Volo antiquing

Our original plan for Saturday was to take a day trip to a state park or forest preserve since we've been itching to get into nature. With the wedding, work and the general obscenely hot temperatures, we haven't been able to go camping or hiking almost all summer. But we woke up to rain Saturday morning! Lots of rain. So we decided to do a day trip that involved one of our favorite indoor activities, antiquing, instead. (Of course by the time we were on the road it was sunny again, so we just consoled ourselves with the fact that anywhere we'd have gone would have been a mud pit.)

We headed out north and west of the city to the little town of Volo, Illinois. Now my only previous associations with this town were 1) an old-time band when I was growing up, the Volo Bogtrotters, made up of my friends of my mom's and 2) a ski shop my dad and I would sometimes go to when I was in high school. I had no idea that it had a huge antique mall complex including three separate malls and an antique car museum. (Though when I was relaying the day's events to my dad he mentioned that the ski shop was right near an antique car museum. The things you don't know when you're young!)

We didn't feel like hitting the museum that day, but Mel posed by one of the cars outside.

For the outing I wore a 30s day dress and moccasins.

At the entrance Mel snapped this photo of lawn flamingos, but what I loved about it was the 'dead' flamingo accidentally in the background. Creepy!

There was almost too much to see in the antique malls to take it all in!

These photos were from one of my favorite booths. Oh, how I love vintage kitchen paraphernalia. I wish my teensy kitchen was bigger to make room for more goodies! I have a bit of both of the turquoise and white Pyrex patterns on that top shelf (the Amish and snowflake patterns), and I once owned that same red Burrite pitcher on the second shelf down.

But the most surprising part of the trip? Being recognized from my blog! It was one thing to be recognized at Viva Las Vegas, but being recognized in a small town an hour and a half from Chicago, now that's pretty crazy! I couldn't believe it. We talked for awhile about vintage clothes and style, and sewing and knitting, and she showed me an awesome yearbook from the late 40s. I love drawing inspiration from "real" people vs. film stars and the like. So hi Julia, it was so nice to meet you!

After an afternoon wandering through the antique malls, we had lunch. I matched the decor at Culver's. This is a good closeup of the bias yoke of my dress. The rick rack is sewn to a strip of bias tape at the bottom of the yoke. I didn't discover until that day that the bias tape was originally navy blue, not the pale blue you can see! Incredibly nothing else on the dress but the bias tape seems to have faded, but I know the bias tape faded after it was sewn onto the dress because it's navy on the backside and under the rick rack.

You can also see a glimpse of my charm bracelet. The bracelet itself was my mom's when she was young, and she gave it to me several years ago. It retains the few original charms that were hers, including an inscribed 16th birthday charm given to her by my uncle, her younger brother (so cute!). I've added to it since, and you can just make out the EL and S of "ELVIS" from a trip to Graceland, the rest of the letters obscured by a trolley car from a trip to...shoot, I'm not sure if I got it in New Orleans or San Francisco, at this point!

I didn't buy many things, but came away with a few finds. A cute pair of earrings, for one.

Another purchase was a set of embroidery transfers of the state flowers of all 50 states. Ironically I saw a post at A Rarer Borealis a few weeks ago about quilts made from a set of 50 state embroidery transfers and I went ga-ga over them. It wasn't until I was actually paying for the transfers at the antique mall that I was reminded of those quilts (as I mentioned it to Julia and the woman who was checking me out). But I didn't actually realize until I got home that the transfers I bought were the same transfers used in the quilts. Maybe I'm meant to learn how to turn these into a quilt, someday??

And last but not least, a cowboy print barkcloth pillow. I initially thought I'd use it on my bedside chair, since our bedroom has a bit of a Western theme, but I'm kind of loving it on our sofa with all the other greens. It's making me rethink some of the plans I had for our living room, and I think I may incorporate a bit of fun in kind of a travel-oriented theme.

It gives the other barkcloth pillows a run for their money, that's for sure!

It was so nice to get out of the city for a day. It's something we definitely need to do more often. I dislike really hot and humid weather in general, particularly when shared with millions of other people in a city full of buildings and pavement that just lock all the heat in. Our city seems that much worse right now with throngs of people coming into town for the beaches and activities and the summer feels like an endless string of festivals, ballgames, litter, stinky sewers, overflowing trash bins and traffic. In the summer getting around from Point A to Point B takes even longer than normal, whether by foot, car, bus or train. So at a time when people are frolicking in the sun and enjoying all of the fun things the city has to offer in the summertime, I feel like a curmudgeon and just want to get away from all of it. Leaving town, even just for an afternoon, is a much-needed getaway!

Hope you all had a nice weekend. Don't forget, Wednesday is the last day to enter the That Clever Clementine giveaway!

The honeymoon

Thanks everyone so much for all the kind comments on our wedding! I admit, I'm still catching up with life. I promise I'll have wedding photos to show soon, but I'm waiting until we get our photos back and then I'll share all of our stories as well. In the meantime, how about I work backwards and show you our honeymoon photos?

