Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle Prepares for Tea...

Hello Dear Friends,

We hope you are all well and enjoying your summer.

It's our favorite time of the year, you know!

(As always, please feel free to click on images to see them larger.)

We have spent a lot of time on the porch, 

planting and caring for everything there.

Being a hedgehog, she is very good at helping me to dig the

dirt in the pots when we plant the seeds in the springtime,

 you know!

For all the new Friends of The Gossamer Tearoom, here is a bit of background about Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.  If you are a fan of the beautiful stories of Beatrix Potter, you will recognize her as that famous hedgehog who did the washing behind the little door at the back of the hill at Cats Bells, but now, she lives with us.  I have made her a new bonnet, complete with handmade flower, made by some nice ladies in Soweto, South Africa and a pretty summer frock.  Because her paws and feet were originally made of wool felt, some bad moths came and ate holes in both!  Poor Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle!  So, I have given her a complete pawdectomy and she now has a new pair of lovely brown taffeta paws, as well as new black velvet shoes, to cover her moth-eaten little feet.

But, now it is time for Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and I to start preparing

for our Teeny Tea!

In the time since we have been in isolation from the pandemic, one of the things I began to work on was collecting some new pieces for the Teeny Tea dish collection.  I found a seller on Ebay who was selling a lot of individual antique transferwear doll dishes that I knew I could mix and match together for the look we like.  Many of them have some slight chips or have had handles glued back on, etc., but you know these imperfections don't bother me!  So, little by little, between this seller and some others I found on Etsy, we have an even more interesting set for our teas now!

Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle is helping me to pick what dishes we will use this time, so we are playing with putting the dishes together by color, using some of the things we already had!

I have always had a fascination with dishes, Teeny Tea-sized and otherwise (an interest I got from my mother).  This will be a very antique dish-oriented post, so all connoisseurs of these wonderful little pieces of history should be in Dish Heaven while reading!  We can't wait to show you some of the things we've recently acquired.

We start with the red dishes!

We love having little things that have survived such a long time, now as part of our own collection!

The design of this compote is called "Myrtle Wreath", made by John Meir, from around 1835!  What a treasure!  It just amazes me to know that something this lovely has survived this long!

This pitcher is a little big as a serving dish, but is very handy for keeping water in for small vases as we set the table.  It was made by Villeroy and Boch and the pattern is called "Burgenland"

This plate will make an excellent tray for serving!  The pattern is called "Little Mae" and it is from around 1890, from a company called Allerton.  It's fun to click on this one and see, up close, this little girl and her pets!

Here, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle has begun to arrange the plates we already have, along with one our well-loved candlesticks and my much adored goose vase.  I bought it when I was still in school for 50 cents, at an antique shop in Gray, Maine.  Even though it is chipped on one side, it is one of my most favorite things I own!  Even things that are not perfect oftentimes still have great value to someone like me!

How perfect this compote looks, filled with the dark sweet and Rainier cherries that we will enjoy with our tea!

Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle is in a creative mood and tries the centerpiece items with some of our gold and white plates from our collection!

Now, we will do some playing with the purple dishes!

You might recognize this plate, as I use it to hold our teapot or iced tea pitcher, sugar bowl and creamer at our teas!  This was a little purple transferware saucer that I found here in my house when I inherited it.  It would have belonged to my great aunt, so I don't know much about it.  I love the beautiful purple design on it.  There is a watermark on the back of the plate that says "Manhattan".

This lovely little pitcher is French, from Choisy l'Roy.  It is a type of pottery called faïence, from around 1900 and the pattern is called "Morning Glory"

(Since the insides of these pitchers are crazed, I will only be using them as decorations.)

The pattern of this pitcher is called "Athens Acanthus".  It was made by Davenport and is from the 1840's.  As you scroll down, you will recognize the pattern on a couple of our new plates as well.

I love this one, for its imperfections!  The seller from whom I bought most of the new pieces wrote that transferware pieces that were made for childrens' tea sets often contained imperfections, as they were not expected to last very long!  So, as you will notice, some of the transfers on the edge don't line up well and some of the glaze on the bottom is smudged!  I love it all the same!  The pattern is called "Clover Leaf" and it was made by Copeland in about 1850.

We are happy to include our much-loved KittyCat pitcher!  She has been very happy to have recently been utilized as a vase for tiny flowers such as violets and violas.

Here are the plates in our purple dish collection.

Top left and bottom right are the "Athens Acanthus" pattern by Davenport, which match the pitcher shown above.

Top right is a butter pat made by Smith and Ford, but I don't know the name of the lovely floral pattern.

Bottom left is called "Ribbon of Rings", made by Staffordshire in the 1840's.

Here are several of the purple dish collection together (as well as the KittyCat pitcher and the goose vase).  They will look so nice with the purple cordial tea glasses...

...But then, they would also look nice with the gold plates!

Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle is having fun being creative with the colors today!

And now, the blue dishes!

Here are two beautiful and adorable doll plates!  The pattern is called "The Kite Flyer" and is from approximately 1835!  The pattern is thought to depict Benjamin Franklin and shows children playing in a cemetery.

I found this little set on Etsy.  There was no information on its origin, but I like the interesting design on the pieces.  What do you suppose it means?

Even though the teapot lid came with this teapot, I don't think it is the original, but I think it looks fun with it anyway.

This little teapot is part of another set I found on Etsy.  It seems to resemble Blue Willow Ware.  I have a particular affection for Blue Willow Ware, as I have a very vivid memory of eating baked chicken and mashed potatoes that my maternal grandmother made for us when we stayed with them one summer, here in Maine.  I remember the windows of the diningroom were open and the breeze was blowing the lace curtains slightly, as we ate our dinner, on that warm summer night.

Unfortunately, it wasn't packed very carefully when it was shipped to me and I received it in a lot of pieces.  So, I glued it back together, all but the bottom, which was shattered beyond repair.  However, I found a way I could use it after all!

These little glass vials were found in my grandmother's sewing kit (one held needles and one held seed beads).  When I fill them with water and put them inside the broken teapot...

They turn the broken teapot into a charming vase!

Here are the teacups that came with this set.

The set did not have a creamer or lids.  I bought this creamer separately on Ebay, and although the shape is not the same, the pattern is.

How nice the blue dishes look with the purple pansies, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle...

...and with the gold and white plates as well!

Thank you for joining in our fun of playing 

with the different colored dishes today!

But, I wonder which colors we should use for the Teeny Tea?

I guess you will have to check back and find out!

Keep watch here on The Tearoom Blog for the Teeny Tea,

coming very soon!