Category Archives: design

August 27, 2012 · 10:21 am

Monday Rounderp

Hey HEY hey, it’s Monday! We’ll start with our weekend update, then proceed with the upcoming week’s schedule (tentatively).

“Racing,” or in this case, “Hanging out in Bob’s roomy trailer while we wait for the thunderstorm to abate.” Note the ingenious use of the blower tray as a snack table.

Weekend In Review:Â Well, it was a rainy weekend in Great Bend, Kansas. Which is terrific for such an agricultural community currently suffering from severe drought, but not so great for drag racing. Still, both cars managed to squeeze out a few passes and when Pam Wamser won the weekend’s event in her (supercharged, of course) â€™53 Studebaker Commander, she was shining enough for whatever sun we’d been missing. Everybody’s tent survived the weather, which was a big improvement over our last trip to Great Bend in which nearly everybody’s tent was broken and/or shredded by the relentless wind. However, the digger sustained some engine damage on one of Saturday’s passes and will need a going over this week to see if the guys can turn her around in time for next weekend’s race in Kearney, NE. Oh, and by the way, someone who had eaten a slice of Love Apple Cake without knowing its secret ingredient commented on its tastiness, in particular the filling! Take that, Daniel! :D

Tuesday:Â In which I grapple with an idea which may have run its course.

Wednesday:Â Howzabout I show you how to make what we in my family refer to as a Jellofetti Cake? No baking required!

Thursday: I’ve been promising to design “hero cards” for the Reminiscin Racing team. Will I get them done before the last race of the season? Unpaid gigs tend to get back burnered. Let’s check on the progress today.

Friday: Pot luck. I have to gather my things so I can go sit on a baby (what, that’s not what I’m supposed to do?) and don’t have time right now to schedule something for Friday. Woo, could be exciting!

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Filed under camping, cars, day job, design, food, friends

August 13, 2012 · 12:49 pm

Society Page

While researching the designer label on an evening gown I picked up this weekend for TiddleywinkÂ Vintage, I came across the “society” page of The Pittsburgh Press, November 15, 1947. I hope you like these snippets. Click â€™em to see â€™em larger.

Dolores (Carr) Rothrauff, 1947

Bunnye (Wedner) Kramer, 1947

Dorothy (Parrish) Briney, 1947

Social Situations, 1947

Juke Box Wail, 1947

Long Skirts, 1947

Other News:

A day in Leadville, CO

The fella and I, along with his younger sister and their parents, went up to Leadville (Colo.) for a day trip over the weekend for the parents’ 40th anniversary. The dad lived in Leadville until 1958, so it was a trip jam-packed with anecdotes and information that really made for an interesting day. We saw the hospital where dad was born (now condos) as well as the tar-paper house where his mother was born in 1906. We went past the rectory where her father first stoppedâ€”ready to receive his last ritesâ€”when he arrived in Leadville, because he was sure that his arid-climate nosebleed was in fact a sign of the high-altitude-induced brain hemorrhage that would soon cause his death. :) An antiques shop in Leadville is where I found the aforementioned gown, but seeing as it’s not exactly a fancy-dress town, I’m not sure if it ever saw a dance floor locally. Perhaps it caught a performance or two at the Tabor Opera House before being packed away for many years.
Also acquired: my first piece (no, really!) of Fire-King Jadite ovenware! I’ve long been on the hunt for a single, affordable, useful piece. Yes, I could use a mug, but I have this whole matchy-matchy thing going and I likely wouldn’t. I once found a solo fridgie dish-and-lid for a reasonable price, but it was chipped. Then lo, what do I spy in the corner of the antiques store but what appears to be a smallishy loaf baker which is not only marked a reasonable $22 but also conveniently on sale for 20% off! Once I got it home I learned that it’s actually a fridgie dish but with the less common (?) “Colonial” style rim, and it should have a clear lid. This set came with the same clear, handle-less lids used on the Gay Fad painted series. Those seem more easily found online, so I may buy myself a Gay Fad set just to steal the lid. ANYwayâ€¦pale green bliss!
The cherry-pie-that-didn’t-turn-out, I have decided, will make a delicious addition to a batch of homemade ice cream. Mmmm, ice cream!
The wardrobe dep’t. for “Vegas”Â placed another order! Woo!
Um, probably other stuff! Zippity doo-dah!

