Thursday Teacups And Tea Things, Poinsettia Pitcher, Rocking Horse Teacup

A a wonderful Thursday morning in the week before Christmas! It's Thursday Teacup And Tea Things! I am also joining Vintage Thingie Thursday with Coloradolady and Teacup Thursday with Miss Spenser.

I think the design of this little cup and saucer is so cute! Like a Swedish wooden horse turned into a folk art rocking horse for Christmas. The design isn't English but I really like it! The teacup was made in the late 1980s.  

To go with it, I have this cool 1960s ceramic pitcher with a molded poinsettia design. Talk about making a statement! It is so bright and cheery...not to say eye popping as far as the color contrast is!

At one time I had a whole set including salt & pepper, cream and sugar etc. That was a vintage Christmas table! To see more info about the teacup or pitcher at Time Was Antiques click on the photos.

And here are a couple of ornaments from my tree, made from dough from the 1980s. We used to visit Ashland, Oregon, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for the plays. There was the Lithia craft market on Calle Guanajuato along Ashland Creek where I got these from an artisan. I have treasured them since!  These were made from a walnut shell with a little critter having a snooze inside. I have some magnets on the fridge as well, and that year guess what everyone got for Christmas???!!!

Well, I hope you are getting ready for the holiday. We attended a Christmas party yesterday and have another this evening. Busy, busy, busy! But what a wonderful time of the year!  Take some time to visit the other great blog parties!

English Tea Sayings, The Queen's Tea From Darville's Of Windsor

Good morning! And a bright frosty Saturday morning it is! 

I just found at the back of my bookshelf a book I bought in England on a buying trip at a National Trust shop called Mothballs And Elbow Grease: origins and meanings of household sayings.

I found a few that are tea related to share:

Afternoon Tea

The Victorian love of taking 'afternoon tea' led to the common description of such sectors of society where it was favored as 'afternoonified', meaning smart. For many a Scottish schoolboy, however, the prospect of 'afternoon tea' was not a pleasant one, as it was a euphemism for detention.

Break The Teapot

In the Victorian era, moderation was admired if not always maintained. If someone changed their habits and eschewed abstinence for alcohol, he was said to have 'broken the teapot'.

Born With A Silver Spoon In One's Mouth

The spoon alluded to is an Apostle's Spoon, a traditional christening present from a godparent. The expression suggests, however, that a child born into a wealthy family would have no need to wait for such a gift for his first taste of luxury. A complete set of Apostle's Spoons was, nonetheless, a generous gift. There are 12, each with a different apostle at the top of the handle, sometimes even an additional Master Spoon and Lady Spoon would be included.

From the archives of Time Was Antiques

I also wanted to share with you where you can find the tea Queen Elizabeth II is said to favor for her morning tea whilst in residence at Windsor Castle. There is a tea merchant in Windsor, England in the town below the castle called Darville's Of Windsor. Several of their brands bear the Royal Warrant, which means they supply the Royal family. We bought some of Darville's  English Breakfast and then were told it was Her Majesty's favorite of a morning. 

We haven't seen any here in the US, but one of the Brit foods and tea suppliers we buy from is Teadog.com. The Darville's English Breakfast is listed on the website, so if you want to have the Queen's Breakfast tea...here is your chance! We quite liked it! 

Have a great Saturday...we are off to holiday bazaars and craft shows which is a fun way to ease into the season.
Cheers!

Downton Abbey catch up and Edwardian lavalier coral and pearl

We were away for a break with friends for a week and could not get to watch the first 2 episodes of PBS' Downton Abbey. Checking my missed blog friend posts, I found out from Jane Austen Today that I could catch up by watching online at the PBS Masterpiece website.  WOO HOO!!! Life is good! Now I'm up to speed for Sunday's episode 3.

After watching, I think Maggie Smith...who regularly is a scene stealer of the best type...had some of the best lines. What a crack up and what a snobbish battleax she portays!  The settings are the stars as well, down to the great period details. I love the imari teaset the dowager Countess was using and the way she properly warmed the teapot and used the slop or waste bowl...I think I have that set online at the moment...or at least some similar...

For those of you who aren't familiar with imari...the English china that appeared in the 1850s was actually a copy of the just discovered colorful design of the Imari region of Japan and were wildly popular until the 1920s when they began to wane in popularity. The colors were bright cobalt blue, rust, green and almost always had imaginitive hand painted gold accents and trim. All the major potteries made imari design of one kind or another.
You can see more examples at Time Was Antiques here is a link to our Imari china category:
Imari at Time Was Antiques


Another neat example of the Edwardian period so beautifully illustrated by Downton Abbey is the jewelry styles. Edwardian is technically from the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 to the reign of George V in the early 1920s-1930s when a more modern style with less belle epoque ornamentation came to the forefront.
This is a period example of an Edwardian lavalier necklace of 10kt gold with a genuine branch of coral and a fresh water pearl, ornamented with pink and green gold.

