The beautiful and the useful: Teacup / Coffee cup

I got bored with the 2013 in review (there's still one more post to go, but I just did not feel like finishing up those answers...), and then got busy studying and sewing (still nothing to show, but things to come!), and well, I just want to share something nice with you.

I got inspired by the Hope Chest series Jessica Boyer's been doing, and decided to share more of those beautiful and useful household items with you. I've actually already taken some of those photos earlier, so it's easier.

So here's a cup from a set that I've appropriated for my virtual hope chest, because it's always been sitting in the back of the cupboard, never used, presumably because mom preferred the simpler, gold-rimmed set more, and I actually love the colours and floral pattern of this one! The combination of aqua and orange and green is a bit awkward in our current home, so yes, I can understand why they never got used. But it fits into the colour schemes for my dream home beautifully...

 

I photographed it on a pillowcase that never got used, either. It's vintage, inherited I believe from an old lady that my grandma used to take care of. We have several of similar bedding pieces, with a sad story attached to them - they were for the hope chest of the daughter of said lady, who however died young. So they went to my family instead. These particular ones never got used because they do not fit any of our pillows (and there are some stains). But they make for a nice vintage linen backdrop. :-)

Aside from the colour scheme, I like how precious the shape of these cups is. They are fairly small (so probably coffee cups rather than teacups) and look like a flimsy china affair (you know the type, don't you?), what with their tiny handles, but they are actually nice and quite sturdy in the hand. (I would not risk dropping them on the floor, though. :D)

They're made in China; the pattern is just printed, not painted, so it's not a super special set, but it's special for me.

Look what I've got! - The tin and bulk of fabric edition

For some reason, I don't remember anymore what, I started scouring Aukro, the Czech version of eBay. And I splurged on some things.

The first thing was this tin box:

I'm always short on pretty storage options, and this fits so nicely with other things in our house:

(The colours are more true on this photo.)

It houses my fusible interfacings now. Well, those I've managed to unearth so far. That is enough of an explanation of why it houses them.


Another thing was - wait for it - 15 meters of lining fabric.

 
Well, I did not bother measuring it and trust the seller; it's quite the bulk. For about 26 CZK per metre. That's like a dollar per metre, I believe. Nice, sturdy, reversible lining fabric, most probably acetate (burn test proved it not to be a hideous melting kind of artificial, but the ash is dark, so it's probably not rayon) - certainly much better than those various odds and ends of dubious fibre content that made up my fabric stash up till now. You see, I was very short on lining fabrics as well. Very short. I think this purchase can be excused in my attempts to use up stash and not add to it, because I have fabrics in my stash that I could not use without lining. Like that burgundy red for a jacket.

The warp here is black or very dark blue and the weft is a gorgeous bronze colour, resulting in a changeable quality on both sides. Admittedly, the bronze colour is not exactly my colour, or my family's colour. But the other side has just that little tinge of gold that works for me (think overcast grey, grey skies with golden rays pouring through - those are my best colours) and will do very nicely.
And I have something else in mind for two special fabric remnants... but that's a vague idea that has to wait.

It's pretty enough to be tempting as a fashion fabric, but it does not behave properly for that (the frou-frou is somewhat wind-breaker-y, if you know what I mean). I know better now, and am looking forward to pretty insides.


Other news: Now that Flickr has made their free space much larger than it used to be, I'm gradually putting up those German pattern magazines - the first one is here. Rajče, the Czech site I'm using, is a fine one, but it resizes the pictures, and I don't want that.

The beautiful and the useful

I've been a bad blogger recently, for a multitude of little reasons I will not bore you with. Suffice to say one of them was having a lengthy, annoying flu that took away much of my mojo for anything but watching sci-fi TV series. (Hello, Doctor Who! Hello, fellow Whovians!) Which threw me more into a fangirl mode than a blogging mode, obviously.


Anyway, to get back into blogging mode, I'll show you two little things that are both beautiful and useful; this inspired by a quote by William Morris Jodi posted some time ago.

"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

I must say I would not let some of William Morris' own designs into my house (way too busy and dark), but his principle is very helpful. Even though I still struggle with living up to it.

On the top is a flour scoop. We've had this thing all my life; it disappeared for some time, I think, but was unearthed again and is in wide use. It is mostly useful: larger than a spoon, but about as narrow, perfect for scooping flour into your measures (ordinary cups in this house) or the container you use when you weigh it. So yes, I know this to be very useful. But I also believe there is some practical beauty about it; it's so balanced.

On the other hand, there is this China spoon I got on a bazaar because it was beautiful. (You know I love blue & white, don't you?) I thought it could be useful as well, though in the end it sat in the back of the drawer, not being useful and being only a little bit beautiful because it could not be seen.

Until I got an idea, and measured how much water it took, and found out it was 25 ml, a highly useful number.

It's still sitting in the back of the drawer, because there is not much "display" space in this house, but I know it to be not only beautiful, but also very useful. (Today, I used it to scoop soda.)

Some time ago, I took photos of things I like around the house that are mostly useful, but also beautiful. Like dishes. I may show you more of these one day, but I will not promise anything, because my blogging is highly random. But if, after reading this post, you will look at the everyday things in your life with new eyes and see the beauty in a tool or dish, I'll be happy to hear about it.