Museum Monday!

Have You Ever been Struck by Lightning?

I suppose one may think I'm talking about actually being, physically, struck down by a bolt of lightning. Well...I'm not. For me, every now and then, when something rare and fabulous finds me...(some may call it pure dumb luck)...I call it being struck by lightning. I mean...sometimes, I just have to think,,,what on earth are the chances of finding a certain something....or, like last Museum Monday, another something that was obviously made to pair with a something.... I'm being a bit vague I suppose...so lets look back to the Museum Monday on 12 Dec of last year....those pretty green kid leather stamped children's shoes, 878.2016.01.  They didn't find me, nor were they donated...they're just a marvelous pair of early stamped shoes! Amazing condition. Rare survivors. Wonderful shoes and I am so blessed to have them.

I have been overwhelmingly busy as of late~ getting ready for class this August at the Bath Textile Summer School....getting ready for a trip to Yellowstone National Park...building a new woodshop so I can make all sorts of fantabulous things for ya'll no matter what the weather is doing outside....and in the middle of this tornado of activity....WHAM! I got struck by lightning!

Let me explain....because its really quite comical when I think about it... I am outside working on the new shop and come in to look up a ceiling fan on the computer....my recent trek 100 miles up north yielded no fan suitable for my shop...couldn't find anything under 36" in diameter....but I did find a funky garage fan that was about perfect for what I wanted, but it snapped into some even stranger garage door opener contraption and couldn't be hardwired in....so I am on the computer madly pressing buttons and searching all sorts of weird terms for a ceiling fan...garage fan.....exhaust fan...boxed fan....caged fan....basket fan~ anything! So am on eBay, and  somehow in my fan search, up came a single early shoe, along with a fan! Strange. So me being me, I clicked on it cause the shoe was a nice early shoe....but it was a single, and as a rule, I usually dont bother with a single of anything.....and then, as I scrolled down, they have  the advertisements of what other things seller is selling....and my eye caught a glimpse of something very interesting.....and thats exactly the moment I got struck by the lightning.

Do these look familiar?????!!!!

What are the odds???? How can this be????  I am looking for a ceiling fan.....and end up staring at these shoes!

 I still cant believe it. The red pair is about an 1/8" longer than the green....and that could be due to the fact the sole has flattened out. Note the spring(or curve) in the sole of the green pair above~ both look to have ample wear in the right areas to have been worn. I do not believe these to be show shoes~

 The gilt stamping is not just  similar, it is exact. Absolutely exact in every way, shape and form. Red shoes stamping has less wear than the green and shows more brilliantly.

 One lace is missing, and the other, complete with its brass tips, is only long enough to lace thru the bottom 4 sets of eyelet holes~ which was common for these not to be laced all the way to the top, unless one had particularly spindly legs. I would say that of all the period photographs I have seen showing front lacing shoes,  the majority are only laced halfway up the throats.

 Little angels are placed to be facing up to the wearer when they look down at their feet~

Could I ever hope to find a white pair...or perhaps a blue????  I never thought I'd see a red pair, so perhaps!