Instagram: Late September

I am still crushed with orders for my tea towels, including a nice order from decorator, Bunny Williams! In addition to that, and work, and board duties, I am teaching a class on iPhone photography next week. Of course, one of the apps I will be teaching will be the Instagram app.

We were at the beach at the end of August and were rewarded one evening by a beautiful sunset over the bay.

And what’s a visit to the beach without a trip to Funland to play skeeball!

Oh, my! A set of conjoined Italian prune plums!

Huge cricket grasshopper.

Figue left her baby hedgehog out in the rain and I rescued it.

I have pumpkins again this year and they’re such fun to watch.

But sometimes they get too heavy for the vines to support and fall off.

I was walking through a meadow and found this faded Queen Anne’s Lace blossom.

I was picking up one of Figue’s babies from the sidewalk and spotted this shed snakeskin.

Figue got a haircut. I can hardly reconcile the before and after. It’s like two different dogs.

See you next week, and hopefully, I won’t be as busy!

Success: Be Careful What You Wish For!

The first weekend of the Portobello Pop Up was very successful and it was such fun to see old and new friends, and family! The Portobello Pop Up is open until Saturday, September 24th.A while ago, I realized that I love the hunting and gathering, and research aspect of things, but once I acquire them, I don’t really care about them any more. I think I am a process person, loving the process, rather than the outcome. Therefore, it’s not painful to sell my wares.

So, that makes it easy for me to sell the things that I collect… Even when they have my monogram on them!

One of the items I was selling was my custom-designed tea towels. I thought maybe I’d sell a dozen or two. I mean, do people really use tea towels anymore? People other than me, that is.

Well, the answer is a resounding YES! I received more than 100 orders for tea towels, and so now am working my little fingers to the bone sewing them.

It’s a bit overwhelming, but I am pleased about it. I’ve taken the tea towels off my Etsy account for the time-being, but they will be back on there in a few weeks, as soon as I’ve gotten over this batch of towels. If you look at the side-bar to the right on this page, you can see what’s listed on my Etsy shop.

Getting Ready!

I know you’re probably sick of hearing about the Portobello Pop Up, but it’s coming up quickly, and it’s been all-consuming of my time for the past few weeks.

Over the weekend, my friends Stiles and Jonathan, who own Halcyon House Antiques, worked to make my inventory look amazing. Both of them have an incredible ability to stage and style. While I was unpacking some things, Jonathan set up this vignette in about two minutes! When you dissect the photo, you can see the red from the plates playing off of the red in the curtains, and the symmetry, with the central focus on the Queen’s plate and the lamp behind it.

There are more than 200 items in the sale, and it was like a puzzle finding the best place for everything.

This combination of blue and white evolved into centering this huge ironstone basin under the table, to balance the white tray.

While I love my friend Sam Robinson’s painting above the fireplace, we replaced it with an extraordinary embroidered image of numerous British flags, all executed in fine silks. The three plates are reproductions of the famous Wedgwood “Frog Service” originally made for Cathering the Great.

Another quandry was finding a place and a way to display all of the mother of pearl cutlery that I’ve collected over the past few months. We laid some of it out on linen trays, and bundled them with ribbons, courtesy of my friend, Andrea at Bosom Buddy Bags, and placed the lots in mini silver buckets.

One of my favorite vignettes is this corner display of a set of silver, along with three classic prints, in incredible frames. I picked these up at a recent auction and found that they’re actually quite good prints and frames. Score!

As we headed out after a full day of staging and styling, we saw some members of the local deer population grazing in the meadow in front of Halcyon House.

The Portobello Pop Up opens on Friday, September 16 and rund through the 24th. Hope to see you there!

My Portobello Pop-Up and Other Things

Whew! The past few weeks have been super busy, and the next few aren’t letting up at all.

First up was a trip to the coast, just before the arrival of Hurricane Hermione Herman Hermine. Although we missed it by a day or two, the waves were so rough, that it was hard to be in the water and the high tides covered the beach. That said, my Burkini, in reality, a top to toes sun-guard suit, worked perfectly. Despite being on the beach all day, I didn’t get burned at all. I really try and stay completely out of the sun.

A few days later, I headed down to a cottage on one of the many rivers close to Baltimore to spend time with my family and cousins here from England. One of the stars of the trip was my brother’s new puppy, Phoebe.

Of course, in the middle of all that, I am prepping for my Portobello Pop-Up, starting on September 16 at Halcyon House Antiques. I am sorting through amazing china,

polishing tons of silver, cataloguing dozens of pieces of Wedgwood,

and researching back-stamps on china.

I am working on both designing and sewing my tea-towels, which are also available on my Etsy shop. I love the original illustrations from Alice in Wonderland, and have used them for some of the designs.

I also love maps and the Maryland flag, as you may have gathered, and have used some of them for the tea towels as well.

One of my favourites is one I did of the Cape Cod region. If you’re visiting someone there, these make perfect house gifts. I did one for our family’s gathering this weekend and marked the house with a star. Of course, I can customize these for you.

If you’re in or around Baltimore while the show and sale is going on, I hope that you will stop in. I will be there on the Fridays and Saturdays.