According to Ruby, the treasures she discovers “just come upon me.” And, in fact, it seems that her collections have taken her by surprise. “I didn’t even realize that I had so many of certain things until I started gathering them and putting them into categories,” she says.

Immediately evident, because it fills two walls and several shelves in Ruby’s welcoming yellow kitchen, is her state plate collection. The first plate found Ruby just before she and her two children moved from California to Idaho in 1992. “All that last week before we moved, my friend and neighbor, Irene, a Chinese woman, brought us all this fabulous Chinese food. The last delicious dish she brought was heaped high on an Idaho state plate,” Ruby recalls. “When I returned the plate, I held it out to her and tapped its pictures, saying, ‘Irene, this is where we’re going! We’re going to Idaho!’ Irene just beamed and said, ‘You take.’”

From that first state plate, a collection of over 300 grew. Of those, nearly 100 are decorative plates, suitable only for display. The rest grace Ruby’s dining table. And since Ruby has visited most of the states her plates represent, the pictures trigger trips down memory lane.

“I started traveling when I was 17 years old,” Ruby says. “My mother encouraged me to go to France. And that’s where I spent my 18th birthday.”

But back to plates – Ruby practices what she calls ‘plate ethics.’ “I have a rule about my plates,” she says. “I never pay over $2.00 for a plate. And I’ll leave the price tag right on the decorative ones.”
The same rule of ethics goes for the dishtowel collection that sits inside the tin-paneled pie safe in Ruby’s living room. “A dollar-fifty, two dollars at the most,” she says, as she flips through a stack of calendar-decorated dishtowels denoting each of the 32 years from 1964 to 1996. After that stack comes a collection of dishtowels illustrating places. The London tea towel is printed with London sites and stirs another special memory.

“The London flea market,” Ruby announces, indicating one of several sketches on the white muslin towel. “The times I was there, the dealers believed that you didn’t turn down the first offer of the day.” Her eyes dance with delight. “So if there was something you really wanted and you got there really early, you might end up with this fabulous buy!”
The handsome pie safe that houses the dishtowels, hankies, crocheted afghans and more was a gift to Ruby from her parents. So were the blanket chest, cannonball bed, Hoosier, and secretary desk. “I feel like part of my appreciation of old and beautiful things comes from my family. Since I was a girl, my folks always gave me these beautiful pieces of furniture for gifts, so I never got a Barbie or a television set. Instead, I have things like this wonderful pie safe.”

Nearby, an antique trunk holds a collection of ethnic clothing that includes a wedding sari, a Peruvian skirt and a pair of Afghani boots ... along with another fond memory.

“This is an Indonesian kabaya,” she says, fingering a filmy blue blouse embroidered with lotus blossoms. “In the ’70s, I used to wear this with a pair of jeans and a leotard.”

During the ’70s, Ruby worked as an art-clothing designer. “I made wonderful vests that had neckties plaited on the fronts. And I crocheted these great jackets that looked like you were going through Arizona on the back of them,” she says, her hands drawing pictures in the air.

“I made all kinds of clothing for movie stars like Steve McQueen and Joel Gray. And I had great connections in San Francisco where I just cooked with one buyer at this real hot men’s store. He’d come back from New York and say ‘Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo,’ and I’d start making prototypes,” she says, laughter in her eyes. “To be an artist and to have your work sold before you ever made it was a wonderful thing.”
From designing art clothing, Ruby went to restoring art in the form of rugs. She worked in a Berkeley rug factory, where she excelled at repairing Oriental rugs. In time, she became intrigued with the Navajo rugs her boss always turned away, and encouraged him to take one in and let her try restoring it.

“It turned out I had a feel for them,” she says. “I taught myself to repair them. And I’ve never stopped.”

So now, Ruby collects Navajo rugs on a temporary basis while she restores, conserves or repairs them in her Moscow art studio. “In restoration, what you’re trying to do is reproduce what’s there,” she explains. “So it’s not just a gray yarn you’re trying to reproduce, it’s gray yarn that’s single ply, that’s worsted, that’s twisted from the right to the left. You go back to the beginning, lay the foundation in, lay the weft, tie all your ends, and you’ve made something whole again.”

“Then there’s conservation, where you tack things back together, just buoying torn areas with net for stability,” she continues. “When you are finished conserving something, it doesn’t look like it does when it’s brand new. But it’s stable, looks cared for and is still original.

“Repair is what you’d do to the end of a tribal Oriental rug that has been worn to fringe,” she says of her third specialty. “You don’t want to walk on it because of continuing degradation, and restoration to rebuild the end would be cost-prohibitive. So a good solution would be to take a really good piece of woven wool, make a binding and keep the energy of that rug intact.”

The Navajo rugs Ruby takes in come from everywhere. “People find me through other clients and through the people I use to clean my textiles,” Ruby says. “Even people who have restoration businesses will send me Navajo rug clients because they don’t have the right yarns and because I do a good job.”

Ruby also restores Oriental rugs, old quilts and nearly anything textile. Customers call her at 208-882-6722 to learn more about her services and to set up appointments or shipping arrangements.

“I like restoration from the standpoint that I’m not just filling the world with more stuff, new stuff,” she says. “Instead, I’m preserving something that has ethnic value, sentimental value, cultural value and historical value.”

The same could be said for every one of Ruby’s myriad collections. And yet, she says, “The real thrill for me is finding the treasures. Once I have them and see them all together, I no longer feel the need to own them. So really, most of the things I collect are always for sale – except for the furniture and others’ rugs and blankets.” And except, of course, for the memories that she shares for free every time she tells a tale from her past.

“I never set out to go antiquing or bargain shopping,” she declares with an effervescent smile. “Even so, I never pass a Goodwill store but what I go in.”

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