Lovely Films

I have a shop on etsy called BlueFlowerVintage (it's named after a favorite book - I'm a little bookish.) I am having trouble loading photos of it in the sidebar; it is some sort of problem between WordPress and Etsy. So I am loading my banner here, and you should be able to look at my shop.I watched this movie this winter. Such a tender thing!

This film made such an impression on me. Every face struck my heart with sadness. I felt such a kinship with the characters; their plight, their struggles, their carrying on.

Saturday Favorites

I not only sell on etsy, I love to window shop and favorite things.

This adorable photo is from my son’s girlfriend’s shop, EasterInHarlem. Kate is a bit of an egghead and quite adorable. I love her photos.

I am also enamored of a few other etsy items today.

I know I could not make this because I can only knit the simplest of scarves. But this is an amazing creation for all you lotus ware obsessed collectors who knit. Absolutely gorgeous! This is from byEline

I so love this tea kettle but we have just acquired that Alessi one with the scalloped handle and the train whistle which I really really love, so I have to let someone else have this beautiful blue one. See this at TreasuresBarelyUsed (I cannot believe this hasn't sold!)

I can only say beautiful and amazing! From giardino

I am such a fan of Lucienne Day's textile designs. NeatoKeen is full of special items items like this tea towel.

Birthday Greetings

My birthday again, yesterday!

Absolutely amazing birthday gift from my husband.

Hand carved and colored ca 1920s 1930s.

And I bought this for myself at the flea on Sunday.

Both from the same very good friend. It is so nice to buy from him because he knows so much about folk art and has a very good eye. He’s done all the work for us, and he gives us a good price. He also sold us these

A New Acquisition

I bought this at the flea also. I think its pretty swell.

Sunday Is Best

It is my birthday tomorrow and I already got this dog plate (from Anthropologie) as a gift. This series of plates makes me very happy.  The wooden figures are gifts from earlier this year. They are so lovely.

I am selling this.

A description: A small group of Czechoslovakian designers were really inspired by cubism at the time of Braque and Picasso and designed buildings, furniture, ceramics and every sort of thing in triangular cubist shapes. This influence extended to the mass produced pottery factories which produced vases like this one, ca 1920 – 1939, (see a similar shape by Vlastistov Hofman here http://www.modernista.cz/english/cc005.html). These sort of shapes are very hard to find. The pottery is from a mold and the over painting was brushed on by a trained painter.

This book was illustrated by Clement Hurd who illustrated Goodnight Moon for Margaret Brown. The author is his wife Edith Thatcher Hurd.

It looks like this inside.

Very airy and beautiful.

One side on the earth and the other leaning on the sky

Mrs. Corry placing stars in the sky.

It was wet and dark today, with winds. The street outside our window had turned to mud when I got home.

Dark weather and another sad day. These were a gift I gave my mother when I was a teenager from a trip to New York. I bought them in Chinatown.

They are mine now. (Please forgive the dark photos. There was not much light.)

I brought home some pretty books to share, from that time when all children’s books seemed to be little packages of art.

On this next page a day like today.

This book because in my head I think that winter is over

This is a nice bear

I love Mary Poppins. It is a book full of lovely writing to keep inside your head. Mary was very plain yet she was very pleased with herself when she saw her reflection. I like that about her.

This is my best rather beaten copy. It is an American 1st edition without the dust jacket. A surprise on my birthday one year.

It was a small gift but is still one of my favorites.

Mad Men Era Wednesday

We have become heavily invested in some classic mid-century items recently. So expect some Mad Men type glamor in our store suddenly.

George Nelson for Howard Miller cigar shaped bubble lamp (rah!). I love this designer. He was quite a character and very devoted to his trade (though not very committed to giving credit to the designers on his team.) He credited the design of this line of lamps to not having the $125.00 to buy a silk Scandinavian lamp for his office.

George Nelson Sunburst clock. This was actually designed by Irving Harper, who worked for the George Nelson Design Studio and designed some of the most iconic products of the company.

The big teak wood sculptural ice bucket designed by Jens Quistgaard for Dansk.

Tangle toy sculpture designed by Richard X. Zawitz.

A Copco skillet designed by Michael Lax. I think this is one of the most (if not the most) beautifully designed skillets ever. I especially love the dark chocolate glaze on this one. I would like to do a post on this line in the future because it is just so gorgeous.

