Random Saturday - Putting more happy yellow into my life!

Do you remember my childhood memories with the colorful "Arabella / Boston" dishes from the 60s? It really revived my love of yellow. Not that it had gone away completely, but yellow is a little hard to use in jewelry, at least for me, and it doesn't work on me as clothes. I always wanted at least one room with yellow walls, but wasn't even allowed to have that (that's a longer story I'm going to spare you).
Dishes are a very good way to get yellow into my life.

Now there's one problem with my Arabella set.

Look at the cup. Anyone who knows me knows that this is a but a sip for me (I only drink coffee as a cold brew or with ice cream, by the way). I'm not good at elegantly holding a cup with my pinky up in the air, unlike a friend in school who did this without even noticing which never failed to amuse me.

For daily use I'm very much a mug girl, the bigger the better. I have a LOT of mugs and while I am using quite a few of them, the biggest one is my favorite. If it isn't too hot, which it usually isn't because I prefer cold drinks, I don't even hold it by the handle because it can get quite heavy when it's full.
Big mugs or cups are also a childhood memory for me. My godmother's father who was a farmer had a big breakfast cup that I was very jealous of even as a child. I can still see him sitting at that table and smell cows and hay and country air - not meant negatively at all - and feel comfortable and happy watching him drink his morning coffee.

So I had this idea ... how about looking for a potter in the area and ask if they could make me a mug in yellow? Of course I could have looked for a yellow mug online, but 1. I like handmade - who would have thought, 2. I like to support local artisans if possible - not always easy depending on what you need or want, 3. I didn't want a solid yellow, but one that reminded me of Arabella's stripy appearance.

I checked online, found the pottery "Töpferei auf dem Jackenhof" (a former farm in a village not very far from me which has a lot of old farms), and sent them an email with the Arabella picture explaining what I wanted. A few more emails went back and forth to clear up details about the size and shape of the two mugs. Yes, by now I had decided that I of course needed two.

Yesterday I got notice that I could pick them up. My "chauffeur", who hadn't been on the Jackenhof before either, and I were amazed at how idyllic the house was situated, away from the street, an alpaca grazing on the other side (there's an alpaca farm), trees and sculptures underneath. It may sound corny and silly, but I got this 80s feeling of what we called the "alternatives" here in Germany, making me think of hand knitted socks and sweaters, the beginning of the "green" thinking, drinking tea from handmade pottery, colorful neck scarves from India, and actually I read afterwards that the workshop had opened in 1987, so maybe that's what I felt, and it was good ;-)

Welcomed inside, I asked for my mugs, and the potter said she had two choices, one was more of a brownish yellow, but course I immediately picked the bright yellow one. She said that the dark ones were made with a glaze and the other two painted which gave the mugs just the look I had wanted. I was so happy and will love using these, I'm sure. Maybe it's a good thing the pottery is not that easy to reach with public transportation or I could put down quite a bit of money there although the mugs were very affordable and even the price for the standard mugs although I had asked for bigger ones.
Can you tell from the picture that they don't look exactly the same? The shape, size, and top edges are a little different. I like that because it shows they are handmade.

As it is, I couldn't resist getting a cat - anyone surprised? - which is a salt shaker, but will be just a cat for me, and a liqueur cup whose color and shape I fell in love with and which I will happily use for my beloved Drambuie.

Do you have a favorite mug or a favorite piece of pottery?

Summer, sun, sun flower

When our challenge mistress from the Jewelry Artisans Community chose sunflowers for our new challenge, my reaction was that I was all "sunflowered out" because I had made several in the years before.

And then, in a sudden burst of productivity and supported by the 80s charm of Richard Carpenter's "Robin of Sherwood" for background noise, I started making a pair of earrings.
Don't get excited, this is just another example of two earrings magically turning into one pendant.

I bead embroidered the two centers first. How could I not notice that added petals would make these into very large earrings?
Well, actually I did notice and still decided to keep going. I have always been a fan of wearing big, fun earrings myself.

After starting on the happy yellow petals - I really remembered my childhood love for yellow again these days - it quickly became clear to me, however, that I would not be pulling this through. So many petals! One row of brick stitch petals, a slightly smaller one in herringbone stitch and a third small one as an edging for the center took me much longer than I had anticipated, like so often.
Just thinking of having to do this a second time made me revise the earring idea.

One hidden bail and a cute little lampwork bee later ... tadaaa.

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!

Oldies but Goodies - Yellow

The Northern Hemisphere is facing winter, in fact winter has already hit pretty badly in some places. What better to brighten the day a little with the sun color yellow?

Yellow seems to be quite rare in jewelry, at least some of us were somewhat baffled by the idea of having to find something yellow for the Oldies but Goodies Challenge at the Jewelry Artisans Community. What they found, you can see in this thread, but like always here is a sneak peek of what awaits you.

1 The Crafty Chimp

2 Robin's Jewelry, Antiques, & Collectibles

3 RioRita

4 Jewelry Art by Dawn

5 MC Stoneworks

6 Cat's Wire

7 Violetmoon's Corner

Playing with sapphires

Quite a while ago I bought half a strand of tiny faceted sapphires in all colors of the fall, orange, yellow, greenish, almost everything but blue. At that time I had no idea what to do with them. Every, now and then I took them out and waited for the muse to tell me what she wanted me to use them for.
You know my muse by now. If she is not in the mood she just stays quiet, and if she is she gets violent easy ;-)
So the last time I took a peek at the stones she told me to put them on the wire and then let her take over (she hates the part of stringing the beads first, I guess it's too boring for her). And boy, did she suddenly take over!
I had had a vague idea when I reached out for the marquise shaped closed form of silver wire and I thought about giving it some sparkle, but suddenly there was sparkle all over.

Then I remembered I still had a silver spool knit necklace and although I hadn't been happy with the last pendant I had teamed it with, in this case it gave just the right extra kick.



Now there were still a few sapphires on the wire, so when I took it out a few days later I wondered about something little that I could do with it.
Here's the result - a fine silver wire ball with polka dots. Not quite what you let your children play with. Also I doubt it'll jump very well.


This is a night picture, I hope you can imagine what it will look like in the light ....