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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29947870721470599042014-11-24T18:09:38.028ZElizabethbaertextiles.comNews and views from a British antique textile dealer who has always sourced the best linens and fabrics from La France Profonde. Now branching out into Vintage Armchairs for Seniors needing comfort and support. Contact: email@example.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- elizabeth baerhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-30186000922010747332014-11-24T18:09:00.001Z2014-11-24T18:09:38.074ZYoung and old

 Taken in my showroom, a year ago, this was part of an article in Country Life magazine titled Bright Old Things. and featured several people who had started new careers after retiring and are still working. Myself, I don't think I have ever stopped working and have been involved in antiques in most of my life, the latest choice being textiles. Here is my great- granddaughter, Rose Murray, her grandmother, Charlotte, (my second daughter) playing in one of my showrooms with a bit of old Indian fabric. The cupboard in the background is a handsome Irish Regency pine housekeepers cupboard for the storage of linen in a big household - with locks on every door, ideal for my business which I have since sold with a proper picture of it in a separate blog.
The showroom is now a guest room with mostly French fabrics decorating.

elizabeth baerhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-89099635937599223692014-11-19T23:27:00.000Z2014-11-19T23:27:06.997ZAntique, vintage and classic.These are descriptive words which should help us define the sale of used and old goods. It is difficult to use them correctly when the word 'vintage' is now often used to describe things that are little more than second- hand goods and clothes. We are used to 'vintage' fashion, jewellery, wine and motor cars in auction catalogues and presume that things on sale are at least 50 years old - certainly not from the 80s and 90s. While there are certain excellent vintage fairs taking place in increasing numbers, which have high standards and discerning clients; there is a rash of other 'vintage style' (whatever that means) events and these do not enhance the reputation of genuine vintage stuff. Can we think of a new descriptive name which will cover 'old but good' without spoiling the description of vintage; what do you think? Do you have a problem in other English speaking countries ?elizabeth baerhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-29638857506024829142014-11-18T19:00:00.001Z2014-11-23T20:01:45.141ZSTUFF OF DREAMS French  ikat weave. It was very popular from the 18th century for dressing important beds with long curtains hung from the tester head or sometimes from a corona fixed to the ceiling and called ciel de lit .

The scallops and edges were often trimmed with a bright red piping or border, which gives a very attractive finish
 The old French linen and hemp coloured bedding materials are now rare but worth searching for as they are so attractive and can be used in many 'recycled' ways. Most are blue and white - natural linen interwoven with indigo blue or woad-dyed threads - the most eagerly sought are the flamme, where natural white linen is tie-dyed and then placed in the loom in a regular pattern, but because this cannot be completely accurate, you get the beautiful ikat weave, with flame-like outlines at regular intervals. This was often known as 'Siamoise' as it was copied from the ikat weaves of that country and a lot of small factories in France were able to copy the techniques, so almost every example I have had and sold is in a different scale and pattern. The cotton used is very fine so it is quite difficult to get large pieces in good condition and most of mine ended up as cushions or tote bags.
 Other materials were all kinds of checks and stripes in wide patterns sometimes quite coarse and thick, and these were used to make mattress covers, or drapes hung from a simple pole above a bed placed sideways against a wall. You may not know that in early times the roof was often not plastered on the inside, so apart from the cold that came down, there was a continuous rain of dust and debris from birds, bats and other rodents which might drop on your head, so the overhead protection was rather essential.

 The tote bag I made from these remnants (mostly very damaged pieces worn in the centre) is a simple machined patchwork of 18c. bedding fabrics. I lined the bag with a bit of old sheeting that happened to have my own initials on it in red cross stitch, and made the long handles with treble folded gingham to sling over my shoulder. It takes me 2 1/2 hours to make these bags, every one is different, on purpose, and I use up every scrap of old material I have in my antique re-cycle box. Or if they are too small, I pass the scraps on to friends who use them for quilting or making mini collages on cloth backgrounds, so not an inch of old fabric is wasted. These bags have been much copied and sold for far more than I charge, but no-one else seems to use 18th C. linen and hemp! and many are made from so-called 'vintage' fabrics, which are not much more than 1970s. remnants, pretty as they may be! It's very flattering to be copied but I am not keen on poor replicas which do nothing to enhance the reputation of genuine antique fabrics that have a history and are collectable in any size or shape!elizabeth baerhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-28863701417465455692014-11-14T22:30:00.000Z2014-11-14T22:30:55.353ZCLIMBING UP THE HILL

 When I started to deal in French brocante and textiles I bought purely by instinct, mostly what I liked myself. But as I travelled further and piled it higher and higher in our Volvo Estate (plus roof rack) I soon learnt that there were certain things that always sold well if they were in good condition and that sometimes the things that I hesitated to buy as they were rather expensive, turned out to sell quickest. Of course, I made plenty of mistakes and so I always reduced my 'failures' or 'sleepers' as they are known in the trade, things that did not sell, sometimes even below what I had paid for them, to banish them from my display and get some cash to invest in wiser buys. Some dealers seem to find this very difficult to do - you simply cannot expect to make a profit on everything, otherwise we would all be millionaires, and personally, I think it best to download slow sellers at a low price if you have a willing buyer and move on. You need to change the display, it is boring for the customers to see the same old stock and they will walk past your stand and think that you are winding down!. In my next BLOG Trifles can be so sweet...... I will list some of the simple objects, all decorative and/or unusual, which appealed to collectors and the general public as trifles to spend a couple of pounds on and take home with some satisfaction. Selling trifles was always, to me, just as interesting as selling major items, and always gave me great satisfaction that I had 'pulled' buyers in with my display!

 Occasionally I would find some factory or shop surplus with something amusing or attractive like woven name tapes with curly initials on them and I found that most people and their children, would stop to look and search for their own, and that always created a little crowd which attracted other shoppers. I followed that purchase of name tapes - about 10,000 of them in little boxes of a gross each, which I sold for £2 each box, (now you have to pay three times that - if you can find them - in the Porte de Vanves market in Paris on a Saturday,) with the purchase of moulded fabric large initials for French dowries, which you could iron onto linen for grand, raised, satin stitched initials on sheets, etc. Keeping all these initials in alphabetical order was a bit of a pain but I could do it at idle moments at a fair. Initials and crests have an irresistable appeal to most people. Craft workers used them for many projects.
 This also gave me a chance to pass one of my trade cards on to my buyers which would remind them of the other things I had for sale. Cards, with details of your stock, your Website, etc. cost almost nothing to produce and can make a huge contribution to getting yourself known in the trade. If you are shy about passing on your details, you will never make the contacts you need! If ever I meet someone just starting up with a new venture, I always ask them for their trade card and if they haven't got one to give me, I feel they do not realise how important contacts and networking are, to start anything anew, and frankly I am not prepared to put myself out for them. You must do the groundwork properly!

elizabeth baerhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-74244166726065841602014-11-09T21:55:00.000Z2014-11-09T21:55:08.803ZPLEASE IRON ME!

