Valentine's Day, antique French linen, & monograms

A very pretty nightdress, with palest, palest blue handmade lace trim and monogram -  I bet it sent the pulses racing all those years ago...
nightdress now sold

 and here is the twin - there are two of them, very similar but with just a subtle difference in the lace trim
nightdress now sold

 

Made from metis - linen/cotton union - warm in winter, cool in summer

And for him - a pure linen shirt, with a tie neckline and a red cross-stitch monogram, all handstitched of course.  Can almost imagine Mr Darcy wearing something like it
shirt now sold.

The fabric has softened now and the red cross-stitching on the monogram is now a little faded by sunshine (remember that?) and laundering - these linen shirts must have taken hours to press.  I can only guess that they were pressed as to wear them without, it must have been like wearing corrugated cardboard!

And a most beautifully embroidered sheet - with a heart, flowers, ribbon and a pair of love-birds...
sheet now sold

and the bride's monogram, lovingly embroidered in pink

and the groom's too...


Have a great week, and a lovely Valentine's Day!

A few books - and a stern warning to husbands...

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This is such a great little book from 1936 - perfect for a Valentine or wedding gift. I just love the introduction:

"To Husbands: the part which a husband must play in life is not exactly an easy one. He has definite obligations and numerous restrictions. Often he will be puzzled as to why things have gone wrong. This small volume of Do's and Don'ts should help to guide him away from errors and pitfalls, since it epitomizes the correct conduct of husbands."

Quite.




And, in case one wishes to learn to dance, make a will, take a wife...above are others in the series.


A sweet moralistic book for children - I love the cover


Here is the book plate - I wonder what happened to Elsie Platt - such a good, old-fashioned name.


And here, the children are being very good, just like they should but aren't usually in my experience! The book is about life in Sweden - maybe Swedish kids are better behaved?


Thanks to the BBC, apparently, Charles Dickens has become popular again. Since Christmas, over 16000 Dickens books have been sold in UK against the normal 2000. Well, here is another for sale.

This is from The Fireside Dickens series, and the title is "The Uncommercial Traveller" and not a title I am familiar with.


Thinking of employing someone, checking out your daughter's new boyfriend, choosing a politician to vote for? Well, check out the handwriting first - this should tell you a lot about a person. Interesting little book.


Hitler, Elvis and Jimmy Carter - hmm, strange combination of examples but here are facsimiles of their signatures and apparently, most of the US presidents sloped their handwriting to the right: only two had upright signatures, and none to the left...

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I'm not keen on boxing, but some are. Here is a biography of Jack Dempsey - a bit tatty but at the back is an appendix with the fighting records of he and other principal fighters.

I guess the appendix in books is what people referred to 50 years ago when little arguments broke out over the family dining table over detail - now we run to the computer and search on Wikipedia... It's something our family often does - usually squabbling about when an album was released or which film an actor starred in and usually results in someone's meal going cold...



Incidentally, The World's Work publishing house in Kingswood, Surrey, was actually part of Heineman Publishers. I worked for them back in the late 1980s, shipping books to little book shops and schools all over the world. The Heineman office was in a small 'stately' house, elegant but very tatty, in lovely grounds. It was a great working atmosphere there - I loved it - but of course, didn't last and like many companies in the '80s, Heineman have long since gone, split up and swallowed up by bigger publishing houses.


A gorgeous little book from 1907 about the Lake District with a few photos, maps and a section at the back with adverts from hotels all over Great Britain and the Channel Isles. I wonder if many of the hotels are still going today.


Great ads - and lots of them.


Love this little folding map

and another...


Well, just a few books - all in English this time - which I have for sale on my second Etsy shop which I called La Cravate. You can check it out here - there is lots more info on the books, plus a few pieces aimed towards men - don't forget the little orange book if you know any future groom looking for marriage instructions!

Have a good weekend folks!