egg cups — Page 57

Egg Cup Eggstravaganza 2014 – Part One

April 15, 2014 at 9:10 am by Claudia

Yep. It’s egg cup time again. Easter time = egg cups, don’t you think?

For those of you who are newish to this blog, I collect egg cups: big, small, figural, double, plain and fancy – mostly vintage.

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Today, we’re going to concentrate on the figural egg cups that live on this shelf in my studio.

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There they are. (Getting a photo requires a wee bit of acrobatics on my part, as these are in the niche at the top of the stairs which is occupied by the sewing machine table.)

These are figural egg cups – my favorites. They are whimsical, adorable, and charming. Do you see the egg cup that is second from the left? My godparents gave me that egg cup when I was a wee little girl and I managed to hang onto it through adulthood. One day, while we were living in our rental in Westchester County, I read an article about egg cups – I think it was in Martha Stewart’s magazine – and there was my little egg cup in a photo along with all sorts of other adorable egg cups. I became enchanted by them. As an inveterate collector, the realization that I could collect these little gems made me giddy. And so began my relationship with egg cups and eBay. It was not unknown for me to get out of our bed in the middle of the night to place a final bid on an egg cup that I coveted. (Sssh! Don’t tell Don.)

I see less and less of these beauties on eBay nowadays; they are harder and harder to find. Nevertheless, I still hunt for them.

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The first group:

1. I fell in love with this bunny egg cup, partly because the big pink ears and eyes remind me of Scout. Made in Japan.
2. My childhood egg cup – made for Fanny Farmer. Fanny Farmer would offer a new egg cup every Easter. I have another Fanny Farmer egg cup that I’ll show you tomorrow. My godparents are both gone now and this is infinitely precious to me.
3. Two little chicks or ducks on a teeter-totter or seesaw. That window motif is found on many figurals. Made in Japan.
4. A rabbit outside his little home. There is the window again and a door, as well, and it has a lustreware glaze. It’s unmarked.
5. A tough looking dog – love his face. Made in Japan.

All vintage.

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The second group:

1. What’s not to love? Polka dots, a little girl in a bunny costume. Adorable. Unmarked.
2. A bunny peeking around another house – there’s the window motif again. Made in Japan.
3. Two rabbits holding up an egg cup. This is one of my favorites and I believe its presence here is the result of a middle-of-the-night bidding war on eBay. Made in Japan.
4. This one is very sweet. Mama and baby ducks. Lovely, soft colors. Made in Japan.
5. A Scottie dog egg cup. Made in Japan.

All vintage.

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The third group:

1. A slightly crazy looking bunny in front of blue egg cup. Made in Japan.
2. Another bunny rabbit peeking around the side of the egg cup. Made in Japan.
3. Two dogs holding up an egg cup. I love the design at the top of the cup – the stripes and circles. Unmarked.
4. A pig egg cup. How could I pass that up? Marked with the number 10 in a circle and Japan.
5. A duck and a chicken on either side of an egg cup that is sitting on green grass. Another middle-of-the-night bidding triumph. Made in Japan.

All vintage.

Oh, there’s lots more! I’ll be featuring them most every day this week.

Maybe you’d like to start an egg cup collection? (Just putting that little idea in your head.)

By the way, look what I found at the foot of a tree in our woods the other day:

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That’s part of a saucer in the Harlequin line by Homer Laughlin, who also made Fiesta. I compared it to my yellow Fiesta pieces and the shade of yellow is different, brighter. Fiesta’s yellow, while bright, is a deeper shade. Harlequin’s lines are sharper and more angular. I have collected Harlequin in the past – still have a few pieces.

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It’s going in my kitchen china cabinet. You can find all sorts of things in the woods around here. The other day, I found a lot of old bottles, which I’ll share with you another day.

Happy Tuesday.

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Nests

March 9, 2014 at 9:53 am by Claudia

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A bird nest is a work of art, don’t you think?

When I find one on the ground, it is immediately scooped up and brought into our house. A house within a house. This one is rather small, just big enough to fit on top of one of my favorite egg cups.

How do they do it, this weaving of twigs and other bits? How do they fashion it into the perfect little place to lay their eggs? Such a wonder.

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Inside is a robin’s egg I found on the ground.

Soon they will be building their nests once again. Though, when I look outside and see well over two feet of snow still on the ground, that seems a long way off.