The wedding was Friday, the party was Saturday and we spent Sunday and Monday nights on a mini honeymoon in Galena, Illinois. Galena is a very quaint town in a gorgeous part of Illinois, about 3 hours from Chicago in the far northwest corner of the state, not that far from the Mississippi River. We weren't initially going to go anywhere after the wedding hooplah, as we're planning to take a trip to either Scotland or Paris next year for our 10 year anniversary and thought we're wrap it all up into one trip. However we decided to take a break for a couple of days and boy, we needed it.

We stayed in a fantastic little cabin on a property that had 5 rental cabins from the 1800s that had been updated on the inside with modern comforts. Both days we had the place to ourselves! It was absolutely perfect inside. Living space downstairs with a bedroom area and kitchen/living room, with a half loft upstairs where the bathroom and two person whirlpool tub were.

We felt at home right away...

I decorated our coffee table with the boutonnière and corsage from our wedding...

Did I say we had the place to ourselves? Well I was partially right. We had no human neighbors, that is. The property was right next to a large sprawling farm with a small herd of cows, who came so close to the fence at night we could practically touch them!

It was a beautiful view from our windows...

And the outside of the cabin was as inviting as the inside...

When we first arrived at the cabin, we noticed a curious addition to the decor: many many wine corks and beer bottle caps tucked away in odd little places in cracks in the wall, the ceiling, you name it. Obviously years of guests had added their own little touch, and clearly it wasn't discouraged. So the first night we saved two caps...

And the next night, Mel added them to the wall above the fireplace, just under a large saw hung on the wall. (You can see several corks tucked into the teeth of the saw.)

Monday morning was met with gentle showers, so we sat on the porch having tea and enjoying the rain...

This is a cute photo of Pia, but even better, you can see my fantastic seersucker pajamas that I got at the Modern Vintage Chicago show.

This was the view from our front porch of two of the other cabins...

We took some photos around the property in the morning...

Once the rain stopped we headed into town. The cabins were perfectly located just a few minutes from the main part of town and a couple of minutes from the grocery store (there was a microwave and no stove, and we ate very well from the deli), but somehow it felt like it was in the middle of nowhere. Just ideal.

There was lots of interesting old homes...

We particularly liked this fire station, built in 1874, which was obviously moved into the building on the right when it was built in 1940. I appreciated how they tried to keep with the original feel of the old building as much as possible.

After lunch and a stroll around town we headed towards an antique mall we'd seen on our way into town. Some of my favorite places to stop in small towns are antique malls in warehouse type buildings. Usually it's a metal building, kind of reminiscent of a manufactured home, with a big sign out front that says "Antique Mall". Those two are usually a winning combination. And when you're lucky, the sign is posted on a cool vintage pickup truck like this.

The place was awesome. Three trips back to the front counter to hand over piles of goods awesome. Crazy cheap awesome. Freaking awesome.

I can't even recall all of the great finds we came home with, but here's a sampling. Several hankies in great condition for $1 or less a piece.

Isn't the embroidery on this one lovely? So delicate.

A great tooled leather purse in very nice condition for $18...

I picked it up to add to my pile and then saw its neighbor purse. Can you believe this??

Oh yes. That's a diagonal lucite handle, metal clasp, raffia on the sides and Spanish dancers in relief on top! For $25. I think my jaw dropped. I didn't even hesitate.

I also got a couple of knitting booklets, and three craft magazines. Two issues of Needlecraft from 1931 and 1924 and one issue of Home Arts from 1938, for $3 each.

Neat ads inside the 1938 Home Arts...

I absolutely love the mailing addresses, fantasizing about the owners, Miss Myrtle Fischer of Minnesota and Mrs. Helmuth Suckow of Iowa.

But the best find I'll save for the end of the post. In the meantime, after our antique mall high we stopped at a small cabin by the Stillman Inn just on the edge of town. I can't remember the name of it, but it was apparently inhabited up until the 1970s by a family of 6.

And now to the pièce de résistance from the antique mall, appropriately displayed on the handcrafted bed at our cabin. A vintage double wedding ring quilt!

Isn't it just gorgeous? I still can't believe it's ours. What could be more perfect than a wedding gift to ourselves of a traditional wedding present, a quilt? It's a bit of a mystery to us what era it's from, but from my research and conversations with my talented quilter friend Elisa, we think it's probably from the 40s or possibly 50s. The double wedding ring quilt pattern was very popular in the 30s and 40s, but I don't feel the fabric patterns seem quite right for the 30s. No matter what though, it's our wounderful gift to ourselves to remind us of our perfect little honeymoon retreat.

The trip was just so perfectly peaceful and relaxing. I'm hoping some day we go back there to stay in "our" little cabin again. It would make a great anniversary trip, don't you think?