Flutterby Patch

Good intentions

I had good intentions today. The sun was shining for a change but due to serious road re-surfacing work right outside our gate my escape from the house was made impossible. I was confined to barracks. A good opportunity to run the hoover round and dust I decided.

The trouble with being a hoarder and collector of numerous knick-knacks means dusting becomes a real chore and I'm all too easily side-tracked. I'm a 'flutterby' by name and nature I'm afraid, happily flitting about from one thing to the next and not settling for long on any one thing in particular. I'd hoovered two rooms and dusted a shelf when I picked up a pretty Victorian Christening mug that I bought from an antiques fair several years ago. I love items that bear the name and date of former owners. Whether it be on china, glass, wood, metal or even books, for me the addition of a name adds character and mystery.

This pretty mug belonged to Alice Eley in 1859. It was a popular style of Christening mug favoured by many Victorians and I treasure it. I'm sure Alice would be pleased.

  My prize possession in the 'name and date' department is this silver spoon. Thanks to Britain's fastidious regulations regarding the hall marking of precious metals, I know it was made in London in the year 1730 by a silversmith named James Wilkes.

  It is engraved with the initials IA and surname BLAKE. Under this is written 'BORNE Ye 10 DEC 1730 at 3 in AF' (3 in the afternoon). Isn't that wonderful? I know that the letter 'J' was often written as an 'I' in those far off days and have many times tried to track down a child with that name who was born on that day. There have been a number of possibilities but no proof. A place of birth might help solve the mystery.

  From the spoon my mind wandered to my own children's births and Christenings. They have neither silver spoons nor Christening mugs but I do have all the cards from friends and family that mark each occasion.

Blue for my son

  Pink for my daughter

When Christened they both received a little book from Granny and Granddad and I made a tiny baby in a cradle trimmed with blue for my son's Christening cake and a baby in a cradle trimmed with pink for my daughter's. I rooted them out today just to make sure the babies were doing OK. They have been used as dolls house toys over the years so have that 'played with' appearance but now live happily with the cards in a pretty box and seem to be quite content.

  

My children are grown now and have flown the nest. Toddlers, toys, tears and teenage years are distant happy memories. My son is 3 years older than my daughter and they've always been good chums.

  

As for me, I'm surrounded by keepsakes and happy memories that I cherish. Serious hoovering and dusting have never been top of my agenda. They can always be done another day!

Life after binca

Reading Kim's Ragged Roses blog and her subsequent comments it would seems a lot of mums in blogland are very much in 'back to school' mode at the moment. I dropped in on Kitchen Pink this morning and admired the binca stitching done by three generations of her family. I was immediately transported back to my early infant days. Amazingly I still have the little binca 'mat' that I made when I was six (below). Lapses in concentration are obvious (I was no doubt gossipping as usual). Looking at my little mat I immediately recalled the smell of the well used infant plasticine that pervaded the classroom; horrible stuff, always marbled green and brown and totally uninspiring.

 

They say 'give me a child until he's seven and I'll give you the man' and, true enough, decades later I'm still stitching. Here are a few stitched pics I've made since my binca days. 

This is entitled 'Three Birds' and is a design by the very talented needlewoman Elizabeth Bradley. Her kits are available on line.

 

Elizabeth Bradley's needlework books are an inspiration. I have three titles, 'Animals', 'Antique Flowers' and 'Decorative Victorian Needlework'.

Each book is superbly illustrated and contains a number of graphs in full colour which enable you to create your own stitched masterpieces. The sample pages below can be found in 'Decorative Victorian Needlework'.

I'm not certain if the books are still in print but they are all readily available from secondhand book sellers and of course Ebay. 

Early American needlework was my inspiration for the sampler below. Apologies for the poor reproduction but I had to stand on a wobbly chair to photograph it. The sampler is in a heavy frame and hangs above my dining room fireplace where it complements my blue and white china on the shelf below.

I enjoy counted thread-work but have also done quite a bit of freestyle work over the years. I used vegetable dyes to colour the all threads used in the picture below

I love antique needlework and have collected some nice examples over the years. The finely stitched picture below must have been a popular subject as I have seen it on two or three occasions since acquiring this one. It dates from the second half of the 19th century.

Mary Clements stitched this sampler in 1836 and I can't help but wonder what became of her.

Needlework talk and browsing through Elizabeth Bradley's books has put me in the mood to begin a new piece of stitching, sadly though I have other projects on the go at the moment so must resist the temptation. Such a pity!

I'm having a blue day

It has been a blue day for me today and I've had great fun photographing a selection of my blue and white china and other bits and pieces. This activity was all due to being totally inspired by Rhondi's blue and white china so lovingly and artistically displayed in her beautiful home, see her blog Rose Colored Glasses. Like Rhondi, I adore blue and white china and have been an avid collector for many years. Some of it is antique (display only) but the remainder is dishwasher proof and gets thrown around quite a bit. I don't really have any favourite pieces but perhaps the piece with the most 'history' is the Tek Sing bowl. This was part of a huge cargo of porcelain salvaged from the sea bed in the South China Sea in 1999. The Tek Sing was a Chinese junk that sank in 1822 and unbelievably much of the porcelain remained intact and undamaged for almost 200 years. This little bowl would have quite a tale to tell.

1.Sundry china 2.Cup & saucer (1890s) 3.China cupboard
4.Mason's Ironstone jug and Staffordshire figure
5.Delft charger (1760s) 6.Blue glass
7.Dutch Delft houses and Swedish wooden painted horses
8.Bowl from the Tek Sing cargo 9.Another china cupboard
10.Toy sewing machine 11.Reference books
12.Millennium calendar plate 13.Stoneware jug
14.Snowdrop print 15.Teapot, tea bowl and plate C1760
16.Miniature Dutch Delft tiles and clogs

Well, I've had great fun as you can see but haven't done a lot of chores today so I'd better make up for lost time.