 These attractive quilting patterns are made with samples from the Volga Linen Company in their latest catalogue - very attractive and they might inspire someone handy with a sewing machine. I met the owner of this flourishing company a long time ago when she was just starting up - it was at Eastnor Castle at a Fair called 'The Art of Living'- it was a very good one and we all did well and had a lovely time getting to know several up and coming makers and sellers. Roger Oates was there with his lovely carpets woven nearby and Polly Lyster and I made a very blue and white statement (French linen sheets and lots of indigo/woad dyed fabrics including silks and chiffons) which caught the eye of Country Living features editor, Hester Page, - and that launched Polly into the decorator's world! One thing does lead to another! The first picture shows Linen in a New Look, crumpled and rumpled - maybe a style for Tracey Emin, but not for me!

elizabeth baerhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-41126619405592301892014-11-08T14:00:00.000Z2014-11-08T14:00:56.921ZTALK OF THE DEVIL!IF YOU HAVE EVER NOTICED HOW SOME OLD FRENCH SHEETS ARE SO LONG, THO' QUITE NARROW FOR ENGLISH DOUBLE BEDS, I WAS GIVEN AN AMUSING SUGGESTION THE OTHER DAY TO DO WITH THE WAY THE BEDS WERE MADE UP FOR SLEEPING. SOME OF THE PRETTY OLD PRINTS SHOWING SWEET YOUNG LADIES IN BED, DRESSED IN NEGLIGEES WITH FRILLS AND FURBELOWS ALL OVER, AND A CHARMING SUITOR IN ATTENDANCE, WITH FATHER RAGING AT THE DOOR, ARE VERY CHARMING AND JUST SLIGHTLY RISQUE. AND YOU MIGHT NOTICE THAT THEY HAVE A PILE OF PILLOWS AND BOLSTERS, ALSO FRILLY AND SEDUCTIVE - THIS WAS BECAUSE IT WAS THE CUSTOM FOR PEOPLE TO SLEEP SITTING UPRIGHT - IT WAS CONSIDERED BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH TO SLEEP LYING DOWN (PRESUMABLY TOO LIKE A CORPSE). I was told by another Francophile that the reason the sleepers were propped upright in bed was that if they lay flat, they would snore with open mouths and that would give the Devil a chance to get into their soul! So the pillows and bolsters were piled high and the sheet had to cover them and be folded down behind and tucked in. I once had a chateau sheet that was very fine and 15' long, and a devilish fine one at that!

.elizabeth baerhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-8097800596683970292014-11-01T22:02:00.001Z2014-11-01T22:02:55.199ZSelvedge cuts the cloth I had the pleasure of meeting a lot of Selvedge readers in a lovely Regency house in Highgate recently - we were exploring the history and use of linen through the last three centuries. An interesting account of Georgian domestic life told by Amanda Vickery illustrated the growing luxury and richness of the households and their collections of silver, china, furniture art works and textiles including domestic linen, (all to grace their fine mahogany, walnut and oak dining tables.) Amanda showed us how linen influenced every event in the lives of people at each stage of their lives - from the baby's wrap to the funeral shroud, and was prized as something that stood for cleanliness, a healthy life, a clean, moral one and was part of every ceremonial church and domestic occasion. We went on to look at some of my own examples of the most humble weavings to damask linen and fine lace, and noted that the chosen textiles were often made in the convents by holy nuns. Skilled embroiderers undertook the making of grand confections, often incorporating the family connection, and those who could afford it, demanded the very best for every domestic use.
 In France, enormous damask cloths with designs of wild life, game and hunting themes were made for the huge banquets given in the chateaux, with dozens of matching napkins. Others celebrated horses and carriages, others the flowers of the gardens - very often roses. The grand beds were dressed in the very finest linen and all the top sheets and pillow cases had deep borders of the most elaborate needlework or lace. The lace was made in many different ways, with pins, bobbins and other tools and I have myself got two matching 'birthing' sheets with hand-embroidered designs of life-size water lilies (Monet designs) and iris to a depth of 3 feet at the top end of each sheet, all done in the most exquisite satin stitch. They have huge initials and coronets worked into the designs which proclaim (loudly) that they were the property of the Noblesse.(French aristocracy). I have since welcomed six of the ladies who attended this Hampstead event, at my own home and stores in Bradford on Avon, so does one thing lead to another!

Polly Leonard, the Editor and good friend of mine, sends this advert to invite you to her brilliant Christmas Fair, where you can meet many of the people featured in this great Magazine and see their goods and works. Wish I could go but family illness prevents! Tickets are £7.50 each for a super day in the textile world with lots of cutting edge inspiration!

elizabeth baerhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-85411635302977518942014-11-01T19:27:00.000Z2014-11-01T19:29:10.059ZBONNETS AND SMOCKS

HAVING RECENTLY VISITED THE SOMERSET RURAL LIFE MUSEUM IN GLASTONBURY WITH A TEXTILE FAIR TAKING PLACE IN THE WONDERFUL ABBEY BARN THERE, I CAME AWAY WITH TWO DRESSMAKING PATTERNS WHICH THEY SELL FOR 50P. EACH. I used to buy smocks and sun bonnets in the past when I was selling folk art and rustic tools and they always sold so well - and then they disappeared, no doubt to the many Rural life museums that were set up by local Councils in most Counties and re-animation days for country fairs. The sun bonnets had a deep frill at the back to protect the neck from sun and with a pretty ribbon bow at the front were a charming fashion. Similarly the male coarse linen smocks made from a material called drabbet and with distinctive colours for the body and special patterns for the smocking, sometimes denoting the job of the wearer, carter, shepherd, etc., they suited all shapes and sizes and were obviously comfortable and easy to wear. Some could be turned round so that they were worn on one side to the front all week and on Sundays the other side looked clean and spruce for church going. The Thomas Hardy novels and films revived interest in these ancient garments and of course Larkrise to Candleford and other 'bonnet' films did the same for19th century country clothing.
I recently sold some spotted muslin bed curtains to the wardrobe ladies and they turned them into good period dresses for the two sisters, when they were filming Larkrise nearby at Lacock, and I think they were made with 'leg o' mutton sleeves! Another time they found a pair of pretty parasols, exactly matching, which were on their shopping list! elizabeth baerhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-43538426682451803952014-10-28T20:55:00.000Z2014-10-28T20:55:55.433Z(B)RAIDING THE TRIMS

