Inheritance from Aunty Ame

Click on each photo to see the contents clearly.

Mum's oldest sister Amy (my Aunty Ame) died in March 1970.  Her house and everything in it was left to my four cousins including a large box of laces, braids, ribbons and scraps of fabric. Aunty Ame was a professional doll's clothes maker during the 1950s and 1960s so every month or so, a man would leave dozens of naked Pedigree and Roddy dolls in their boxes at her house and he would pick up the previous lot, fully dressed in knickers, petticoats, dresses and bonnets. Some were dressed as brides and Bo-Peep while others were dressed as little girls in their Sunday best but all of them were absolutely gorgeous in their taffeta and flocked nylon frocks. I am not sure if this bloke owned a chain of toyshops or whether he was a toy wholesaler but this business transaction went on for several years that I know of.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, my sister and I met several cousins for lunch on Sunday and I shall always be indebted to my cousin Jackie who has hung on to the box of bits for over forty years. They have not been touched........until today, when we met for lunch and she gave me the box.  I think I have died and woken up in Crazy Quilter's Heaven!!! I have just been going through the box and I actually remember some of the braids but the part that really spun me out was several little bundles of short length of laces and braids (obviously scraps) tied in bundles with ribbon.  I REMEMBER doing that when I was about ten or eleven and I was staying with my aunt and uncle during the school holidays.  She was sewing and I was bored, the hairs stood up on the back of my neck when I found them.....just as I had left them over half a century ago.

Right now, I am so delighted and stunned by all these treasures, some will undoubtedly find their way onto crazy quilt blocks.  I can never repay Jackie for her generosity nor can I repay my aunty for stashing all this stuff in the boxes and winding a lot of laces and braids onto cut pieces of cardboard from old Pedigree Doll boxes. Here are some photos of the stash which has not seen the light of day in over forty years.