Cornflower Pattern Glass

My thrifting find for this week is a beautiful lemonade set in the cornflower pattern.  In a local consignment shop, I spotted the set which included a 9 5/8" high lemonade pitcher and eight glasses.  They were in mint condition! ~

Priced at $29 they were a steal and I snapped them up!  Cornflower lemonade pitchers are hard to come by and I've seen them priced over $100.  The glasses usually sell, individually, for around $10.  There isn't a chip or scratch to any of the pieces.

Cornflower is a pattern created by Canadian glass cutter WJ Hughes in 1912.  For 75 years it was the favourite pattern choice for Canadian homes.

The pattern is distinctive in it's deep cuts of 12 cornflower petals and hexagonal grid as the flower centre. The tips of the petals are fringed. ~

  The stems form a graceful arch and are dotted with elongated leaves. ~

The Hughes Cornflower Co. specialized in cutting and embellishing glass and ordered their pieces from as many as 20 different glass manufacturers.  Although it came from as far away as Europe, most of the pre WWII glass came from the USA.

Some pieces are crystal.  Others are ordinary glass.  The rarest and most expensive, as collectibles, are the coloured Depression glass pieces.

I remember this as my grandma's pattern.  By keeping an eye out at my local Salvation Army Thrift Store, I've put together a set of 8 juice glasses for 50 cents each.  Now that I have 8 tumblers and a pitcher, I can move on to wine glasses and serving pieces.

This lemonade set has an honoured place in the dining room.  It's sitting on an old, cast iron furnace grate until I come across the perfect tray for serving ice cold lemonade to my guests! ~ 

I'm sharing this with ~ What's It Wednesday

Cleaning White Ironstone

I've made a few mistakes with antiques over the years and one of the biggest was trying to clean ironstone with bleach. With vintage pieces, there's always some crazing (fine crackle) of the glaze and that allows entry into the clay underneath and damages it.  Ironstone is not made with a high fired clay like porcelain and the porous clay is very susceptible to damage.

Although I don't mind some marks on vintage ironstone, this plate is used to serve food and always looked dirty. ~

I could have soaked the plate in straight 3% hydrogen peroxide, found in groceries and pharmacy stores.  It would have taken several bottles to cover the plate and that gets rather expensive.

Instead, I used denture cleaning tablets.  A box of ninety tablets was about $4 at Giant Tiger.  In a 4 X 8" by 1" deep plastic container, I dissolved 3 of the tablets in hot water.  By the time the tablets had dissolved, the water had cooled enough to not open the crazing more and I submerged the plate in the solution. ~

I left it in there for about an hour.  You can see the stuff that came off the plate in the water. ~

I could give the plate a second soaking to see if the last bits will come out, but I think a few marks are charming on a piece that dates back to the early 1800's.

Here she is after her Sunday bath! ~

I've safely used denture tablets on transferware, crocks and porcelain.  It works really well on removing water/foliage marks from the inside of flower vases, too!  I suppose you could actually use it to clean dentures but how much fun would that be?

Don't pass up those badly marked ironstone pieces when you are out thrifting.  They can look almost as lovely as they did when they made their debut in England in 1813!

I'm sharing at these parties:  Monday Funday, Tweak It Tuesday, Make It Pretty Monday, A Return To Lovliness, Transformed Tuesdays, Nifty Thrifty Sunday, Clever Chicks Blog Hop, From Dream To Reality, Wow Us Wednesdays, Link It Up Thursday What's It Wednesday, Feathered Nest Friday

There's A Whole Lot Of Loving Going On!

Frank Loesser must have been talking about you guys when he wrote those lyrics for Guys & Dolls.  You never cease to amaze me with your love and support, your creativity and knowledge and your honest desire to share ideas and techniques to make life a little (or a lot) nicer for us all!

I defy anyone to show me a closer or more tight knit community than the world of Bloggers.

