Breakfast Table

I love breakfast.

It is by far my most favorite time of the day and my most favorite meal.

It's wonderful to bask in the sunlight of a new day, catch up on the world's events with NPR and plan one's day.

I love breakfast foods too.

But I really love a well set breakfast table with linens, nice china and a simple but tasty meal packed with proteins, along with a pot of tea or coffee.

This table is perfect for such an ideal start to one's day with beautiful linens, a nice table cloth, china, flowers and sunshine.

Burled Wood

I LOVE burled wood.  

    In fact, it's my favorite wood-look/veneer.

What is burled wood?  Its an unusual pattern formed under the bark due to a stress or fungus/mold the tree suffered at some point.

Kinda sad to think the tree has a growth due to such extreme circumstances and that growth is highly prized by woodworkers!

I have a pair of kidney-shaped end tables with delicate Louis XV style legs, metal ormolus and black marble tops - and a veneer of burled wood.  I think the wood is maple but I'm not positive.

I love the tables and will have them until the day I keel over.

New Fabric Collection

I guess once you have more then two or three of something you can call it a "collection", right?

I started with one design uploaded to Spoonflower and now I find I can't stop.  It's so fun to design fabrics and coordinate them all with each other.  Get a theme going.  Mine is a cross between old Laura Ashley, Shabby Chic and faded 1930's florals used on dresses, feed sacks and later, in quilts.

http://www.spoonflower.com/welcome

Can't Wait for Lilac Season

This is a photo I took (last year?) of one of the specialty lilacs I bought at the Hulda Klager lilac farm in Woodland Washington.  It's an actual National Historical Site now!

http://www.lilacgardens.com/

I go every year since I bought my cottage from whom I was renting it and am now free to add new lilacs to the yard from this farm where they carry lilacs bred years ago by Hulda herself.

This one is a favorite (my absolute favorite is still an old fashioned purple lilac with double or triple flowerettes!) This one in a lovely shade of pink has such a sweet scent.

Its the "Katherine Havemeyer" lilac.

Here I displayed it on my living room mantel.

I can't wait for it to bloom this year - and yes, it has the start of flowers on it already.  But due to our extra cold and rainy Seattle weather this year, its a month off or so yet.

A Lovely Sauce Boat

I collect Royal Copenhagen Blue Flowers Curved China and when I saw this sauce boat on eBay going for cheap, with no bids yet, I wondered what could be wrong with it.

Well, it has a teeny chip on the bottom edge of the boat itself but seeing it's attached to the plate, it's really not noticeable so I bid on it in the last 20 minutes and won!

    Two weeks later it came through customs, in the mail, straight from it's home country of Denmark.

I was thrilled with it - the Blue Flowers pattern, although similar to the newer pieces, IS slightly different.  After checking the maker marks, I discovered it was made in the 1880's sometime.

The hand painted pattern has changed a few times since it was first made in the late 1700's so this did not bother me at all.

I was now the owner of a piece of history and I wondered who'd owned it and used it over the past 100 years in Denmark.

I fell in love with this sauce boat at first glance with it's hand painted blue flowers, faded gold edges and delicate embossed basketweave.

I can't wait to use it at future family dinners!

I even had a friend who doesn't really like blue, ask me if she could use it at some of her dinners too, it is just that lovely in person.

I love old china - it has a quality to it unmatched by most of today's china makers.  But I do have to say the newer Royal Copenhagen china is just as well made and just as beautiful.

Sometimes I Am A Lazy Artist