Vintage passementerie from France

 I am downsizing my stock of old French braids and trims which I have used to decorate curtains, pelmets and cushions for many years - once I was able to buy them in quantity from an extraordinary French dealer who kept me supplied with everything I loved. She was most astute and bought up lots of little merceries, often small family-run businesses in French provincial towns where you could buy fabrics and sewing necessities including all the trimmings for dresses and house furnishings that you could want. Many of the shops had been closed for years and the stock often went back to Victorian times. I saw boa feathers, for hats and capes, pearl and linen buttons by the drawer-ful, strange notions like whalebone for dress hem stiffening, soutache a fine silky rouleau for braiding dresses and jackets, dozens of different coloured tapes for corsets, petticoat satin straps, modesty vests and a hundred other obsolete details all still in their original boxes with spidery writing on the labels. I had to climb up a step ladder to view it all and gingerly lift the lids to track the contents of mini skyscrapers of tottering cardboard boxes and each one was a surprise, so after my first visit which took several hours, my husband was offered a chair and he brought a book to while away the time. This lady also scoured the waste fabric dealers (raccomodeurs) of cities nearby and found the most wonderful old silk curtains which she rescued and sold to one particular customer - so I could only admire and sigh when I caught a glimpse of them under their wraps! I am still dealing with her and she has a genius for finding things that are my peculiarities and I can find nowhere else..elizabeth baerhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-56133783481984292922014-10-26T18:00:00.000Z2014-10-27T20:59:57.839ZSLEEP TIGHT AND MIND.....

This 4 poster has outside pelmet and valance made of pique cotton fabric and Toile de Jouy, with a muslin tambour lace canopy inside

 The old saying, 'sleep tight and mind the bugs don't bite....'refers to the base of the bed where there was often a lattice of heavy rope threaded and knotted to the four sides of the bed to support the mattress - the firmer and tauter the better - not many enjoy a sagging bed! The bugs were, of course, a universal pest and lived in the crevices of the beds emerging when they became warm. Their bites were painful and disturbing and it is said drove some to madness. This was one of the reasons that in the 19th century, iron beds became fashionable with no hiding places and could be stripped down. There are still a few of the metal campaign beds around which can be quite decorative, fold neatly into three and are on metal castors. and you may have seen the pretty little cots of elaborate metalwork sides which many have converted to garden seats by letting one side down and placing a comfy cushion on the base. I always thought them extremely dangerous as babies' heads and limbs could poke through the ironwork and get stuck, but then I came across the pretty liners that were made for these cots, they fitted on the inside of the cot with tapes tied firmly and screened the sides The material for these cot liners was very often strong white pique, with embroidered scallops all round; I have bought these apart from the beds, and as I adore pique and the French patterns are varied and beautiful in hundreds of different small diaper patterns, I have re-cycled them in luxurious bed cushions and canopies for four poster and tester beds.elizabeth baerhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-73059388057973997362014-10-21T20:22:00.000+01:002014-10-22T23:25:53.469+01:00A big thank you! This is just to say thanks for the very generous 'comments' that reach me, often from people I have never met but who have joined up with me through their generous and encouraging notes - Some are very regular, others just occasional, when I suppose I hit the spot, and they all put a few thoughts into the machine - I don't expect everyone to have the same thoughts and likes and dislikes as me, so it is always gratifying to get other opinions, whatever the subject. Only this week I have Frances of New York who loves tickings, (I saw some lovely old blue ones on a visit to a friend's house in Connecticut); and an old friend from Mass. is buying one of my best sheets via Email, and Sharon Mrzinski of Maine, whom many of my U.S. readers will know, (as well as visiting her store in Wiscasset), she is visiting me with her husband Paul next week - all these friendships and connections are precious to me and I like to keep the ball rolling, and that is where I find a Blog is so rewarding, as well as the pleasure of remembering all the good times I have had with my textile business and the trips to France. So please keep in touch! I love it! Click on the picture to get rid of the verbage and you will see the three generations having fun!

Granny Baer ! (Centre page spread in Country Life Mag. celebrating The Bright Old Things!) My daughter Charlotte Murray and her granddaughter Rose in my textile showroom.

elizabeth baerhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-15984257629696500452014-10-19T14:49:00.000+01:002014-10-19T14:52:02.274+01:00TIME IS TICKING

My archive of tickings collected 20-years ago -over 130 different patterns - the best came from Germany and I found several thousand of them in the lofts of two barns - all waiting to be shipped to a rag factory for cleaning machinery!

 HAVING ALWAYS HAD A BIG CORNER IN MY CUPBOARDS AND IN MY HEART FOR THE GENUS ticking, IT IS SAD TO SEE THE LAST FEW RUNNING OUT AND SO EXPENSIVE. AT EVERY FRENCH FAIR I KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR THEM AND OFTEN FIND SOME BUT SO PATCHED AND MENDED THAT THEY ARE USELESS FOR UPHOLSTERY -I DON'T MUCH CARE FOR THE PATCHED LOOK OF SOME DESIGNERS WHO OBVIOUSLY HAVE THE SAME PROBLEMS AND CALL IT NOW THEIR 'DESIGNER' LOOK, AND PROBABLY CHARGE EXTRA, BUT THEN I AM STILL IN 19TH/20TH CENTURY MODE AND ONLY LIKE PATCHWORK WHEN IT IS DONE TO A REAL PATTERN OF COLOUR AND SHAPE - I DON'T EVEN LIKE CRAZY QUILTING SO MY TASTE IS VERY LIMITED. THE OLD TICKINGS WERE USED UP IN THE POORER HOMES WHEN THEY BECAME SO WORN THAT ALL THE FEATHERS ESCAPED AND THE BUGS CLIMBED IN, AND WERE MADE UP AS APRONS FOR WASHING THE CLOTHES IN THE VILLAGE LAVOIRS, COMMUNAL WASHING TANKS AND POOLS WHERE ALL WAS SCRUBBED OR BEATEN WITH A 'PLANCHE' TO PUSH THE COLD WATER AND SOAP THROUGH THE DIRTY WASHING. THE TICKING WAS VERY CLOSELY WOVEN TO BE DOWN -PROOF, SO IT WAS ALSO WATERPROOF AND SAVED THE WEAR ON THE CLOTHES UNDERNEATH, WHICH WERE USUALLY LONG BLACK SKIRTS WORN WITH A WHITE SHORT BLOUSE , THE CARACO.

MORE RECLAMATION FOR TICKINGS DESTINED FOR THE RAG MARKETS.

