Tatting, Tidbits & Teacups

I've been turning over teacups and tea cloths lately. . . . This delicate spring vine china pattern will also look lovely at Christmas. (It's not too early to be thinking about that is it?) I found two sets.

I brought my recent vintage finds out into the bright and fresh spring air to show you. The week ahead promises to be warm and windless and sunny. What more can we ask for?

Hints of notions, and my new ironstone bowl. This stuff really doesn't turn up here much, so when it does I squirrel it away. We use it everyday. Wears like iron, and just as heavy. Love this embossed style.

I pick up linens and laces usually just one item at a time. I'm always thrilled when a pristine snippet of tatting comes along. Since I have never learned the art, I find tatted lace the most fascinating of all. You can see the technique here on the left versus the crochet in ecru on the right.

I turned up a set of four beautiful French plates this week too. Perfect for spring!

One of my thrills of the hunt came in a little plastic bag with a spool of silk taffeta ribbon tucked inside, accompanied by some old and tiny envelopes of hooks and eyes. A booklet on tatting was also included. There were small embroidery hoops (one of them wooden) that I'm not showing here. Don't you love the old graphics? I don't think I would be more thrilled if I was panning for gold!

I found the tatted piece a few days later. It's a smallish Irish linen table runner in the exquisite condition you see here. Already clean and ironed. One dollar. Some days the junking muses smile on us. Yes?

The crochet runner underneath it all has a smooth linen panel in the center and a substantial worked hem. You see it folded in half here as it drapes off the table. Also nice and heavy.

The cross-stitched underskirt is a thrift find too from years past. Its hem is in shreds as I found it. But it still cheers me up to no end every time I bring it out. It seems just perfect in spring.