Vintage Thingies Thursday: A Bit of Green for the Irish

Hello Everyone! Welcome to this weeks segment of Vintage Thingies Thursday.

Thursday is the day to showcase your vintage treasures and to share your special things with everyone.

If you are visiting and would like to join us, please do. It is very easy!
All you have to do is:
(1) do a post about something vintage.
(2) Visit all the participates and leave a comment.
(3) Link in with the Mr. Linky at the bottom of this post.
(4) Be sure to refer back to my blog so everyone can see who is participating today, and if you like include the VTT button in your post. Please be sure to have your post up before linking in. Thanks so much.

Since St. Patrick's Day is next Tuesday, I thought I'd make this week my week to show some of those treasures with green......just for luck's sake mind you.


And could we not all use a little luck these days??? Here are a few of my favorite treasures I wanted to share with you today. The little tin is from my kitchen and I could say it is vintage..but it is not, maybe I could say it is a vintage reproduction, but then again, it most likely is not. But I had to include it in the post...it just goes...I mean with the Shamrock and all!

This adorable little bowl was purchased at my child's Catholic School Rummage Sale several years ago. I paid .50 cents for it. I am really sorry I did not buy more than just this one, someone had donated loads of pottery and in my younger days, I did not feel the need to "have" tons of stuff....today....well, not so much. This is stamped "Jackson Vitrified China, Falls Creek, Pa" The vintage Hankie is chiffon with flocked clovers all over it. This is really old according to the lady who was peddling junk in her yard a few weeks ago at a tag sale. I paid $1.00 for it, and I really do like it....and I believe it is vintage. I did a little research on chiffon hankies and they do indeed date back to the 40's.

Now, I know you remember how I collect platters, Is this not a pretty little stack of green rimmed platters???

The platter sitting on the stand is one of my favorites. This one is stamped "Sterling Verified China" Liverpool USA. I just love the detailed rim of this platter. The cute little platter in the front was an estate sale find about three weeks ago. This is stamped "Buffalo China" made in the USA.

Would you like to hear a funny story??? Good. I hope you smile or at least appreciate the fact that possibly your mind is not as far gone as mine. I was at said Estate sale and this place was small...so small that I felt trapped like a rat with about 100 people crowding in such a small place. Well, they had 5 of these platters and I wanted one. I debated on carrying one around, or getting it on my way out. Well, I picked up several things and stood in line forever to pay, my arms were killing me, my back was killing me and my legs were killing me with everyone bumping into me. I paid for my purchases, not really paying attention because so much was going on. I got to my car, and realized I did not get the platter. Dang. So what do I do? March back in there, to purchase the platter. Paid. Left. Well, guess what? I got home and unwrapped my finds for the day...and believe me when I say I really must have fell in love with this platter because after I unwrapped everything, I discovered I now was the proud owner of TWO of these beauties. That is what you call shopping without a clue....or memory... one or the other. So, I have two of these.

Here is a close-up of two other platters. The one on the left really is lovely, I love the detail on the rim. This is stamped "H&C Selb Bavaria", Heinrich & Co. The platter on the right, is a smaller platter and it is stamped "Walker China".

See this platter resting on the plate stand? This is rather new to my collection and it is really one of my favorite finds. The detail is just wonderful, and of all my platters, I paid the most for this one. Now, I can not reveal what I paid for this little treasure, because my husband does read this blog, but let me just say, I never pay as much as I paid for this platter for anything I usually buy....remember, I am cheap. But the green and the detailed white rim really called out to me and, I could not resist this one. This is stamped "Harker Ware Pottery Est. 1340"

These two pieces are not the same, but they do sorta match, right? Vintage goodness!

I want to wish everyone a little bowl of good luck for the St. Patty's day next week. Have a great week everyone! Be sure to link in and show us your wonderful treasures.

Oh, and for all of you lovely ladies who wanted the recipe for cleaning vintage linens...I posted that on Monday, just in case you missed it.

Because You Asked So Sweetly..Cleaning Vintage Linens

I would like to thank everyone for their comments to my post last week for Vintage Thingie Thursday. If you missed the original post you will find it HERE.
And because so many of you were interested in knowing how to clean your vintage linens, and you asked so sweetly, here is the post you asked for.

Warning....there are lots of pictures, and if that is annoying, I am sorry. I happen to like a lot of pictures when I want to learn how to do something. So, this is the method I will use to show you how to clean all of your vintage treasures so they sparkle like new.

These first two pictures are of some recent estate sale finds that were not in perfect shape. The top picture is of a set of napkins, and the napkins were yellowed especially around the creases and folds.

You can see in this piece of vintage fabric, the yellow spots in the middle of the picture. This fabric was a wonderful vintage find, but it was riddles with yellow spots from age. I was pretty certain I could fix this problem.

Important: You will need to spot test your fabric using the method below and make sure there will be damage to the fabric or colors before you soak the whole piece. I do this only on brightly colored items and so far, all have been fine using this method.

