The Rickrack Rag

At this time of year everything happens in rapid fire. During our show last week, we started out with high temperatures in the 50’s and 20 mph winds; by Saturday we had a high of 90 degrees, with the humidity creeping up like it does in late summer. Shocking to the system, for sure. And the transition from cool to the premature summer heat has accelerated happenings in the garden as well. Some of the daffodils have withered, but the pinks are in full, bright bloom. This patch, which is escaping over the stone wall, was started with two plants in 4 inch pots about 11 years ago….

What’s truly amazing to me, though, is the change in the asparagus. A week ago we were checking daily, waiting, yearning for the spears to emerge a little faster. Finally we managed, over the course of a day or two, to find about a dozen that had grown to 6 inches or so for our dinner. Fast forward past our weekend show - which is now all a blur anyway - and there are shoots emerging everywhere along the row, growing fast enough that I thought of sitting there to watch them lengthen. By Saturday night there were three dozen or so that I picked, leaving the ones as short as 6 inches for Tim and his crew to pick the next day; by noon Sunday he was able to harvest well over 100 spears. And this morning it’s apparent there will be an equivalent number again today; at 8:30 there were a number already sufficiently tall, and a large number more that would mature by day’s end.

I inserted a stick into the ground next to the spear at right, that spear was about 5 inches at 8:30. By 11:30 it had grown another inch or so

Checking on it later, I found it had been picked. I find comfort in knowing there will be more every day until mid-June. I love that the seasons dictate an ever-changing array of garden goodies!

This week we’re doing our spring show at Kutztown; we’re lucky because it’s a large show and quite near home. But we’re so busy with it this weekend that Feedsack Friday will necessarily be brief. Still, I could not skip FF altogether, so for today’s post I’m showing a picture of most of the 10 or so feedsacks we found and bought at the show.

There was a time when we’d find lots of feedsacks at the show, but they’re showing up more rarely and in much smaller quantities than in the past.

I would also have shown a picture of the 20 sacks that we sold Thursday at the show but they’re gone now, and I’ve added more to our display in hopes they’ll also be adopted by new homes. The weather was cool and breezy yesterday, but should be warm and sunny today and tomorrow, perfect for the occasion.

This will be a work-filled week. The garden has begun to reward us for the little bit of attention we’ve given it:

The pinks and jonquils will help ease our mood as we prepare for the Kutztown extravaganza - where we set up Wednesday to sell Thursday through Saturday this week. It’s our most intensive period of work for the whole season, so yard work will not get done this week and the lawn will be seriously overgrown by next Sunday, considering that rain is predicted for the next 2-3 days.

Last night we had some of the first asparagus of the season from the field, and today we’re enjoying the last little bit of weekend sunshine as we sort, tag and price merchandise for the show. Come visit us, if you can, in booth 220 in the first pavilion!

We talked before about bag companies promoting their product; the chief indications that we’ve found of a bag’s maker have been on paper labels attached to the sack. Plain sacks with advertising printed on them also often display the name and/or logo of the maker. Only three or four companies that we know of actually printed the company name or logo on a sack with a printed design. Percy B. Kent Co. printed their name right on the famous WWII sack, which they called Kent’s cloth of the United Nations, while the blue sack shown below had the name Staley (presumably from the Staley Milling Co. of Kansas) repeated in one selvedge.

Unfortunately, we have been unable to find any information about the following two logos, each shown in detail beside the sack on which they were found:


Each of these two logos is repeated several times along one side of the sack near the selvedge. We’d love to hear from anyone who has information about the Empire or FF logos and the companies they represent.

One of my favorite meals that qualifies as comfort food is one that we make often in late summer, stuffed green peppers. Whenever we can pick them fresh, we’ll make them as often as once a week, in a double batch, and freeze half for later use. This week we’re using the second last frozen batch, and some time in a month or so we’ll use the last, praying for the new crop to hurry up!

With this meal, we always enjoy mashed potatoes too. Getting ready to make them, I reached into the bag of potatoes and pulled out a few, including this one:

It goes well with the vintage Tammis Keefe kitchen towel, doesn’t it? Gotta love it!

Of course, I couldn’t bear to mash it, but now I have a dilemma - what to do with it? Sell it on eBay perhaps? Slice it thin and make heart-shaped chips? Or is there a way to petrify and preserve it?

I thought of the song Buttons and Bows as a theme for this week’s Feedsack Friday posting, but buttons are not common on feedsacks. In two cases that I’ve seen, they are combined with bows; but bows themselves are common indeed, occurring alone and tied with bouquets on many feedsacks.

Here are a few that emphasize bows in particular, the first being the ones with buttons, too:

Just bows:

Many feature bows with dots, some with ribbons, flowers, or leaves….



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This past weekend we did our first outdoor antique market of this season. Though it was rather chilly in the early morning, it warmed up in the spring sunshine to almost 60 degrees, with a little breeze, later in the day. Because good weather was predicted, we expected a good turnout, but it was rather less busy than we thought it would be. Perhaps because it was Palm Sunday, perhaps for economic reasons, or perhaps because the day before had been cold and VERY windy. (This morning we had snow flurries!)

Nevertheless, it’s the time of the year to get out there and start selling, so we did! Of course, there’s buying to do at the same time - or rather, first, because you have to find the bargains before they’re gone, while you have all morning to sell. And we were lucky, finding a trove of lovely linens first thing. We bought a mid-19th century applique quilt - large with great Turkey red prints - and a crazy quilt with a number of hand painted pieces with birds, butterflies, etc.

I had hoped to get these quilts photographed and present them here this week, but, as luck should have it, we sold both later in the day. So although business was less than stellar, we still did decently well.

What we did bring home from the same lot was a pretty group of society silk embroidered doilies and some other pieces of linen and lace, perfect for spring.

I’ve always loved the way roses are depicted in silk floss on linen:

We found wild roses too, on this unusual fringed doily, as well as violets, another popular subject for society embroidery.

Less common, but still pretty in this medium are these pieces with flower baskets and forget-me-nots.

Finally, a few more of the pretty items from this lot. All will be offered either on our website or in our eBay store.

We’ve started April off right - after a rather dry late winter, the spring rains have arrived here in eastern Pennsylvania. Not without a little thunder and hail, I might add. In keeping with the rain, we’re featuring umbrellas and rain as depicted on feedsacks today. Here are a few of our favorites:

On these two, it’s raining cats and dogs. Watch out for poodles!

Ladies huddle together on the border of this sack as rain (and flowers and umbrellas!) fall from the sky, little ducks seem to enjoy the weather with their umbrellas, and bolts of lightning illuminate a yellow landscape.

Finally, the rest of our umbrellas are accompanied by the flowers that the showers will presumably bring.

The spring rains have finally arrived and it’s become my favorite time of year - green season. Between showers, when the sun comes out, everything takes on a green glow, brighter than at any other time. The aura of new life brings renewed hope and energy to the world, and of course reminds me of all the work I have to do to keep up. Soon the lawn, that was still brown a week ago, will need mowing - and I’m still not done raking all the leaves from last fall!

Meanwhile I’m also readying the garden for this season’s planting, as the daffodils begin to open, the blades of iris rise, and the other perennials revive. This weekend we’ll be setting up at the market in Adamstown for the first time this year; it’s the week of the Lancaster quilt show, and we’ll be taking along plenty of fabrics, quilt tops, quilts and more. I guess it’s time to stop blogging and get busy!