See also my post It's good to be in the redelizabeth baerhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-2380771303347649332014-10-15T12:35:00.000+01:002014-10-15T12:35:22.697+01:00HOME AND AWAY

A distant view of my Workstation 'Computer'. A slatted shutter pulls down to conceal all the works and the sides of the cupboard are covered in wallpaper to match the walls. My painted Regency desk and myself well to the left and my bobbine telephone table complete the office equipment and its staff! Husband, bottom left, is not involved!

 I have recently had many new orders and enquiries via my Blogspot and am trying to work out just why; I have just noted I now have over 130 'followers' so a big thank you for your patience! If you are considering setting up a Blogspot (I hate the name, it sounds so down-market !)maybe you might like to have my very amateur comments. I think it may be that my own Website is rather formal and dull, like most lists are, and it is quite difficult for me to alter the lists of linen to make them more interesting, so it just sits there! I think photos of white linen are not very helpful and are quite boring. I think my more informal Blogspot which features one idea or article or group at a time, more photos, is probably more 'real' and interesting with more details and different prices, with full descriptions of colours, condition, etc., and is more like real shopping with an assistant to guide you. Undoubtedly if you can show the use to which your stuff can be put, this helps people to realise the potential - i.e. a roll of ticking and a chair beside it covered in similar material which may inspire an uncertain buyer!
 Most foreign enquirers seem to have an interest in French fabrics and furnishings - world renowned for their good design and quality - and I find Australians are particularly knowlegeable - they seem to have good shops selling quality French textiles down under! The Japanese love fashion and vintage, especially work- wear and folk art items - they will do things with darns and patches and re-invent all kinds of well-used stuff and they have a passion for indigo, which is much used in multifarious ways in their own culture.
Americans love beautiful fabrics and objects but want them to be in pristine and perfect condition - not very interested in the signs of wear and tear and often prefer the newer to the genuine old, which is fine. They love tickings which recall the early settler and pioneer days of their origins and are keen on tapestry canvas work and toile de Jouy and quilts. Sooner or later most of my overseas clients find their way here (it may take a year or two) and with that in mind I try and keep in touch through my newsletter and this works very well - they become long-distance friends. Some Blog writers hold their readers' interest and gain new ones, by having competitions with prizes and kits, but I do not have the resources for that. Others specialise in just one subject with excellent photos and info. and collect a very specialised clientele - luckily there is room for everyone and it is cheap - I use BLOGGER which is part of Google, I think, and I was able to do it all myself after two helpful lessons from friends. It is all for free, too!elizabeth baerhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-7382958437569686912014-10-10T21:33:00.001+01:002014-10-10T21:33:34.195+01:00DASHING AWAY WITH THE SMOOTHING IRON There is a strange new fashion for wearing and using linen in its natural creased state and I find it hard to understand. To me, one of its virtues is the cool, slightly glossy look and feel of well-ironed linen and I enjoy pressing and folding it into perfect shapes - usually squares! To do a good job you need a large surface; a blanket and old linen cloth on an unpolished table will do fine, and a good heavy and hot iron. The linen should be slightly damp and it is a good idea to pull all corners of large sheets to get it stretched square so that it will fold neatly. With sheets, you can usually fold them lengthways in four and slowly press all the layers with your iron, turning the whole over at the end so that you can press the other side. This will not be as perfect as ironing all the surface once, but if you have several sheets to do, it does save time and trouble.

Some of my vintage initialled napkins, bundled in sets and folded ready for use

If you do not have time to iron the linen when it is just at the right dampness, roll it up in a bundle and store in your deep freeze till you are ready (I learnt this trick in Texas where the dry climate is a problem). Air the linen well and stack neatly. Be sure your ironed linen is dry (otherwise you risk mildew) and store in a cool dry place, a hot cupboard is not a good storage place, nor a damp bathroom. If there are buttons on pillowcases, do not iron over them as holes will soon appear, iron round them. If there is lace, also big initials, always iron on the wrong side and with a fine damp cloth, and be careful not to snag the 'brides' (joining bars in openwork) . The art of folding linen follows soon!elizabeth baerhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-56669358499404188292014-10-08T15:28:00.000+01:002014-10-08T18:54:56.149+01:00LUCKY BREAKSIf you are a dealer and have a wide range of stock, people often ask you for special things, to start or increase a collection or just for one thing that has a special meaning for them. When I dealt in folk art and byegones, including treen, tools, metalwork and other crafts, I always kept an eye open for the special requests, partly because it gave me pleasure to search, and even more to satisfy! I had fun collecting 1920's articulated pull-along toys for a leading art dealer in Knightsbridge who was much amused by the quaint animals in three or four parts which 'ambulated' and swerved when pushed or pulled, and caught the fancy of his rich U.S. clients who came to buy his fabulous impressionist paintings and used the animals as desk toys!
 There was another customer a well-known American collector, Emmeling, who wrote lots of books about treen and folk art, who collected heart shaped kitchenalia - for her I could find in France little rush basket-weave moulds for draining cheeses (coeur de Neuchatel) and sets of shapes in brown pottery and also tin, all punctured with draining holes and looking pretty on kitchen dressers and shelves. There were masses of baskets all in different traditional shapes and sizes, in every Department of France and they all joined big groups hanging from the beams of country kitchens. But I have to say that at the end of my buying trips I had to be careful not to land myself with clever reproductions which would have spoilt my dealings - the Philippino baskets were very good copies and after a period in the rain and other distressing ploys, they were quite difficult to identify and people fought shy of collecting repros, as with ironwork kitchen accessories, the game and meat hooks, the pokers and cooking pots which were turned out in quantity by the Spanish and the gypsies, looking identical with the old ones and made in the same way, but just too perfect and unscarred to be genuine.