On Friday afternoon I trudged back home, through deep snow, after babysitting a neighbours cat.  It was a horribly cold and grey day and the inspiration I'd been looking for was nowhere in sight.

But wait, what's that parcel sitting by my front door?  It's a pretty big box and I didn't order anything. Utah thinks the box is perfect, in and of itself! ~

It's come all the way from sunny Alabama and here's the dear lady who sent it. ~

You may know her as Miss Kopy Kat, the one with the great blog where she shows you how to get a high end look for a down low price.

Make your own faux coral?  She'll show you how! ~

Miss Kopy Kat

Dress your candles up with cute sweaters?  You don't need to knit for this one. ~

She's a busy lady who's an RN in a neo natal intensive care unit.  When she's not saving baby's lives, she dresses up a home with stunning beauty.  I've followed her for more than a year and she never disappoints in giving me the best copycats in blogland.

So, what was inside the box?  Remember that flow blue plate I broke on Christmas Eve?  Remember how awful I felt about breaking an antique and my very first piece of flow blue?  It was made in the town where my grandfather served his potters apprenticeship.  It dated somewhere between 1891 and 1900.  It was a  Non Pariel pattern in the scenic/romantic style and was Middleport china.  The village I live in is Middleport.

This was in the box! ~

It's the identical plate!  She hunted it down and shipped it all the way from Alabama to Canada! ~

I cried a teeny weeny bit to see my plate back.  I cried a whole lot more at the kindness and generosity of spirit that went to so much trouble to do this for me.  The original was just a plate I bought.  This one is a thoughtful gift from a friend and means so much more to me!

I wanted to save this story for Sunday evening so you could all have a feel good moment before you start into your busy week.

You'd be doing me a favour if you popped over to Miss Kopy Kat and made yourself one of the nicest friends you could ever hope to meet!

Thanks, Gayle.  Love ya!

I have to share this with My Happy List

Kitchen Notions Box

 I've tweaked a corner of the kitchen. ~

It's the kind of day where you want to stay inside, putter around the kitchen and leave the riverbank to hardier species than I. ~

When my friend Wendy saw that I was using cobalt blue accents for the kitchen she gifted me with a little box with four blue china drawers.  It isn't vintage and had the white, chalky primer paint usual to far east wooden pieces.  I  gave the box a quick coat of the grey paint I used on the cabinets and left it at that until after Christmas.

Today, I used a Coats thread advertisement I found on The Graphics Fairy to give it a bit more interest.  I just printed out the label and glued it on to the top of the box. ~

I've been saving this image on my Pinterest Printables board and this is the perfect application for a sewing notions ad.  Coats is my grandmother's maiden name.

I printed off a notions label and glued that on the box as well.  The little drawers are perfect for holding all those odds and ends that wind up in the kitchen.  Elastic bands, rings, and twist ties are easy to find and hidden from sight. ~

I didn't have a single blue accessory in this house until I came upon this rather rare, early 1800's flow blue plate.  I absolutely had to have it!  The pattern is called Middleport and that's the name of the village where I live. ~

Sorry the picture isn't very clear, but I didn't take it for the blog and had no intention of showing it to you until I had the whole display put together perfectly.

That will never happen.  You see, with all the family here on Christmas Eve, I took the wire bread basket off the wall.  See the basket to the right of the plates? ~

Without lowering my arm, I popped my head around the corner to answer a question and ...CRASH!  Down came the plate, shattered into a dozen pieces.  I stared in disbelief that a plate wasn't safe hanging above the doorway.  Everyone was talking at once until I asked them to give me a moment to grieve.  A couple of minutes later I came back in the room, told them I was over it and we could carry on with dinner.

Nary a trace of that plate was in sight and it's never been mentioned since.

Now you all know that I'm an antique plate murderer and can't be trusted with things even if they're hung three feet above my head!

