Tea party!

After many false starts, Jennifer and I threw our first small tea party on a snowy Saturday. Jennifer provided the sweets; I contributed the savouries and scones. It was a great chance to use some of my hidden, stored, and packed away tableware, some of it for the first time!

The tea table at a glance:



Even though there were only six of us and an extra leaf in the table, there was not an extra inch of room for anything! The teapots were on the breakfront.

I used a mix of china, which is not the norm for me - a set of cups and saucers that are a favorite gift from my college friends, a sugar and creamer set that matched the tea plates, and a honey pot from another set altogether.



The savouries included three kinds of sandwiches and a board of Manchego cheese served with homemade quince jam and paté served with sliced baguette. Yum! And check out those cinnamon chip scones. I served those with Devonshire cream.



And every tea has its princess! Joy fit the bill nicely. She even brought her own tiara!



I hope this tea is only the first of many. See all of you for tea in the Spring??

Stories from the corner cabinet...

So Jennifer and I are throwing a tea party tomorrow. I've wanted to do this for a long time, and it's finally happening. We're doing it at my house, because I have all of the things!!

So, I knew it was finally time to unpack my floral teacups that Mom so carefully packed up for me when I moved out of my apartment (almost 4 years ago!!!!!!!!) I got the box out of the corner cabinet on Wednesday and unpacked it last night...

I love to go to flea markets when I can and look for china things - serving pieces. A bunch of years ago, at a flea market in Fitler Square, downtown in Phila, I bought the sugar and creamer for $6. This set off my little sugar and creamer set obsession, but that's another story... It turns out that when this set of china was produced, the sugar and creamer sat on a little tray (as pictured).



It became my mission to find the tray, and so I trolled Ebay, and about a year or so ago, I found the tray and bought it.

By this time, of course, I had lost track of the sugar and creamer. I knew I had them in the house and I was sure I put them away in frustration when I couldn't find the tray. Ever since I bought the tray, I have been searching all of my cabinets for the place I stashed the sugar and creamer. They were gone. My biggest fear was that I somehow decided to give up on the tray, and to give the sugar and creamer away. It didn't sound like me, but you never know...

Fast forward to last night and the great teacup unpacking moment...

I had forgotten that when Mom packed up the teacups, there were other things in that box. It was like unpacking a treasure chest. The teacups and saucers were there, all intact. There were also some loose pieces of the Japanese tableware I like (See this post...). One of those small bowls was broken - split in half - but I think I can carefully glue it back together and all will be well. And, guess what was also in the box???

Yes, there they were, the Adderley sugar and creamer, all wrapped up and undisturbed. Apparently, it was only an illusion of mine that they had ever been loose in the house, but it was never true until now. Today they sit, clean and beautiful, on their tray in the dining room, waiting for their first tea party in years!!!!

Autumn holiday decor...

From the better late than never school of thought...


This year the Halloween candle-holders migrated to the dining room table from the livingroom mantel...


Spooky!


From top to bottom: Luther, Hesperus, Fritzie, Mitzie, and Maud. Alas, now the squirrels are now enjoying my little friends a bit more than I am...


A collection from recent years...

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Moose Day!!!!

As seen in the garden...

1. A million weeds, but a million fewer than at the beginning of the afternoon

2. My downed wisteria, which toppled two trellises under its weight and with the constant rain. In spite of it all, it seems quite healthy. Let's hope it remains that way after its haircut next weekend

3. A bank of bright orangey-yellow lantana and hiding underneath some weeds near the roses, some variegated lantana that may bloom at last (in October!)

4. Beetles and earthworms and two piles of what must be earthworm eggs

5. A crazy amount of shards of glass. Where do they all come from? I swear they grow back there. Also bits of colored plastic

6. Two types of asters in two shades of purple. The brighter-colored shrub variety bloomed like crazy even though all of its stalks are, a la the wisteria, all over the ground instead of standing tall

7. An odd, crazy hook sticking into the ground in the middle of the yard. How the heck did it get there? How did I miss it all this time? If I pull hard enough, will I unearth a time capsule? An escape hatch? A door to the direct route to China? Some vital piece of the infrastructure to my house?

8. Cats. Lots of them (well, 5-6. Or maybe 7. Or 8). But especially Junior, who spent quality time guarding my back door so she could run in in case it opened, and who actually crawled into my lap when I was sitting on the back steps.

Here she is on my front steps last week, refusing to smile for the camera:



9. Daisies! Last year, instead of flowers for the holiday, I bought cheap potted daisy plants from Produce Junction, one white, one orange. After the holiday, I planted them both, and much to my surprise, one of them made it. But in typical fashion, I didn't note which color was planted where, and so had no idea what color would come up this year. Hurrah - the white! Who thought orange anything would make a good centerpiece anyway??

10. The demise of my American Beauty Berry. I was so excited to find one at Bartram's Garden this spring, and it seemed like it was doing fine. But now it just seems gone and unlikely to return

Next weekend's garden chores include finishing my back garden weeding odyssey, getting that wisteria back into some semblence of order, and maybe even planting some spring bulbs. Any suggestions???

Science has shown...

...that I'm one of the easiest people in the world to shop for. Everyone I know tells me this. But just in case you are ever stumped, this will be fine, thank you.



Source: http://eriebasin.com/a_3garnetdiamring.html

And then there were...

Curtains!!

On the hottest weekend of the summer so far, I finally decided to take my fancy, tea-dyed fabric and do something with it. I set up shop on the marginally cooler first floor of the house, reminded myself how to use the sewing machine, and got to work.

There are no pictures of me sweating and schlepping back and forth between the iron and the sewing machine. But simply imagine the swearing as the bobbin runs out of thread. Again.

Just as almost every house project requires a trip to Home Depot, this one was no different. I took a heat and sewing break to run to Bed, Bath and Beyond for curtain hardware.

Finally on Saturday morning, the panels were done. With the help of a friend, the rod went up and the first panel was hung to test the length. Good news: the pattern of the fabric is running straight across!



I knew the hardest part would be to get the two panels perfectly aligned. I knew it would bother me if both weren't straight, and if the writing wasn't continuous from one panel to the other. I measured and hemmed, and for some reason, it worked!



The good news is that you can't see the bottom hems because they are behind the sofa.



I like them! I'm thrilled they worked out. They give the room a warm feeling without being dark or heavy.



Next up, trimming the sofa hems and a windowseat cushion...

Tea-dyed and gone to heaven...

One of my summer projects is to make curtains for the large window in front of the house. Over the years I've played with various curtains for that window - black velvet, an old shower curtain in a floral pattern, and most recently, a heavy, white cotton job making use of binder clips to keep it from dragging on the floor. But finally, I hit on some great fabric at Ikea (of course).



Just one problem. It's so very white. I thought it would be too stark of a contrast with the more neutral and burgundy living room palette. I wasn't up for regular dying, but tea-dying seemed just the thing. I just wanted to take the edge off the white, and I just happened to have a ton of extra tea bags in the house.



Theorhetically you can use a pot on the stove filled with boiling water to do the job, but I wanted to do all of my fabric at once to keep the color even. So there was only one possible place - the bathtub.

In go the teabags!



When the tea was fully steeped, it was time for the fabric to take a bath. In it goes...



I made use of a random, wooden kitchen implement to submerge it.



I sat in the bathroom for over an hour swirling the stuff about so that it colored evenly with no mottled affect.



The color is getting close...



Out of the the dryer...



...and onto the ironing board!



Done!



Next, to turn long pieces of fabric into curtains...



Stay tuned for the next thrilling installment...