 My best finds for a collector came by chance - while I was dealing from a space in the Maltings, Long Melford, where I had a good mix of all the above and also larger tools and rustic furniture, including things like linen scutchers, cross saws (very decorative against a barn wall) huge field seeding baskets (vanns), and enormous sieves with punctured leather holes for winnowing corn; flails and other beautiful but obsolete farming tools, I there met Guy Taplin who was already known for his bird sculptures made from driftwood near his home in Wivenhoe. He told me his father had been an artist - painter and kept his special paint-effect tools and paints in a neat little wooden box - it had been lost and he was anxious to replace it with another. As I had just completed two terms of instruction in the art of special painting from Leonard Pardon in London and knew about the tools, I promised to keep an eye open for one. A few months later I went to the Bull Ring weekly sale room in Birmingham to size it up. It was a foul, foggy morning and only a handful of dealers attended a rather miserable collection of goods all lying on the floor. There were two boxes which interested me, one was very, very long and narrow and the other small, scruffy and dirty, but with a leather carrying strap. Poking about, I discovered the first was a Hardy box for rods and fishing tackle, all divided up and stamped with the famous fishing tackle manufacturer' mark (worth a bit) and guess what? the little box was indeed a true artist's collection of tools and paint, including the combs, all the special sable, badger brushes, sponges for ragging, and lots of paint tubes, rather dried up. I won both with my maiden bid! Hooray!
 When I got them to a rather pleased Guy, he diffidently said that the other thing he really wanted was a Victorian Noah's Ark with as many animals as possible. This was an almost impossible mission, but soon after, I was walking along Long Melford's lovely wide main street full of choice antique shops and there in a little bow window I spied a collection of dozens of carved zoo animals and a painted ark behind! Was it going to be the very high current price for such forgotten toys, carved in Germany's Black Forest? In fact, the dealer had no idea of its value and rarity, and apologised for the lack of a leg on one or two of the animals and in no time the whole collection was on its way to the carver supreme! Since then, Guy has become the best known designer and carver of bird sculpture with many exhibitions at top galleries in London.

elizabeth baerhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-81249457321430592014-10-01T18:56:00.001+01:002014-10-01T18:56:33.594+01:00HOP,SKIP AND JUMP The stool shown in the last Post, all about the slickenstones, is another relic of past labour, as it is a hop-pickers perch! Up until quite recently, now machinery does most of the work, whole families from the East End of London, would take a working holiday in Kent to pick the hops that grew there in very large quantities. When the bines, the long fronds loaded with the hop flowers, were picked from the tall stakes that they grew on, and were taken down, the workers then had to strip them and they did this sitting on old crates and boxes, and I guess the more elderly (grandma came too) sat on a high stool surrounded by the long trails. This one has the initial E on the underside and the seat is well polished from years of wear. It's the sort of thing that brings back memories for a lot of people and you don't find much detail about the habits of the poor and working class before the war - it was all considered quite normal and not worth recording. The hops were gathered into enormous hessian sacks which were then carted to the oast houses where they were treated for the first stages of brewing beer. Some of the sacks were a lovely bright yellow and I don't know why - was it a traditional saffron dye (probably much too rare and expensive) or was it to mark them for easy loading ?- they were quite light as hop flowers are papery and flimsy and you would get an enormous amount into just one sack. You can now buy in Sept. each year, beautiful twists of hop flowers on the bine in large cardboard boxes and they make a lovely decoration over a doorway or in a party barn and last for years! See www.essentiallyhops. elizabeth baerhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-23822149790974358012014-09-27T20:20:00.000+01:002014-09-27T22:31:37.863+01:00Slickenstones and other pressing matters

 I used to deal in country antiques and folk art and tools, supplying my stall at Little Chelsea and also a gallery nearby. One day I took a nice wooden object which was rather mushroom in shape in golden sycamore wood, made with a handle and a big flat saucer. I had thought it was to do with butter-making and used to press the salt in, and extract the water. I sold it to a young lady for a reasonable price and after the Fair she couldn't resist coming up to me and saying "do you know what you have just sold me It's a slickenstone for smoothing linen!," Of course I was quite miffed to have missed this, especially as I was dealing in linen and should have known about the different 'tools' used in its care. I looked up slickenstones in my copy of the wonderful reference book TREEN by Pinto. There I found lots of info. and read that these tools were used before (and after) irons were invented and were completely flat on the base which was used to polish and smooth the linen, made of wood, glass or metal and quite rare to find. I think this process is known as calendering and what I had found was the home-made version for the process. If you go to Ireland, you can see linen being hammered and pummeled in one of the mills, smoothing the surface and binding the tiny hairs of the fibres into each other, giving the fabric great strength and absorbency.
 Sometime later I visited Marlborough market and there I found a strange object made of dark green glass, rather like a mushroom, found by a boy in a local stream. I bought it for a few shillings as a 'glass paperweight', took it home and eventually sold it to a real collector, who told me that many of these objects had been found in the marshes of Holland when they dug the dykes and my 'stone' had great age and was a most interesting relic of a very primitive kind. The Netherlands had a great reputation for their clean water and grassy banks for drying the linen - and in the 18thC the French Royal Palaces sent their laundry there by coach for the whitest wash!
 I now have another sycamore slickenstone in my laundry tool collection which reminds me to do my homework more thoroughly next time I FIND A MYSTERY OBJECT.
 I also have a super- large posser or washing plunging tool for pushing the soapy water through the wet laundry, made in Wolverhampton, of copper, and a Victorian clothes line prop, a neat contraption of two sliding staves bound with leather, and fixed with little pegs for different heights. In the days when there were no commercial laundries, every large household had a lot of sturdy equipment for dealing with the large amounts of washing, and really large establishments had buildings set aside for the work and employed special staff.
elizabeth baerhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-73771056424058738632014-09-24T03:22:00.000+01:002014-09-26T14:32:01.735+01:00BATISTE, NUNS VEILING AND GOSAMER

An extra large fine linen sheet embroidered and decorated with fine hand-made lace

 These are all names for the finest linen and cotton fabrics., so fine they are transparent and gauzy. I have yet to see batiste sheets - I know they were woven for the grandest beds but maybe they are so delicate that they did not survive for long! In France last year I saw a fabulous sheet with a huge monogram A, a large crown and lots of exquisite floral embroidery which was a mix of silk and linen fabric - it felt wonderful to touch and had a lovely silky sheen - over 1000 Euros to buy! I saw it again at two later fairs so maybe the price was a bit too high!
 Nowadays most French housewives opt for poly-cotton and other easy care fabrics for their beds and the heavy old linen and hemp hand-woven sheets are consigned to the attics and many are simply burnt - the French have only recently opened charity shops (Emmaus depots often open on a Saturday for sales in the yards and sheds which they occupy). Emmaus was inspired by the Abbe Pierre who took over large run-down houses to house needy people, called compagnons, who were expected to contribute working skills to restore donated furniture and other goods which they then sold to the public on certain open days. Quite a good source of bargains! They sometimes have piles of old stuff but the local dealers probably get the cream!

