Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

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More Egg Cups & A Special Delivery

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Today – Double Egg Cups. Double egg cups are made with two cups; the smaller one is for eating a soft boiled egg out of the shell, the larger for eating an egg in the shell.

Back row, left: an egg cup from Hankscraft, a glass egg cup I found this year, a brown transferware cup by Mason’s Vista/England (one of the first egg cups I purchased), a flow blue egg cup.

Front row, left: a lovely egg cup from France that I found in San Diego, a flowered egg cup (reminds me of Clarice Cliff designs) that I found in a local shop, a rooster egg cup made by Holt Howard in 1961, and another transferware egg cup with no mark – maybe Johnson Brothers? I’m not sure.

We have a new member of the egg cup family. It arrived in yesterday’s mail:

You’re not seeing things. It’s Sleepy!!

He’s in perfect condition. That red dot on the cup is paint under the glaze, so it’s original.

Remember that auction where the price for Sleepy was way over the top? About $350 or more, if I remember correctly. I watched that auction daily and, of course, there were no bids. The auction ended. The next day, it was back up, this time with an opening price of $75.00 American. (A Canadian seller.) I watched it every day for 6 days. There were others watching, as well. On the final day, which was last Wednesday, I made sure I was home in time to watch the last hour of bidding. I waited until the last minute to bid, and, since there were no other bidders (what?) I won! Couldn’t believe it. Truly, I thought I’d be in some sort of bidding war because this dwarf is the hardest to find. In 17 years of watching eBay – 17 years! – this is the only time I’ve seen it up for auction.

Also, there are two different Sleepys out there.  There’s this one, which is the right one, the accurate Sleepy, and another one that looks exactly like Sneezy down to the hand to the nose. The only difference is the name. I don’t know why that happened. Did they break the mold and have to resort to using Sneezy’s mold? Anyway, that one is more common. So, to have the real deal is just thrilling! I’m going to keep my eye out for the faux-Sleepy, as well, because it would be fun to include it in my collection.

This is the most I’ve paid for a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs egg cup. Previously, I think I paid $55.00 for Snow White – also hard to find. But it was worth it. If I hadn’t grabbed the chance I might not have had another opportunity.

Huzzah! After 17 years of searching, I have them all! A photo of the whole gang will be forthcoming.

That delivery yesterday and the news that Gardener’s World (with Monty Don) is again available on BritBox made my day. Thank you to reader Lani for alerting me! Watching Gardener’s Diary  is like meditation for me. I immediately feel my shoulders dropping. It helped relax me in the midst of all the coverup activity coming from the WH and the Attorney General yesterday, so that’s saying something!

More tomorrow when we’ll be winding down our little egg cup tour.

Happy Friday.

Garden Cleanup, Egg Cups & A Gift

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Now that the endless wind has died down, I’m going to work outside today and tomorrow. Rain is coming on Friday and throughout the weekend, so I have to grab some time while I can.

Meanwhile, in the yet uncovered big garden bed:

The hyacinths are blooming.

I’m tackling that bed today. Wish me luck.

Egg cups for today: Four double egg cups in the Harlequin pattern by Homer Laughlin. (Apparently, I forgot to remove the price tag on one of them!)

I received a lovely package in the mail from Kate, a reader of this blog. Kate asked me if she could send me two egg cups that she had in her home. Of course, I said yes. When the package arrived there were additional surprises!

First of all, two lovely lustreware egg cups.

Then two beautiful knives – my grandparents had a set of flatware like this.

And 4 cups/saucers made by Arabia in Finland. Are they demitasse? They’re on the small side. And this photo isn’t capturing the color, which leans a bit more toward green/yellow. They’re lovely – such simple and beautiful design. (I’ll try to capture the color in a future photo.)

Thank you so much, Kate! I’ve already made room in the kitchen china cabinet for the cups and saucers! The egg cups are in the cubby cabinet. And the knives have joined my stash of bakelite.

I’m blessed.

The winner of a copy of The Eighth Sister  is Marilyn! Marilyn, I’ve already sent you an email. Just send me your mailing address and I’ll forward it on to the publisher.

Happy Wednesday.

 

 

Egg Cups, Photography & Plants

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The theme here is Getting Ready to Dine.

The pig on the left is sitting at a table, utensils at the ready – he’s just waiting for his egg. (Made for Tiffany.) The chick on the right – given to me by Linda, a blogging friend – is adorable and those tail feathers function as a salter. Pull out the tail and salt your egg.

It’s fun doing this yearly egg cup roundup. Now that I have the cubby, I open the doors, look at all the egg cups, and then I try to put together some sort of theme. The challenge is to remember to include the egg cups that I have displayed in other areas of the house.

Looking at them makes me happy.

I cleaned the bathroom yesterday, vacuumed the house, that sort of thing. Then I sat down and worked on the dollhouse for a bit. I’m using wood putty to fill in some openings. While I was there, I listened to a music app on my bluetooth speaker. Yesterday, my mood was “All Antonio Carlos Jobim.”

Do you remember when I had to put the Boston fern outside and the wind knocked it to the ground? A few days later, in yet another insane wind, it happened again. I ended up putting a heavy rock in the base, but those two falls damaged the fern. Lots of broken fronds. A couple of days ago, I was sweeping the porch and stopped to examine it more closely. It didn’t look good. So I brought it back inside. It’s now up in the office. I think putting it out in weather that was just too cold was a shock to the plant. The falls didn’t help. So I’m nurturing it up there until the weather is warm enough to safely put it outside again.  And it had been looking so beautiful right before I put it outside! All that work to keep it healthy only to have so many fronds broken during those godawful winds.

But it’s already improving.

You wouldn’t know it to look outside at the moment (it rained all night long) but it’s supposed to reach 74 degrees here today! It that holds true, Don may be able to get out and start taking polaroid portraits again. He’s really missed doing that. Our friend Jean Andre Antoine – another Crown Graphic Press Camera photographer – was profiled in the New York Times on Thursday. I follow JAA on Instagram, so I saw his link to the story early on Thursday. It’s a terrific profile of a lovely man. He’s one of many former students of Louis Mendes – although you’re never a former student of Louis. The mentoring is ongoing. In fact, Louis wants to come up here for a day in the next month or two and take some portraits with Don.

We have portraits by Jean Andre and they’re beautiful.

More dollhouse work on the docket today.

Happy Saturday.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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