This Dansk Kobenstyle pitcher (Quistgaard again) is already for sale in the store now. I just like to look at the aqua with the brown.

Marimekko fabric in the Lokki pattern designed by Maija Isola in 1961. This little quote about this particular design from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maija_Isola:

Lesley Jackson, in the aptly titled chapter Op, Pop, and Psychedelia in her textbook Twentieth Century Pattern Design, writes that “from Finland the exuberant all-conquering Marimekko burst on to the international scene” in the 1960s; she illustrates this with one pattern by Vuokko Nurmesniemi, and three by Isola – Lokki, Melooni, and inevitably Unikko.[12]

Of Lokki, Jackson writes “Isola revolutionized design with her simple, bold, flat patterns, printed on a dramatic scale. The design, whose title means ‘seagull’, evokes the lapping of waves and the flapping of birds’ wings.”[

Some modernist book covers to look at and not for sale.

Sunday’s Best – Market shopping

“Every day is just like the rest, but Sunday’s best” (Elvis Costello)

We have a local farmer’s market on Saturdays that turns into a very good quality flea market on Sundays. We visit the flea every Sunday. Yesterday I went to the farmer’s market in search of some interesting wintry bouquets. I want to thin out my glass collection, which is not substantial but we collect a lot of things, and everything needs to be cut back.

Well winter is a slow time for farmers but a busier time for antiques. So half the market was taken up with a toy show and the farmers were short on space. There were no bouquets of any kind. No branches, no dried weeds. Long story short, I pulled out some spindly early rhubarbs and too fat leeks. There was a plant vendor who helped me find a few lovely items. So I was able to get some pretty good photos (do you think so?) And the plants are really pretty to look at.

My son is really hoping for some strawberry/rhubarb shortcake and potato leek soup. I will see how busy my day gets.

I decided against selling this iittala bird vase, but the glass flowers will soon be in my etsy shop.

This is like selling a bubble or air.

My husband went to the flea market at 5 this morning and paid good money for this beauty

He thought we would sell it, but I’d rather sell another clock instead. He paid much more for this (the larger of the 2 clocks) but it is unusually big.

We love George Nelson. We plan on keeping the large one and selling the 2 smaller ones we have to pay for it.

The end.

I love the weekend!

I finished the last of three pillows I have been thinking of making. I am very excited to see the 3 of them together

This one is such a charmer because the fabric is so interesting

We have some new cookware at our house. My husband brought home the green Copco paella and huge, huge Dru Holland casserole from estate sales yesterday, and I decided to keep them. They make such a lovely group in color and design details. I will have to sell off some Le Creuset or Scandi enamelware to make room, but I am really interested to cook with these.

I want a dog but my husband doesn’t, so sometimes he gives me gifts like these.

More pillows

I am very happy. My goal this last weekend was to make 3 pillows and I happily only made 2. But this is 2 more than I’ve been able to make in the last 4 months. This is the 2nd.

Now I have 2 of the 3 fabrics that represent my current obsessions. Farms and folk style and native american motifs. I find these really inspiring. And I have heaps of vintage fabric to work with.

Alessi. This tea kettle has a cloud influenced handle and its whistle sounds like a train. It’s rather delightful. Designed by Richard Sapper.

This handbag is one of my favorite things. It’s from the 1970s, I’m quite sure.

More books that kids no longer get but I totally get

Sewing and Selling and Thrifting

I did make one of the 3 pillows I wanted to make this weekend. Hand sewn in the middle of the night listening to Leadbelly (“John Harding was a desperate little man..”) this is my 1970s native american fabric pillow

This pillow – beautiful crewel on old black velvet, thrifted in Saturday’s beautiful sunlight. (We have had an amazing amount of sunlight this February here in Michigan)

And a new Cathrineholm plate from the Sunday flea market.

I started collecting vintage cookware because I like having beautiful useful things. This enamelware is a little fussy though and you want to treat it kindly, because it has lived already a long time and given good service.

I am not sure which picture I like better

I wanted to put our new sputnick lamp here, but it would bump our heads going down the stairs, sadly, sadly (though I love the blue).

I love this fabric. I just found it again at the bottom of a heaped up shelf unit. I will try to make a pillow with this soon.

Now I am going for a quick walk while we still have sunlight.Tomorrow is Pączki day.