You will need the following things:

White Vinegar, Biz Detergent, Oxi-Clean, large bucket.

First measure one gallon of water. If you are going to be cleaning several items at once, you will need to measure out the water accordingly. I usually use about 4-5 gallons of water at a time and wash several pieces together.

Heat the water on the stove. You need to use hot water, not boiling water. This is about 4 gallons of water I used on this particular day. If I am going to be soaking mostly whites, I heat the water a bit longer than if I am soaking reds or darker colors. You will know if the water is warm enough if you can stick your finger in the water and it is not scalding. Like I said for whites, I heat the water almost to the boiling point.

Next: while the water is heating, pour your soaps into a large bucket or tub. I use this red tub from Wal-mart and it works really well.

You will use:
Per gallon of water
1 scoop of Oxi-clean
1 scoop of Biz (Use the Oxi-clean scoop, not the scoop in the Biz)If you are mixing up 4 gallons of water, like I did here, you will need to use this recipe times 4 for it to be the correct mixture:

For example:
4 gallons of water
4 scoops of Oxi-Clean
4 scoops of Biz - using the Oxi-Clean scoop

Once your water is heated, poor into the bucket and mix well. Warning....the first time I did this, I thought I would just pour the soaps into the water on the stove, stir and then add to bucket....DON'T DO THAT!! Why?? Well, this will bubble and expand and my stove top looked like a Science Fair experiment with soaps oozing and flowing out of the pots. Trust me...it was a mess!

Next, add your linens. Stir well and mix well. I use a old wooden spoon for this step. Soak all of the items well.

This is what your bucket should look like once everything is wet and mixed well. Leave the mixture alone and let it soak. This can soak for up to 48 hours. For whites, I usually soak the full 48 hours. If I am soaking colors like reds, I will check on them after about 24 hours and if they look clean, pull them from the mixture. Do not be alarmed if the water begins to look like this:

You will not believe what will be pulled out of the fabric. If the water turns too gross, I will repeat the process after the first 24 hours and let the linens soak another 24 hours in fresh soap mixed water.

This is what a batch looked like after I had a tablecloth soaking that had lots of red in the fabric. I don't really know if it was the red in the fabric or if it was just that this stuff was so dirty. I got scared none the less and thought I had ruined everything and pulled everything out and checked it. Nothing was ruined at all. I did re-mix the mixture to soak again, and soaked the red tablecloth by itself....still no damage to anything. Just a bunch of gross looking water. Can you just imagine the years of dirt and grime trapped in the fibers of this fabric?

Once you have soaked the linens for the instructed time frame, Gently squeeze the soapy water out of the fabric and rinse in the sink by hand in fresh water. You are going to rinse, rinse and rinse some more.

The key is to remove all of the soap from the fabric....so rinse...rinse....rinse.

If you are having still a lot of soap appear in the rinse water, you can use the following in only ONE of the rinse sinks and only use it one time.

Pour 2 cups of white vinegar to two gallons of fresh water.

Now, rinse all your linens by hand in the vinegar water. Follow with a rinse in plain fresh water.

I usually will rinse these about 4-5 times, some fabrics seem to hold more soap than others, you will be able to tell, you want the rinse water to be without soap residue before you go to the next step.

Now, take all of these freshly rinsed linens and put them into your washer. I use the hand wash cycle, double rinse option on my washer. Add a very mild detergent to wash your linens with. Be sure to check your last rinse cycle....If you rinse water looks like this.......

Rinse again. You want to remove all the soap from your fabrics before they are dried.

I line dry everything. Heavy tablecloths can be dried flat on the grass on top of large towels as can all vintage linens. I make sure everything is hung out straight on the line, the sun does wonders for whites.
Don't worry if you do not have a clothes line, this method of drying works the same way when you lay them out flat on towels to dry.

The final step would be to remove from drying method, and press with hot iron.

This seems like a lot of steps, but really it is not. The results are so worth the effort, trust me. This was a quilt block I acquired from an estate sale, the white was all yellowed and dingy. This is the final result after I removed it from the line. It is sparkly clean and white again, looks like new. I think this will make a really cute pillow.

All the spots came out of everything. If you have any rust spots, this will not remove the rust. I am working on finding the perfect solution for those spots.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial on cleaning vintage linens....Be sure to report back here and tell me how it worked for you....I am quiet sure I know what you will have to say! I even used this method to soak a batch of vintage lace last week. You have to be very careful with the lace however, because it is so fragile when wet, but it worked well, and the lace came out very clean and bright.

Recipe for Cleaning Vintage Linens:
1 scoop of Oxi-Clean
1 scoop of Biz Detergent - use the Oxi-clean scoop
Soak in one gallon of hot, heated water for up to 48 hours.
Rinse well....Use 1 cup white vinegar to 1 gallon of water to rinse out soap residue
Wash in washer on gentle cycle using a mild detergent. Rinse well.
Line dry or dry in the sun. Press with iron if needed.

Now, go on and get your vintage treasure out of the closet, and give them a good cleaning...you will be so amazed at the results!