Baby Cat Needs A Blanket

Baby cat went looking for a blanket.   He found this yummy seamist green one.

But it was wayyyyy too big for him.

Then he found this nice sea-shelly one.

He like the colors but it was wayyyy too big.

Then he found this nice stripey one.

He liked it very much, but it was still wayyyyy too big.

He tried another stripey one.

It was smaller, but still wayyyy too big.

Then he spotted this one!

Just  Right!

These baby blankets made by my Mom are so pretty and soft it makes you want to have a baby!  Ummmmm,  no thanks!  She's frustrated that my brothers and I didn't produce enough offspring to satisfy her knitting and crocheting needs so she just keeps making blankets in the hope she can find some babies to give them to.  The blanket closet is getting a little full so she gave some to me to sell on Etsy.  They will be available shortly for all your baby cuddling needs.  Buy one for yourself!

The Simplicity Design Guide, 14

I hope you have enjoyed this neat booklet.  It is a rare find.

And here's the last page.

Another Shameless Plug

"Jane, I've got the best idea!", Ann whispered evilly.  "See that couple over there with the horrible matching sweaters?  Let's try to break them up!  We can do it, we've got our granny square bikinis on underneath our clothes today."

"Make sure you swish your skirt !"

"That ought to get his attention away from that matching sweater freak."

"Oh, look!  There's Olivia! Are those leather pants she's wearing?"

"You're the one that I want you karma chameleon, you!"

The above illustrations are from some knitting and crafting books I just put in my Etsy store.  The following just didn't fit into the story line but are equally worthy of mention.

Remember when you were little and would wait eagerly until the next McCall's Needlework and Crafts magazine came out and your mother bought it?  Remember all the strange little things you could make out of odds and ends like paperclips and hairpins?  Who thought up all of that weirdness like twig sculpture

pebble and macrame jewelry

toys made out of apricot pits

knitted lions wearing clothes

giant hamburger pillows?

(that skewer looks dangerous!)

And then there's the beautiful.  I love this sequinned Chanel jacket.

Say what!!??

The Simplicity Design Guide, 13

The Simplicity Design Guide, 12

Humping It

Here are some more nice hairpins still in their original cellophane!  I looked up the patent holder, Solomon Harry Goldberg, owner of the Hump Hairpin Manufacturing Company, and it seems he was a busy fellow.  In addition to these hairpins, patented in 1903 while he lived in Danville, IL,  he also was involved with collar buttons. In 1909 he improved his hairpin.

Here is a patent for a new improved hairpin box from 1922, and a hairpin container from 1923.

He got pretty whimsical with this hairpin holder from 1909.  Seems you spread apart the strands and stick the hairpins in the skirt.  That would be a fun thing to find!

With the success of his hairpins he had another brilliant idea for a safety pin built along those same lines.  His explanation says it enables more material to be pinned all the way to the end, and would lie flatter.  I have never seen one of these.

A man who worked for him patented a hairpin forming machine.

Things were going good until Irene Castle bobbed her hair.  Solomon regrouped and called his invention a bobby pin and kept accumulating his fortune.  At the end of this article is a rather long scholarly essay on bobby pins that mentions Solomon H Goldberg's contribution near the end.

And here we have it:  the modern bobby pin, patented in 1929.



Cards to sell them on.

In the 1930 census, Sol H Goldberg, born 1885,  and his wife, Ruth, their three children, the oldest 7 years old, three maids, a nurse, and a governess are living in Chicago, IL.  With all that money, he is renting an apartment at Jackson Tower Apartments for $1000 a month.  He is a Manufacturer and financier, Hairpins, etc.  He was born in Ohio, his parents Germany and Austria, and Ruth was from Vilna, Poland.

In the 1920 census he is lodging in Chicago, IL with his two sisters although he is marked as married.  He is a Manufacturer of hairpins.  He was born in 1881.

In 1910 he is the head of a household that includes his brother and sisters and he is a Manufacturer of Roofing and Req Supplies.  That answers the question I had when I was reading the patents.  I kept seeing shingles and roofing apparatus being patented by a Solomon H Goldberg of Chicago and assumed it was a different man.  So in 1910 he had patented his hairpin and improved it and was still running the roofing business and hedging his bets.  He was also involved in the retreading of tires in 1920.  He also invented several means of packaging fragile items.  A busy man.

Here's what he did before.  He also invented a machine to print the design on sheets of asphault.

The Simplicity Design Guide, 11

The Simplicity Design Guide, 10

The Simplicity Design Guide, 9

So-Me-On

Isn't this a cute little guy?  He's a sew on or glue on applique from the 1920's.  The stamp at the bottom says the company that made him is "Hollander's".  Try doing a search on THAT!  Not one to give up, I went to my favorite search engine, Google Patents.  I put in the work "applique" and voila!  (Results after the pics.)

Here is the back.  So many choices.  Such small pictures.

When I put the work "applique" in the Google Patents search engine I got a whole list of things.  I checked the box to arrange them oldest to newest and started browsing in 1828!  When I got to the 1920's, to my amazement I started finding appliques done in the same style as this one.  The third one was this!

Others in the series follow.

It was Hollander's after all!

These were all designed and patented by Kurt Lehmann for the So-Me-On Corp of New York City.  You know me, I had to see if I could find out about this guy.  Google yielded way too many current-day Kurt Lehmanns so I went to the 1930 census.  I  found 3 Kurt Lehmanns in New York.  One was 40 and an insurance salesman, one was 15, and one was a 20-year-old carpenter.  Hmmmmm. Not to be dissuaded I  took of an "n" and tried again. From Manhattan a 30-year-old waiter and a 26-year-old mechanic.  Branching out, because maybe just the patent attorney lives in New York I found a laborer in Detroit and a truck driver in Wisconsin.  Striking out!

So I went to the 1920 census to see if he had moved out of New York.  Looked at the insurance salesman again.  Bingo!  In 1920 he was a manufacturer of laces.  That sounds more like it.  Kurt was a 1908 immigrant from Munich who became a citizen in 1914.  (They did that back then.)  He was married to Sylvia, a native New Yorker, whose family came from Pennsylvania and New York.  Son, Kurt Jr, was 5 and they had an Austrian maid.

You will notice that the term of the patent is 3-1/2 years.  Maybe after that time he sold the patents and became an insurance salesman.  In all I found 21 patents for appliques.  When I changed the search to "Kurt Lehmann" I found that he switched to designing fabrics with embroidered designs on it in 1938 and 1939.  Evidently insurance didn't do well during the depression.

The Simplicity Design Guide, 8

Just Ducky

Aren't these just the cutest?  They are Ducky Baby Blanket Fasteners and the beaks hold the corners of the blanket and the ties fasten onto the crib or stroller to keep the blanket on the baby.  The ducks are made of celluloid and are probably from the late 1940's.  They are still in their box!!

Here is a neat metal rabbit pair from 1928, currently for sale for $45.00!

Apparently these clips are still being made.  No doubt because they are a great invention.  Here is a pair from Japan.  Another set from Japan showing how to use them.

Here is a link to a beautiful set made when silk ribbon was still obtainable.  On Ebay for $38 with 4 days left.  Wish I had a job!

This auction is for an empty box with beautiful graphics from the '20's for a set of Snugins Coverlet Fasteners.

Finally, a link to a set like mine, but probably later and the ducks are not two-toned and the ribbons are twill.

Here is a link to an Ebay auction of PINK ones in the box with instructions on the back!  Ends in 3 days and NO Bids!