20th C.
How are they made? Most boards are simply cut out of a piece of wood. A little later they started adding "breadboard" ends. This prevented splitting of the board. Remember wood always shrinks across the grain, and with all the washing they endure, you can see boards often shrink and get cracks. Cracks in a simple board will cause the board to split in two, bad idea. If you have breadboard ends, you might get a crack in the center of the board, but you can still use it.

Here's a bread board with "breadboard ends" added on. This demonstrates what they look like, and you can also see that the grain on the ends goes the other way, so it will not split like the larger part of the board. Problem solved. The breadboard ends are sometimes held on with dowels, like this example. Often they're held on with square nails, and also the later round nails. It's one way to tell the age of the board, as the round nails were made mostly after the Civil War. It's also a nice example of an oak board, which is not common, for some reason. About half the boards you see are pine, because its cheap and easy to cut.

 Here's a nice pine one, with bread board ends all the way around, that's an unusual touch.

The other half are hard wood, such as maple and birch, because it will last a lot longer. Here's a beauty in maple, an elongated octagon.

Here's another one, this time a piece of left over wood used as a cutting board, look at all the cut marks. This one is a rare walnut example.

Here's a good example of a form called a "pastry board", or "noodle board". It has strips of wood added around the edges which keeps the flour from flying around. This one is pine, and has a nice hanging hole. These are also popular as the larger size is convenient for hiding your sink or stove or?

Sometimes you can find the boards in paint, whether original or added later to brighten up a kitchen. This blue one is pine.

Here's a nice musard one, with breadboard ends.

The boards come in many pleasing shapes. This tombstone form is one of the most popular right now, the name comes from the form at the top of the old tombstones. This example is pine, and not too old.

 Here are a couple with nice age on them.

This one has nice age and a great coat of old green paint.

Another popular form is the octagon. This one has nice age.

This one was pine, and a bit larger.

Here's a nice round one, a form you don't see too often.

Another favorite form is this thin style. You see these once in a while, and they're usually only about 1/4" thick.

Here's sort of a make-do cutting board, the top of a barrel used as a cutting board. Hey, make do with what you got!

Look at the round cutting board with a slight domed top surface, and lathe turned rings around the edge. These were used for cutting meat, and the juices could run down the dome and be caught at the edge.

Here's my collection of fishy cutting boards. (My husband loves to fish!) There are many charming forms for cutting boards. There's the ever popular piggy, they're pretty common, as are state forms. I have also seen strawberries, dogs, cats, rabbits, flowers, flower pots and sprinklers, mice, pine trees, apples and probably more I can't remember. These make a fun collection.So there are many collections you could make with cutting boards. You can collect all tiny ones, or all huge ones( I've seen them up to 6' long!). You can collect paint or treen. You can collect different woods or different areas of the country. Think about a group of different octagonal ones. And of course different shapes. Maybe all Scotties? What is nice is that they are still reasonable affordable, and are available all over the country. And I think its safe to say they are all American, so far no icky imports and repros. So have fun and let me know if you come up with some creative ideas.

House Progress Downstairs Bedroom Part #2

My dream is finally coming true! Isn't it looking pretty great? Look at the "before" picture below.

Now you can see how I've spent my winter. I've been painstakingly scrapping off the later blue and yellow paints over this wonderful original buttermilk paint. I love the color of the wall of sheathing, kind of mustard, kind of pumpkin. It's just warm and welcoming on these cold winter days. And I admire the color combination of the gray trim with the pumpkin wall, very subtle, and easy to live with.

And here is a corner with the trim, also stripped. And again, just some gray paint remaining. Look at the bottom of the corner post. Can you see how the previous owner cut away the bottom of the corner post to put in their baseboard heater. What some people won't do! We'll have a jolly old time repairing that, and making it look okay with the rest of the old trim. Thank goodness back in the day the original builders used huge material. Can you think what would happen if you cut a hole 4" deep out of the corner of a new house? It would surely fall down.

Here you can see my next problem. At some time in the past they put a skim coat of plaster over the original plaster, with some texture stuff in it, and over time its gotten all cracked and nasty. The gray area you seen is the original horsehair plaster.

Here you can see the results of a week's worth of work! Not much to show. I have been painfully scrapping off the plaster in itty bitty 1/4" pieces.  I don't think I'll live long enough to get the ceiling clean. And then what? The original plaster is tight to the ceiling, not loose or broken anywhere. But it has a network of cracks. If I spackle them I'll have a network of white spackle, ugly. Should I give up and sheet rock over it? What to do?

Dear readers, I have a decorating question for you. Please, please look at the picture above and help me out. We have pine floors, mustardy wall on one wall, and gray and pine trim. What should I do with the 3 plaster walls. I have a blue cupboard that goes in here, and a blue 4 poster bed, and some 18th C crewel panels that have mustard with blue and red embroidery. I don't think I want to stay with the dark blue buttermilk paint. Too many colors, and its in too bad of shape. under the blue paint you can see where it was once the same mustardy color. Oyster white walls? Repeat the mustard color in a dry butermilk paint on the walls? Help? Please leave comments, I really would like some feed back.

Glastonbury New Years Show

Look at the crowd still coming in at noon! It's always been a popular show, but wow what a difference the weather makes. We had a balmy holiday weekend following the blizzard, so I guess everyone wanted to get out of the house.
This is the annual New Year's Show in Glastonbury, CT. Not a big show, about 62 dealers in the high school gym. But a fun show to do or shop. Very mixed show, only a few country dealers. For example, my neighbor showed jewelry and old fur coats from Manhattan, and was fun to listen to as she sold her wares.

 Look at the crowd in my booth!

Here's a pic of my booth without all the lovely customers.

Here's my neighbor across the way, Dom and Susan De Baise Antiques from Rocky Hill, CT.

Here's my next door neighbor, Martin Webster, West Branch Antiques from Delhi, NY

Here's my favorite thing at the show, a whaling ship desk ornament, with whales flukes to hold your pen, ink bottle in the center, a scrimshawed pic of the ship, the name and the captain's name, and under the center flap that lifts is the whale stamp for using in your ledger when you got a whale! Wow, now that is neat. Shown by Capt. Ron Wojcik at Green Highlander Gallery.

 Here's the booth of my friend Tina Black all the way from PA.

Another fun booth. CT is seafaring country you know.

Another booth,  lots of nice stuff. I hope you had fun looking at the pics of the show, and maybe you can shop here next New Year's. Have a fun and lucky New Year yourself!