 During the last war the farmers in France were restricted in the amount of flax and hemp they were allowed to grow, so people gathered thistles, nettles and broom to mix in and convert into woven cloths - those with broom are a lovely pale golden shade and extremely soft to touch. All these plants have long fibres in their stalks which can be mixed in with the flax and cotton. I only ever had a few and they were picked out immediately.
elizabeth baerhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-90555100473302308832014-09-20T21:49:00.000+01:002014-09-20T21:49:00.069+01:00TAIL PIECE

 Short smocks seem to be quite fashionable just now and are good for hiding extra layers for warmth underneath without showing the bulges. The French used smock shirts for arduous labour in the fields and vineyards and they were designed for ease of movement and frequent washing, so all the tension points were reinforced with gussets or made double thick, i.e. the collars, the yokes, where heavy tools carried on the shoulder wore them thin, and the cuffs which probably took the most strain. The double turn-in of these double sections also made a good neat finish for all those pieces they joined, which were gathered with the strongest linen thread and would have frayed - at the wrist, the back and sleeve top. The cows were milked in the fields and the buckets of milk had to be carried on a yoke back to the dairy, and the thin patches on the shoulders often shows signs of wear and tear. Water was also carried from wells in the same way. Country life may look idyllic in the charming Toile de Jouy country prints, with the peasants dancing and canoodling in leafy bosquets, but the reality was a hard and poverty-stricken life for most of the womenfolk who had little luxury in their lives, what with endless child-bearing, menial chores and sparse conditions.

 Early on in my travels in rural France, I met a young woman who seemed to have lovely and original folk art from the Normandy and Brittany coasts, lots of colourful painted sea chests, anchors, lobster pots and fishing tackle, ropes, also byegones from the farms. She ran a fair which I then visited and I bought the most amazing long hand-trolley, all blue and yellow with many shelves to hold baskets of shell fish, including oysters, for pushing along the streets and markets.. The cart had a banner on it advertising Paimpol, le Grand Large, which was a huge centre for high grade fish and shellfish, and I just had to wheel it away and load it on top of the Volvo, where it caused much surprise at the Customs in Calais and Dover! It made a wonderful display for f\zairs and my stand at a furniture depot, and caused much interest before it went to Ireland!

 I visited this lady at her tiny seaside house to see what else she had tucked away-and was rewarded with two of the finest traditional peasant costume shirts I have ever seen; they were shortish, in very dark indigo blue and the whole of the yoke and collars were of the finest white embroidery of massed little flowers and leaves in a closely worked pattern - the tiniest of stitches and exquisite work on the slightly polished fine cotton material. I later traced them back to the nearby Vallee d'Auge and they were extremely rare to find. How I loved them, but like all good things they were soon sold away and I have never seen their like again, despite seeing many country people dressed up in local costumes, which they now do to music and dancing on folklorique days. My new friend later opened a brocante shop in Paimpol. (Good place to stay with dozens of fabulous fish cafes and restaurants we often visited).

HEMP IN A ROLL

A LABOUR OF LOVE

elizabeth baerhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-65929840177481275322014-09-17T19:22:00.000+01:002014-09-17T21:28:37.464+01:00SHIRT TALES

This post will be very boring, all about the shirts of France, so do skip it unless you are a collector of these attractive costume items or deal in them. French rustic shirts were made in their thousands for wear by the working people of France for well over 100 years. The material was usually linen, often home grown, hemp which was also grown for making into textiles, sometimes mixed with cotton, not homegrown, from overseas., and known as metis (mix) The earliest shirts seem to have been very simple and plain, with bone(mutton) buttons at the neck opening and various different kinds of pleating down the front to allow for movement. All were made with square shaped pieces of cloth, for economy and curved seams were not known - just as with English smocks.
They were however, amply fitted with folded square gussets to give space and movement while working - the gussets in different sizes were placed under the arm, at the joint of the tails, at the wrists, and at the neck.
The main body and the arms were fairly standard, also the yokes, but the fronts had several different treatments, - flat pleats, gathers or stitched pin tucking (rare), all from the yokes. There were no waist seams but when pleated, the fronts often ended in a straight short bar of material applied just above the waist. Others had a 'plastron' or triangular bib shaped piece applied over the chest, Two or three buttons sometimes m.o.p. or ceramic and hand stitched holes completed the garment and there was usually a single button and hole at the sleeve cuff. The back was always gathered into the yoke piece and secured with very strong fine stitching. The collar was one of the main differences, possibly varying from one district or department and also from one convent, or another, where most of the sewing was done. I always found the most attractive were large, slightly floppy square collars with big points, rather like Puritan dresses, whereas the low-cut, stand-up collars were more difficult to wear for most women. And, yes, it was the modern women who bought these becoming, hand sewn garments, from the eighties onwards. They bought them as leisure wear, for cooking, gardening, safari wear, tropical wear, for music, for art, for sculpture and every kind of activity - they were everlasting and could be boiled clean in a day. I sold hundreds and their friends came back for more - they were £8 or £12 each and I could buy them then in France by the dozen, thrown out of the linen stores in the old farmhouses and vineyards, once I GOT TO KNOW THE GOOD SOURCES. They were part of every girl's marriage dowry, so there were thousands beautifully stitched!

 I have told the story of how the fashion editor of Vogue found herself trying one on which had her two initials correctly embroidered on the tail. Another good story was how a very leading socialite client of mine went on holiday to a most exclusive Mediterranean resort and simply dyed 7 shirts in 7 different colours in her washing machine and wore a different one every night which impressed her house party mightily.elizabeth baerhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-81159970277555304952014-09-13T21:47:00.000+01:002014-09-13T21:47:53.870+01:00BITTER SWEET Our Talent for Textiles Fair here at Bradford on Avon last Saturday went very well and lots of old friends going back to the first events twenty years or so ago, all came, and they all bought something, even if it was only a cup of coffee and a home-made Devonshire cake! Thank Caroline Bushell for those!
 As I have almost finished my business in the wine vaults of my own house, next door, it has made me recall those early days when you could go to France and fill a van with Brocante and textiles, just driving to Paris from Calais for a weekend and stopping on the way, wherever the chair stood outside on the pavement, with an old shed stuffed with junk behind and an old man with a hat smoking his pipe.
 Since then, things have changed a lot, the old dealers have packed up because the new by-passes steer the traffic away from the village streets and you are more likely to find big old barns near the towns with parking for lorries and vans and keen traders who want the last Franc out of you. It's the same with the wonderful roadside cafes where all the tradesmen and commercial travellers stopped for a whopping lunch of three major courses of excellent home cooked peasant fare and free bottles of local plonk free for all on the table, and stout ladies beamed across the crowded dining rooms, wiping the tables down with a flick of the torchon tea towel. They are now few and far between and many drivers go for the quick and easy supermarkets that have massive parking areas and big choice of food outlets.
 Dealing with the wily old antique dealers in rural areas (la France Profonde), I soon discovered that it was best to ask casually for a price on any likely item, and then go on to enquire about the more desirable lots, one by one, till the dealer got a bit anxious that he had failed and would make no sales to this difficult- to-please English lady! Then, having chatted in general, I would ask the leading question, 'how much for that lot over there? i.e. usually a big pile of linen and laundry in a dishevelled stage. The next round of the game was for me to hold one or two pieces up, tut-tutting at the holes, repairs and dirt, and surprise the seller by saying I would probably take the lot and would sort it out later - this disarmed the seller, completely, who was expecting me to choose the best and leave the faulty, which would be very unsaleable and so much dross, and in the excitement of selling the whole lot (men dealers hated textiles and household linens anyway) they would quote me a very give-away price, bundle it all into black refuse sacks and say good riddance to a shameful lot which destroyed the beauty of their untidy sheds. I did the same at the very big commercial fairs, trade only, where dealers would arrive with a van or pick-up with the contents from a farm or vineyard, often from dusty sheds and chicken houses and wanting to shift several hundred linen pieces going back to the last century, and despised by the young people who inherited the contents of the old farms and couldn't wait to clear " poor old Granny's peasant stuff" - they were, sadly, ashamed of the rustic look and the hand-sewn finish of shirts and sheets and preferred cheap poly-cotton and nylon from Spain and Portugal.
 The many convents and priories which were the sources for a lot of the flax and hemp, the growing, the weaving and the sewing of it all, were disbanding, with their laundries and workshops and hospitals, and I used to see whole heaps of their work piled high on the stone floors of the local market halls - sad and unwanted by the French, though eagerly sought by the English and Americans when washed, repaired and properly presented. It was quite a lot of hard work, but I have always been super-economical and a great re-cycler and it really did give me huge satisfaction when many very well-known and fashionable women
used my stock for their wardrobes and linen rooms.

