Welcome to My Red Cape. Long ago in another time my husband Jack and I lived in a little old red house. It was the stuff of dreams to us for the few years that we were there. I live there still a number of hours every day in imagination, with old dolls and paintings and fabrics and feather trees. I draw inspiration and happiness from the memories of that space in time and share some of it here with friends who remember how to step with Alice through the looking glass and take delight in whimsies and antiquities. ~Edyth O’Neill

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Paint question, not much help

In answer to an email requesting the name and brand of paint if Jack ever painted some of his furniture in an "Old red".

Hi Lois, Yes many times, however he just mixes a mess up in an aluminum pie pan and paints out of that. He uses latex paints, several reds and a black or brown, and mixes what he wants, trying them out on a scrap of wood. Sorry About that! Exception, for a very light red he uses a color called mayflower red from Benjamin Moore. We keep reds in cans from Old Village paint company, but also from others he buys locally at different times. So hard to be any help! Good Luck, Edyth

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Pie in the Turkey pan!



Here is a big one, double the recipe given a few days back. Jack peeled peaches nearly 2 hours for it. The end of the local peach crop is just about here, this may be our last peach cobbler for the year. The pan is about 11 by 17.
Before it went in the oven, you can see how the top is covered with 4 bought pie crusts cut up and layered slightly as needed to cover completely. Some years back I stopped making home made pie crust, but still miss it a bit. With sugar and butter and cinnamon added, this one is pretty good! Serve warm with ice cream.

The next pies we will make are likely pumpkin ones. I am ready for a turn towards fall. The weatherman said yesterday we will have 6 more weeks of this extreme heat and drought! But what does he know anyway? e

We are Incurable collectors and happy that way.


A happy morning at the local yard sales! so many times we buy little or nothing, perhaps some small tool or a few old copies of Southwest Art Magzine, or sometimes do not spend even a dime for an hour and half of driving, having risen and dressed and left home at 7 am or before. Weeks go by in futility and then oh wonder of wonders, we find some treasure...a small oriental rug, or a cache of art supplies including many fine brushes, or a piece of Texas stoneware...and this morning look what Jack found!

It has been years and years since we have bought any of the humble little iron snow eagles, which once sat in rows on the roofs or northern houses above the entrance to hold the snow from sliding down on the unwary. Sometimes on old homes, we have seen ranks of them all the way across a roof, several feet from the edge, in a fashion to keep the whole snow pack on the roof longer. Was this for insulation? I am unclear why they were so widely used, particularly in Pennsylvania, but they once abounded there on the old homes, and then in the antique shops. There were even some later reproduction ones to avoid.

It is fun to find something old mixed in with all the sad and dicarded Beanie babies.

The little iron eagles are in as found condition right now, meaning some aluminum paint and a bit of rust. Jack will work his magic on them and the pretty snow birds will sit among his collection of early stoneware, above our kitchen cabinets. It is Jack's collection of early American pottery than makes our modern kitchen more bearable to us. It numbers over 60 pieces of stoneware, and we never counted the redware. Heaven save us if we ever have to down size seriously! Edyth

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