I'm sharing this with:  Graphics Fairy Brag Monday, Wow Us Wednesdays, Transformed Tuesdays, Make It Pretty Monday, Tweak It Tuesday, Knick Of Time Tuesday, Budget Decorating Party, Bloom Link Party, All Star Block Party, Wildly Original Link Party, Creative Things,  Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop, A Crafty Soiree, Frugal Friday, A Favorite Thing, Nifty Thrifty Sunday, Saturday Show & Tell, Open House Party Thursdays, DIY Project Parade, More The Merrier Monday, Creative Bloggers Party & Hop, Monday Funday Link Party, Silver Pennies Sunday

Medalta Pottery

There's a new party in blogland!  Claudia at Mockingbird Hill Cottage has started a party for us to share  A Favorite Thing.  I wanted to join in and the hardest part was choosing WHICH of my things I loved the most!  I hate to show favouritism and I'm famously indecisive, but settled on some humble pieces of everyday pottery.

Medalta Potteries was a household name in Canada from 1916 until 1954 and was the major industry for Medicine Hat, Alberta.  My grandfather Jesse William Wyatt (Will to his family) was hired as superintendent in 1924 and travelled west, from Ontario, to his new position in a 1921 Ford touring car with his wife and five children.  The trip west is mentioned as a single line in the history books.  But, to our family, it includes two year old Jackie falling ill with pneumonia and them transferring to a train to get him there faster.  Jackie didn't survive and is remembered as, "The sweetest little boy ever.", by his sister who is ninety years old.

The old buildings are a museum today. ~

photo attribution here

My grandfather was a ninth generation, British trained, potter and master mould maker.  He designed and oversaw the massive, beehive kilns that soon dotted the landscape of the small prairie city.  He was a brilliant man and a little eccentric.  My uncle told the story of my grandfather going back to check on the kilns at night and not noticing that he had parked his expensive, new car on a pile of burning coals, until it went up in flames!    By 1929 Medalta Potteries was supplying 75% of all the ceramics in Canada and was shipping as far away as Australia.  Their bread and butter lines were everyday useful items like crocks, bean pots, chicken waterers and bed warmers.  Lamps and decorative wares soon joined the roster of over 700 items in production.

Then, the Great Depression struck and the mighty pottery was fighting for survival.  Workers reported for their shifts even though they didn't get paid. Uncle Bert said, "There was nowhere else to work so we figured we might as well show up."  My grandparents didn't get paid either.  Ranch families would trade chickens and eggs for Medalta wares.  I remember Nanny saying she didn't have any money but had lots of food.  Men rode the rails (stole rides on freight trains) to come west in hopes of finding work in the harvest. The large, brick house on the hill was the first they came to and Nanny had her kitchen maid make bacon and eggs for every one that came to her door.  She also gave each man a cigar because, "A man needs a nice smoke after a meal!".  The big house with the maid, the meals and cigars for tramps all faded away during those terrible times and my grandparents left Medicine Hat with only what could fit in a car.

You'll see me use this bowl over and over again as I cook and can. ~

It may have been made by my grandfather himself or his sons, Bert and Bill, who worked with him there.  It will certainly have been used to set bread to rise or filled with snapped beans by the women who owned it before me.

This bean pot had made it's way to Halifax, Nova Scotia for me to find in an antique store. ~

This lamp was found at my local Salvation Army store for $2. ~

The lamp had no shade so I took an old, paper lampshade from a hotel lamp and added the Medalta logo.  This shade came from an auction but you could swipe one from the next hotel you stay in.  My camera is doing something strange with the texture on the shade and making the logo look weirdly shaky but it's not like that in real life.  I made an inverted copy of the logo on a laser printer and transferred the image with a Blender pen.

And if you own a Medalta crock it may have been one that my grandfather sat on with my beloved Auntie Doe and my dad! ~ 

photo courtesy of  Medicine Hat Museum and Art Gallery

Oh, how I love these simple pieces of pottery!

I'm sharing this with ~

A Favorite Thing