Jewett City Jaunt

A visit home in Connecticut is never complete without a Sunday morning trip to Jewett City for the great dusty flea market!  Fresh with spring mud and New Englanders emerging to celebrate an unusually warm March morning, the Jewett City Flea Market has been around longer than I can remember.

 

 

Two floors of jam-packed goodies ranging from the tiniest jewels to towering Early American cupboards and everything in between.  But the best picks are outside in the pop-up stands; sellers with new finds they are eager to off load!  Random china, folk art, military memorabilia, and taxidermy bring a chuckle, a memory, and a spark of imagination.

 

 

I can't resist shiny bits and baubles.  When they are offered at dirt cheap prices I can't help but dig in deep!  I spent $25 in total at the flea market and oh the treasures I did find; rhinestones glistening in the sun, cast off buckles and silver-plate gems!

 

 

 At 25 cents a piece I couldn't resist these vintage wooden knobs!  I have just the project for them but for now I am keeping that plan a wee secret.

 

 

 

I have an affinity for piggies and the market did not disappoint! I spent 10 cents on the ceramic guy, $15 dollars for the pinned pig.

 

 

The pins were my fave purchase.  Nestled in with the common pins there was a fine gold stick pin with a green stone- a thrifting pirate's treasure indeed!

 

 

 

 Best of all was having precious time with my family playing with the ridiculous and oohing at fabulous furniture I had no way to transport back to Texas. Seeing my Dad revel in sharing with my daughter an affinity for weaponry and Elvis trinkets, I know it's a memory they will both cherish. It was definitely a morning well spent under the warm Connecticut sun.

 

LOVE  &  NEW MEMORIES!

 

Millie In The Making

 

 Millie is a old girl who loves her quiet life on the sheep farm.  She is kind, introspective and always willing to help a neighbor in need.  This time of year she is anxious for the snowflakes to subside and to see stubby green growth of the daffodils peeking their leaves through the crispy leaves that cover her gardens.  She wanted to see what life was like in New England, so she made the trip from Texas with me.

 

Millie is made from a doll form I found at a garage sale.  I coffee stained her for proper age, needle sculpted her features and finished her with local goods here in Connecticut. I gave her a head of alpaca wool hair from Sixpaca, farm up the road in Bozrah, Connecticut.  Her simple dress is made from fabrics purchased at Colchester Mills while on my visit here. 

 

 

Millie will get a few more details on today's flight back to Texas, and will be completed back in my studio tomorrow.  She has an important debut on Olde Primitive Peddler on the 15th- so I better keep my needle cranked up to zoooom speed!

 

I have so enjoyed my time in Connecticut and sad to see it come to an end.  I know Millie is sad to leave as well.  She had grown fond of the alpaca farm.  But just like me, Millie will always have Connecticut in her heart and soul.

 

LOVE  &  TIME TO FLY!

Home Visit

Home for me will always be those drafty walls of the rambling 1759 colonial in Norwich, Connecticut.  It is where my life began, where I played with life-long friends, and where I grew up with the boy who became my husband. It is a simple yellow house that contains more memories than any photo book can hold.

 

When I go home to visit my parents I know that my house will look the same today as it did when I left 25 years ago. The floorboards still creak out a welcome and baskets my Mom has made throughout the years hang from low beams scraping the heads of anyone taller than 6 feet.  

 

In my childhood bedroom many of my toys remain for my nieces and nephew to play.  The stencil I loved so much as a little girl still graces the walls.  I remember the summer my mother painted each simple stroke, patiently, precisely, until the room was ringed to match the quilt she and her quilting bee friends just finished for me. 

 

I am one of the lucky few who can still visit my childhood any time I want with a simple flight from Texas.  Where others have photos and stories, I have the real thing to touch.  I can take my own daughter into the time warp of what my childhood looked like.  She can look out my window and see the house where her Dad grew up, and we can walk the memories her Dad and I had as kids. I can take her to the old graveyard where the hand of Bela Peck still rests atop his sea scroll stone. She can understand the artistic influences of her grandparents and marvel at the one room school house next door. 

 

I treasure these trips home.  I can't imagine life without this house.  My greatest hope is that my daughter will be able to return here 25 years down the road and touch her own childhood memories of this grand old place.

 

LOVE  &  HOME VISITS