Just wanted to update you on a couple of items. I am still cleaning and putting away garage sale items I want to keep a while, sorting Christmas and Thanksgiving kind of items for a possible early November sale and bagging items for donation. Yesterday I took eight large plastic bags of Jan's cloths to Good Will.
One very interesting item. An older couple of ladies who attended the sale and bought 3 sets of Japanese Kokeshi Dolls came back yesterday and wanted to know if I still had any of them left. She explained that two of the ones she bought were painted and the others were plain bare wood. She cleaned them up real good and " oiled " the plain wood ones and they are beautiful and she just fell in love with them. I checked and still had around 20 or so Kokeshi Dolls left and I she bought the whole lot for $5.00. As they were preparing to leave we were talking about Japanese items and one of them indicated she loved Kabuki items. I explained I had 3 large framed items she might be interested in and she wanted to see them. I invited them into the house and took them to the basement to see the items where they have hung for years. I have to explain how we came to own these items. In Japan, Jan had a seamstress who came to the house every month or more often and made cloths for Jan and the girls. This seamstress was wonderfully talented. She would measure Jan and the girls and cut out patterns from brown paper grocery bag and then sow what ever Jan and the girls wanted. As the girls grew she would increase the size as needed ( of course petite Jan did not increase in size ). The material we would buy at Japanese cloth stores. Oh, what beautiful material. We would have Sears, JC Penney and other catalogs around and they would pick out what they wanted and the seamstress would sew the item. As gifts at different times she gave us the Kabuki pictures. I say pictures which they weren't painted or drawn. They were the Japanese characters slightly stuffed with batting material so the character was about 1/2 inch higher than the rest of the flat surface. The most magnificent colors of silk material was used. Two of the items were about 2 feet square and the large one was about 3 feet by 2 feet. The lady bought all three for $60.00.
We had one other such framed piece of art that the seamstress gave to me. Jan did not like it so we did not display it. It was made just like the other 3 only this was a Japanese lady beautifully dressed but with bare breast. I am sure the lady would have bought this piece also but I could not find it and honestly I can't recall the last time I saw it so it was either destroyed or may still be above the garage. I asked about her interest in Japanese brass ware and she had no interest in it. I was hoping she might like some brass fighting roosters and the like.
Finally, I cannot stop without a few photographs of flowers in my back yard.
Crape Myrtle
More Crape Myrtle
Giant Phlox
More Giant Phlox
Hibiscus
The flower bed that replaced the fish pond was intended to be a butterfly garden. I have the flowers, vegetables etc that is suppose to lead to the caterpillars and eventually butterflies but so far only beautiful flowers. Maybe later. I am really starting to get interested in planning the fall trip to the Northeastern states ( the Lord willing ). Remember I am praying for each of you and I love you.
Grandpa Bill.