Very happy to be working this week on a project for Cooper House, who are not only pretty darn fab designers (and coders), but also wonderful friends. However, between that and a client meeting I have on Wednesday and a high-maintenance-pet-sitting gig I have going all this week: go away. I’m busy. I’ll be blogging (I hope!) but you have a reprieve from the baking/canning/cooking posts this week. Ta for now!

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Filed under amusement, collections, day job, design, family, fashion, friends, nostalgia, shopping, the office, vintage

March 8, 2012 · 4:35 pm

New New New (and slightly less-new)

Hi, I’m Troy McClure and you may remember me from such educational films asâ€¦ no, wait, that’s not right.

But I am Tiddleywink (Design, Vintage) and Winkorama Vintage Sewing. Happy to fulfill your vintage clothing, vintage sewing, and freelance print production dreams. Not necessarily in that order.

As of today, I’m also Tiddleywink Retro. It’s not really a big deal, just a little shop for the misfits: the items of clothing, etc. which don’t qualify for my Etsy shop because they’re not truly vintage, but are too nice and/or expensive to simply toss in the donation pile. Trust me, there’s plenty in the donation pile already. These are things that I either bought for myself but never wore, or bought as vintage for the shop only to find upon close inspection that they’re not as “vintage” as may have been advertised. And so here is where those items will be posted, hoping for new homes. The listing prices will be set at whatever I paid for each item; no more, no less. No markup. No profit. No sales. No discounts.

Tiddleywink Retro. It looks an awful lot like this.

Due to the nature of the store contents, I hope I won’t be updating it very often. But, you know, things happen. Maybe a dealer missed a dead-giveaway label hidden in a side seam. Maybe a dress I bought online is a few inches shorter than I’d hoped. Maybe I ordered two pairs of identical shoes planning to return whichever pair didn’t fit, only to have the store go out of business before I could send a pair back. Um, you know, for instance. Hypothetically. (Yeah, that once happened.)

So stroll around, take a look, tell your friends. Buy stuff that deserves to be worn, rather than hanging in a dark closet with no foreseeable future.

You can get to all of the above links, and more, from this one swell page:

Swell, innit? Click to visit.

Take A Look-See: Oh So Tasty Edition

Here’s a quick post for you tonight. From the July, 1950 edition of National Geographic, this ad is (rather obviously) for Hormel ham. Click image for inflating.

Hormel Ham, 1950

Deviled and chopped versions aside, doesn’t it actually look oh, so tasty? Tender, pink, rimmed in that moisture-trapping layer of fat glazed with brown sugar and studded with cloves. As far as I know, and as best as I can tell from the Hormel website (and the FDA as well), canned ham is really the same product as bone-in ham, without the mess of the bone. Who needs spiral slicing machines when your own kitchen knife can glide right through? Why have canned hams fallen out of favor? I think I’ll buy one next time I’m grocery shopping. Let’s bring back the canned ham!

Oh, and that little violator banner in the lower left? The one that mentions The Hormel Girls? Click here to hear them share a few words.

Mmmm, hammmm.

Cookbook Tuesdays: Metropolitan Life Insurance

Whoops, I missed a week of Take A Peek Wednesdays, where I scan and post some vintage advertising gem. To make up for it, or in other words, completely unrelated, let’s start Cookbook Wednesdays, wherein I feature some or another vintage cookbook in my collection, shall we?

We shall.

Here we have two copies of the Metropolitan Cook Book, graciously provided as freebies Â (originally; I had to buy them)Â by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. The one directly below is from February of 1948 and on the back is rubber stamped with the insurance agent’s contact info (Wayne Campbell, 4324 Sheridan, GE. 1893). The foreword states that the recipes included are intended to balance both budget and health, and includes a page or two of recipes to be made with leftover meats. I’m particularly fond of the meal planning advice that “at least two vegetables, in addition to potatoes, should be used in every day’s meals.” Yum! I do love my veg. I also love this blue and red grid design. And look at that lettering!

1948

Below is the June, 1953 edition with The World’s Most Adorable Food on the cover. This edition dismisses with the foreword but is illustrated inside, with more food items so happy to provide you with quality noms. I mean really, have you ever seen happier muffins than those on the cover of this booklet? I should think not.