For more info and photos use this link:
Antique Edwardian lavalier at Time Was Antiques


I hope you have a wonderful day...and don't miss the next episode of Downton Abbey which is a tour de force of period mores, styles, attitdues and traditions as well as drop dead gorgeous scenery and ambiance. To watch online, visit:
Masterpiece Theater Downton Abbey on PBS

Cold Snap in England...York Christmas Fayre...Plum Pudding Teapot

There have been record amounts of snow and cold temperatures in the UK...there was just a BBBc article about travelers being stranded for 8 days in North Yorkshire because of snow...but at least it was at a pub! Pub Stranding.

This little photo is my favorite so far...it's off a BBC web page & doesn't enlarge, but you get the idea.

We got up in April during a buying trip in the Cotswolds one April morning and found 8 inches of snow had fallen overnight. We were lived in snow country at that time, but the rental but the rental car had normal tires. We had a 3 hour drive to the West Midlands to family on our for our next round of antique fairs near Stoke-on-Trent and the trip took up 9 hours. We thought we were going to get stuck going through one of our favorite villages, Snowshill (on a hill amidst winding, narrow roads as it's name implies) but made it through...next obstacle was lots of cars off the road & traffic accidents through the bottleneck bridge of Stratford-on-Avon. Were we glad to get to family in Erdington!!!  Had great photos, but my laptop crashed a week late in Worcester & I lost all my photos!

 One of the favorite things to do in the York area in Northern England is attend the York Christmas Fayre. The family was going this weekend, haven't heard if they did. But I'd planned on posting links to the sites because they are so much fun to look at and see what's going on "across the pond". York is an historic cathedral town and LOVELY to visit and shop in if your are looking for antiques. Lots of fairs, small shops & markets.

Yuletide York 
Christmas In York

Last night we went to the Christmas concert of the Peninsula Men's Gospel Singers which was outstanding. Well done guys! The O Holy Night was truly outstanding and Michael Rivers did a spectacular job of prep and conducting. Thanks for that Christmas gift!

We are off this afternoon after church to another local theater production Meet Me In St Louis by the Port Angeles Community Players for their Christmas show. Should be a lot of fun. The movie version is famous for Judy Garland singing Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.

And lastly...another bit of holiday cheer we've just added at Time Was Antiques...a vintage Price Kensington plum pudding teapot. It even has the snocap of brandy sauce or hard sauce on top with the holly sprig! How cool is that!
Plum Pudding Teapot


Have a wonderful day, filled with the joys of the holiday season enjoying things you love to do! Cheers...oh, and cuppatea, anyone???

Purple Cased Glass Napkin Ring Cut To Clear

Purple rules!!! The royal color. I have just unpacked this brilliant purple cased glass napkin ring that has been cut to clear and it is fab! The napkin ring was found in England at the Portobello Road antique market. I LOVED the color! It was actually a sunny day so it fairly glowed. It made the trip home sfely as well.

Cased glass is made with 2 layers and then the outer colored layer is cut to reveal the inner clear layer. A neat process and very effective! I love colored glass and this is beautiful.

Weather here has been intermittant clear and clouds and the trees are beginning to turn color. Fall is indeed approaching. I'm okay with that. I'm planning to get our a fertilize the garden for next years blooms tomorrow, so hope it's mostly clear. Have a great day.
Purple cased glass napkin ring at Time Was Antiques

I have been SUCH a bad blogger!!! I can't believe it...life just happens and another day is gone. BUT plan to do better.

I have just added a fabulous Royal Winton teapot on Time Was Antiques.
The teapot is very different than the chintz patterns people usually think of in conjunction with Royal Winton, and also was made just prior to or very early in Royal Winton's association with Grimwades, an association they are famous for, whom they merged with in 1930.

The unusual teapot (and we also have a tall jug or pitcher in the same pattern) is in a pattern called Imari which was very popular from the late victorian times until about the 1940s. The pattern and colors are taken from the Japaneses patterns of the same name and region. The Imari pattern is rarely seen because relatively few items in the pattern were made, but I LOVE it! Talk about colorfull! What a terrific decorative accent as well as an elegant way to pour out at your next tea party!

Well, today I am busy adding more items from our last English buying trip. I am bound and determined to get them all on in the next month or so, so...back to work!