Washday at Freshford

elizabeth baerhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-91446323513699463752014-09-08T17:01:00.001+01:002014-09-08T17:01:25.716+01:00SAILORS VALENTINES -SHELLING OUT When I was a child, my mother told me that the huge; flat, rosewood box in her bedroom under the spinet (both there for safekeeping from a family of curious children ), was to be mine, as it had been a wedding present to her from an elderly Professor in the nearby town of Bangor who had a connection with our family. When I was finally allowed to open this treasure box, it contained a truly wonderful collection of shells all carefully sorted into blue velvet-covered compartments, I was allowed to sort them into their different groups and I loved the pale mother of pearl linings of the big ones and the exquisite mouldings of the little ones. I wanted to add to the collection so we went to Trearddur Bay on Anglesea to pick up cowrie shells on the beach there and I was fascinated to learn that they were used as money in faraway foreign islands.
 When I started furnishing my own house, I left the big box behind to stay in the Welsh family house and tried to find my own shell treasures - they were still around in the more junky antique shops. I found a pair of decorations made of hundreds of shells to look like a bouquet of flowers under a glass dome and then hunted for the sailors' valentines which were made with a pair of octagonal, hinged, walnut -framed display boxes with wonderful, multi-coloured, mosaic designs and mottoes in the centre saying 'love mee' sic

 Sailor's Valentine from Barbados

 or 'home sweet home' and were sold in Barbados to returning sailors for their wives and sweethearts. I saw some in smart shops in Sloane Street, London, because by this time it was known that Princess Margaret collected them for her wedding present house in Barbados! So I rather gave up because they were now several hundred pounds each. However, by chance, I found a pair in Aberystwyth where the news had not spread, and I was also offered a pair at an antique fair by a visitor who wanted some cash to buy a dolls house and was happy to part with "these old shells - would anybody want them?" I did, my good luck! Since then I have added a couple of charming sea-weed pictures from the Isle of Wight and my shell corner is complete. I don't believe in mass buying and collection, as I like to make a nice arrangement and then leave a few examples for other people to acquire!

"I do like to be beside the sea-side" - two decorative vases of shell flowers up top, a sea-weed basket from the Isle of Wight and a large Sailor's Valentine with heart centre and a small hinged pair (Home Again) hung from scallop shell hooks which were originally clasps for a dress. A pair of bracket shelves I found in France already painted in a good gray colour and I found, at a junky bricabrac stall, two small pressed brass scallop shell plaques to stick on them and finish the ensemble.

elizabeth baerhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-73612492019230550062014-08-30T14:38:00.000+01:002014-09-01T20:29:00.165+01:00TALKING SHOP FITTINGS

Rack with 36 rails

Wooden rack with 6 rails

French wall rack

Double bin for bulky items

French standing rack

See the following pictures showing shop fittings. I have got to the last stages of my stock clearance and next week when my colleagues, now running T4T Fairs, hold one in the Masonic Hall, Church Street, Bradford on Avon, Sat.Sept.6th. 10 - 4pm., I am opening my old wine vaults next door to clear ALL REMAINING STOCK AT HALF PRICE so I will have some good bargains for the early birds.
 I will have a number of SHOP FITTINGS also for sale, particularly useful for people who sell textiles and costume and which are now surplus:
 Chrome heavy duty RACK with 35 stove enamelled rails with clips, for display of quilts, shawls, tickings, sheets, all fabrics etc. (this has been my prime sales aid to display my large stock and has sold many hundreds of items for me). This is a bespoke professionally made fitting, originally extremely expensive. .It is counter-ballanced so it cannot tip over with heavy weight. Perfect condition. £140 Chrome large and very strong basket type double bin wire fitting for display of cushions, blankets,
and bulky items, v.g.c. £55 .
 Lightweight white clothes rail, useful to take to fairs, takes apart with butterfly nuts, well used £10
White painted wooden wall fitting, three double rails, approx 3' wide for smaller items v.g.c. £75 Set bamboo shelves, painted aqua, folding flat, 4 shelves, light and mobile for fairs, well used £45
French brown painted hanging kitchen rack with hooks, good display for small items, bags, hats, £45
 kitchenalia, good condition another, floor standing, painted aqua, ideal for brocante stuff v.g.c. £35

small decorative set of shelves, chestnut wood, tramp work carving £75 ~

Sundry French curtain rails (over 5' wide) and ormulu bracket fittings and lots of rings and clips, all sizes
Quantity of immaculate large and small cello bags for selling and posting linen; sheets and pillow case 30 per pack £3

plastic storage trays ex textile mill

Quantity of gray plastic trays, mesh bases, stacking, ideal wool and sundries storage, £1 each

If you wish to reserve any of the above or discuss,
phone 01225 866 136 (eves). You can collect at the Fair!elizabeth baerhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-74623126370167567622014-08-26T12:08:00.000+01:002014-08-28T13:53:20.313+01:00PARTICULAR PEOPLE

 When it comes to getting work done with my stock of vintage French textiles, whether making cushions, hand-stitching fine curtains with linings and interlining, or restoring upholstery on antique chairs, I am, of course, very particular that my clients get the best of work from my band of skilled and helpful workers.