I’ve heard our mourning doves the last few days. I hadn’t heard them all winter, so I take that as a sign. I love the sound of a mourning dove. It’s truly one of my favorite bird calls, haunting and beautiful.

The sun is out today and for that I am thankful. My mom is holding her own. She had a fever on Friday, but by Saturday it had gone down. She sleeps a lot, but sits up to eat and when she does that she seems fairly alert, though she doesn’t speak. I talk to one of the nurses every day. They are still waiting for blood culture work to come back and some more tests will be run today. In the meantime, my dad got a letter from the nursing home saying they would only hold her bed for eight days. Really? So now we have to deal with that on Monday.

My poor dad just gets overwhelmed by this stuff. Heck, I get overwhelmed by it. Mom was lethargic and out of it all last weekend; thinking she might have a UTI, we had to alert the staff and ask for a test on Monday, by Tuesday afternoon, her condition was ‘deteriorating,’ though no one informed us of that fact, and not until Tuesday night was she sent to the hospital. No one on staff picked up on it until we brought it to their attention. So she has to magically recover in eight days? I think not. Though apparently this is standard practice, part and parcel of Medicaid, regulations, etc.

Don’t get me started.

Deep breath. It can’t be dealt with until tomorrow. I’m going to ask the nurse today if there are discharge plans in place.

Happy Sunday.

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Go Away February. You’ve Been A Pain From Start to Finish.

February 22, 2014 at 8:40 am by Claudia

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Since I’ve moved many of my egg cups to the mantel/shelf in the studio, I rearranged the ones that remain on the shelf in our bedroom. That’s Christie’s framed print that I bought from her when I was working in California. It used to be in the living room, but Don found a little print that he loved and I wanted him to be able to see it from his chair, which was exactly where the rose print was. And that’s how things are moved around here.

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And right below the shelf is Mabel, ready for work, but safely tucked away in the bedroom. That plant is yet another of my porch plants that I’ve managed to keep alive this winter. They are stashed all over the house.

I figured out what happened with Scoutie the other night. We’ve had some melting going on around here and it has caused the snow to be uneven and slippery, especially on her paths in the dog corral. Add to that the rain that we got yesterday. The freeze/melt/freeze cycle is not helping at all. Her arthritis has been really bothering her and I’ve watched her in the corral when she slips on the snow and loses her footing. It’s terribly hard for her. Last night, I thought I would take her out on the leash to help guide her (thought I don’t think it ended up doing any good) and I was slipping and sliding everywhere, just as she was. She wouldn’t pee or poop, probably because it was scary and she couldn’t relax enough to take care of business. I took her out onto the driveway, thinking that might be easier, but the damned rain had frozen, so it was very slick and slippery. I ended up taking her back into the corral, where she pooped. But no pee.

That had to have been the problem. She went out that night and was slipping and sliding and didn’t do anything. Since I can’t see her out there with all the frigging mounds of snow, I had no idea she hadn’t done her business. And she simply couldn’t hold it during the night.

It’s going to melt more today and tomorrow and I have no idea what to do. I’ll salt everything today, but this nightmare of a February continues to make things incredibly hard for us. Every time I start to think I can relax, something else happens. I don’t want her hurting and all this walking on uneven surfaces is indeed causing her pain. Do I drive down the road at night and walk her on that private road we used to use? Do I hope the driveway stays free of ice and try walking her there? Will she even go there? Due to the nature of our property, the snow and ice that melt flow downhill to the top of the driveway and it all collects there. If it goes down below freezing, it turns to ice again. An endless cycle.

I went to bed worrying about the whole thing, couldn’t sleep, got only a few hours. I heard Scout moving around at 6:15 and let her out. So no messes occurred last night.

Can I just let out a blood curdling scream? And then can someone magically transport us to a warmer climate for the next two months?

Okay. Another pretty sunset.

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A reminder: our Christmas Critter Felt Along party is officially Monday. But the post will be up tomorrow evening, the 23rd, at 6:00 pm. So even though it posts then, it will be Monday’s post. Does that make sense? So don’t be wondering if there’s anything wrong with me if you don’t see a Monday post. Sunday night’s post is Monday’s post.

I’m exhausted just from explaining that.

Happy Saturday.

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Egg Cup Eggstravaganza 2014 – Part One

Nests

Go Away February. You’ve Been A Pain From Start to Finish.

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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