Nostalgia - "Arabella / Boston" by Royal Sphinx Maastricht

Some years ago when I still did the "Finds of the week" posts, I had some called "I'm a collector" in which I shared vintage items. Over time my collections have mostly stopped growing due to different reasons, but they are still there and still loved. I also have vintage items, some inherited, some gifts, some from fleamarkets, some more interesting than others.So I thought it could be fun to share some of them every, now and then and tell their story.

Today's post is a huge flashback to my childhood. Family gatherings for birthdays or confirmations, coffee and heavy buttercream cakes, and tableware from the 60s.
Always having been drawn to sets in different colors, I loved those ceramic dishes. Of course back then I didn't think to ask why my parents chose different colors instead of getting just one, now I wish I would have.

The model is called "Arabella", the decor "Boston". According to the Bonnefanten, an art museum in Maastricht, the model was produced from 1960 to 1966, Antoine Corstjens being the creator of the decor and Otmar Lochschmidt of the model.
We had the coffee sets, stackable cups, saucers, and small plates, and there were two of each rich color - red, brown, green, yellow, and blue. One sister and I thought we only had the dark blue, but not the light blue, but my other sister says we had both, and thinking about it again, I have to agree. Over the years, pieces broke, and eventually the ones left became a memory in the cupboard as mugs got popular instead of small coffee cups.
I have always loved the yellow and got a complete set. It still makes me smile looking at it. I love the stripes in the glaze and the yellow looks so happy and fresh.

This is the mark on the cup - the sphinx surrounded by the words "Royal Sphinx Maastricht" and a crown, with "Made in Holland" at the bottom.
The cursive writing underneath the sphinx says "P. Regout" which stands for Petrus Regout, the founder of the manufacture.

I tend to obsess when researching for my nostalgia posts (which is probably the reason there are not more yet), and I ended up on Instagram, in Dutch online shops, museums, collector sites. It would have been easier if I had been able to read everything without using DeepL to help me translate.

Imagine my (unwarranted) surprise when I found that there are other items in this particular decor, soup bowls, egg cups, flower pots, sugar bowls, coffee pots (no idea if we had a coffee pot although it would have made sense), even with the colors reversed, and I really liked the milk cups at the Bonnefanten Museum (which unfortunately are not on the site anymore)!
I may already have ordered a soup bowl and a flower pot and inquired about an egg cup ... so if anyone stumbles upon a milk cup, let me know, it doesn't even have to be yellow ;-)

Update: Here are the soup bowl with saucer and the little flower pot now, unfortunately my inquiry about the egg cup has been ignored.

A minute ago, however, I ordered a sugar bowl and milkpot.
Update: They are here, these ones are light blue.

Next goal - milk cup and egg cup :-)

For now all I would need is a buttercream cake which I haven't had in decades, I think!

Flower power Hippie time - Part 1, The clothes

From the 20s to the 60s it's quite a time jump, I know. I can't even remember how I decided that I wanted to make a Hippie outfit, I just knew I wanted something completely different from the Flappers this time.
And different it is.

Francie, our lovely doll model this time, is from the Malibu series and was produced from 1971 to 1977. Instead of the regular Francie head she has the smiling Casey head.
This Malibu Francie had seen a very bad hairdresser, one who was even worse than me. He left her with a bunch of bristles on her head instead of a hairdo. Unfortunately that was at a time when I had given up on re-rooting after a few attempts to try other things instead, so Francie spent her life hidden on a shelf behind the door.
Then I re-found her, so-to-speak, and thought she would make a wonderful flower child with her happy smile.

Francie has yet another figure compared to the first two dolls. She is smaller than Barbie - whose cousin she is, by the way - and not as curvy, so I had to make a completely new pattern regarding the arm holes and the straps.

First I made the top. I went browsing tie-dye shirt images on the net and went for a swirly rainbow kind of design. I loomed front and back in once piece, re-wove the threads, sewed up the sides, and then I went totally overboard making a long fringe.

Next came the "leather" vest in a mix of two of my favorite brown bead colors. Other than the top the vest is removable. It has fringe around the top of the arm holes.

I took quite a long break before I tackled the skirt. All I knew was that I wanted to have some kind of denim color, that it was going to be long and wide and that I wanted to pick up the rainbow motif again.
Finally I decided to make it in four parts and sew them together. I used red thread for this to imitate decorative seams.
This was the hardest part. The all-blue parts were pretty boring to loom and instead of going faster because they were easier they almost destroyed my motivation. Joining the parts was okay, but then I had to decrease the top to make the skirt fit on Francie's waist.
At that point I knew it would have been smarter to make the skirt first. The fringe of the top kept getting in my way big time. With gritted teeth and lots of eyerolling I finally got it done.

Then I had the idea for a wide belt in brick stitch. The only problem was what to use for a buckle.
I didn't find a real buckle, but then I had another idea. Yup, sometimes they just roll in like that.
I took one of my toggle clasps and clipped off the little loop. Not bad, eh?

Now I had a complete outfit and only needed some more accessories ... and hair. That's what I am going to tell you about next time.

Quote of the week

Today is about a movie I keep coming back to, probably because of being attracted by the 60s mood ...

Here a short summary - ladykiller dentist Julian Winston tells his lover Toni Simmons he is married while he's not. After she tries to kill herself, he wants to marry her, but when she wants to meet his (non-existent) wife, he's in trouble. He asks his assistant Stephanie, a rather prickly and stern woman, to play his wife. Throw in Igor, the young playwright, Harvey, the annoying actor and Julian's friend, and Mr. Sanchez, the diplomat, and start the merry-go-round ...

My quote today is from the scene when Stephanie has to go out with Harvey to prove to Toni that she wants the divorce just as much as Julian. Harvey orders champagne and Stephanie looks at the label ...

"Oh, I didn't know they made champagne in Idaho."

All I can say to that is "Cheers!" ;-)

Cactus Flower, USA, 1969

P.S. Why do I feel the urge to make a 60s inspired piece of jewelry now ... strange ...