19C.French easy chairs with 'lumbar swell' support, all covered in old hemp sacking

 Between them, they can tackle almost any job to do with decorating a house and I thought it would please them, and maybe interest you, to see some of the work they have done for my own houses - always using second-hand materials, sometimes in very original ways to get the job finished properly. They are all keen, like me, on re-cycling and have put up with my scraps and remnants, making fine jobs with them. In particular I would like to showcase Barbara Dicketts and her son, Matthew Jackson, master upholsterers, who, between them, have restored and re-made countless antiques pieces for me, some to be sold and others for my own pleasure and use; three 19C.elegant French canape settees, re-seating 6 Georgian dining room chairs in red damask, completely re-making the Biedemeier sofa with two pairs of grand French silk and velvet curtains plus extravagant bobble and tapestry borders! two large pouffes, several small button-back drawing room chairs, a Howard armchair, probably over 18 small padded hemp-covered easy chairs (with the lumbar swell !), a pair of Hepplewhite side chairs, 3 bedroom ottomans,  toile de jouy double bed heads, several stools and a Heals mattress; so they are skilled in all branches of upholstery, and Barbara has worked for a museum, restoring furniture. They use traditional materials and methods and their charges are reasonable.

Toile de Jouy bed-ends
ottoman converted from school trunk

French canape and bespoke cushions

stuffed seat and case cover

buttoned chair and footrest (mini ottoman)

Biedemeier alpacca and silk velvet sofa
 with canvaswork borders and tassel fringes
 with French pouffe with bullion fringe in front

Barbara Dicketts and Matthew are looking for new business to keep going now that I am retiring - They live in Seaton, Devon and you can contact them on 01297 599 287. Email firstname.lastname@example.com.  They have good transport and work all over the West Country.

elizabeth baerhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2994787072147059904.post-13419479742475228192014-08-21T10:19:00.001+01:002014-08-21T10:19:34.120+01:00RICH AND RARE

This is a detail of one of the palampores at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, where they have a very fine collection and their book illustrating many called Chintz by Rosemary Crill their curator. This one is dated approx 1720 from the Coromandel Coast, India, and was made to be a bedcover or wall hanging. These designs have been famously copied by Braquenie (French fabric makers) and some of the details repeated and copied in our own Paisley shawls and other clothing and fabrics. Many of the flowers have petals with elaborate patterns taken from Persian and Chinese flower designs and these were adapted for sales to European countries via the Silk and Trade Routes, and sold in France, Holland and Britain where they were highly sought after and admired. Despite bans on their importation, to support home trade, they were even more highly prized for being illegal and subject to heavy fines! I have recently seen and handled three very different examples of these splendid works of art, and all have now been sold for very high prices. SEE earlier blog Palampore and another to follow, later!

elizabeth baerhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Xenoblade Chronicles arrives in the US in 'April 2012' [update]
After this morning's accidental retail reveal of Xenoblade Chronicles coming to North America, Nintendo has made the game's launch official, pinning an "April 2012" release date to the much hyped Wii RPG. Nintendo teased the reveal earlier today with a new gallery of Xenoblade artwork that mysteriously popped up on Facebook, though at the time there was no news attached to said tease.
Despite Nintendo not giving a date to the game, this morning's image indicated an April 3 launch. GameStop's website, however, reflects an April 2 date, post-official announce. We're just gonna go with "early April" for now.
So, after this, now all the Operation Rainfall folks need to do is get those other two Wii RPGs to come out in the US, and we'll be all set! We'll get right back to helping with that just as soon as we get through Skyward Sword and Xenoblade Chronicles. In, like, 120 hours, give or take.
Update: According to the official PR that Nintendo of America just sent out, the game will be sold exclusively through GameStop retail outlets and Nintendo.com's website for $49.99.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Travel Fun: Take our 2012 geography quiz
Think you know something about our wonderful world? Take our annual geo-quiz and find out. Answers elsewhere on our website.
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Did you know that San Francisco has a French Quarter? Or that Stratford-upon-Avon has vanished from the face of the earth? Or that Sydney's famed Bondi Beach has been moved inland?
That's what people using the mapping app on the new version of Apple's mobile software were being told in September.
With breathtaking ineptitude, the map fiasco deflated Apple's can't-miss reputation, cost the map manager his job and proved what we've been saying for years. Ignore geography at your peril.
Which brings us to this year's geography quiz. As always, it's not so much a serious test of knowledge as a way to highlight some fun facts we stumbled upon over the last 12 months. Above all, it's a reminder that our planet is an endlessly fascinating place and well worth getting to know better.
As always, there are no prizes for acing the test – just the quiet satisfaction of knowing your grasp of geography is far better than that of those geniuses at Apple.
1. One of the world's major rivers was named for a group of women who were said to have undergone voluntary mastectomies. Which river?
2. In 1974 a nickel would buy you a ride on the Staten Island Ferry. What does it cost now?
3. Sixty percent of the world's active geysers are located in one place. Where?
4. What U.S. city's subway system uses the "CharlieCard," and why is it called that?
5. The French call this La Manche, but the English-speaking world knows it as something else. What?
6. Ophidiophobics avoid Manitoba and flock to Newfoundland. Why?
7. Where can you ride the narrow-gauge "toy train" past tea plantations with views of Kanchenjunga, the world's third-highest mountain?
8. Where is the "Wine Dark Sea," and who originally called it that?
9. Which nation issues a banknote with Mount Everest on one side and a pair of yaks on the other?
10. Officially called "Liberty Enlightening the World," this French-built monument grew out of a plan for a lighthouse at the Mediterranean entrance to the Suez Canal. After the Egyptian sultan balked at the notion, where did it end up?
11. Where can you find the only North American walled city north of Mexico?
12. What freshly minted country joined the United Nations last year?
13. Through what capital city does the River Liffey flow?
14. True or false: Brazil is the only country in the world named after a nut.
15. What the largest country (in terms of land mass) without a peak of at least 20,000 feet?
16. If you wanted to pull a heist with the Crown Jewels, where specifically in London would you go to find them?
17. What's the largest country (in terms of land mass) entirely south of the equator?
18. In Kenya, the "Lunatic Express" train connects Nairobi to what port city?
19. The aid organization known as the Red Cross goes by a different name in Islamic countries. What is it?
20. Does any part of the continental U.S. extend south of the Tropic of Cancer?
21. Which is colder: the North Pole or the South Pole?
22. In what U.S. state could you make a breakfast out of Bacon, Coffee and Peach counties?
23. What is the only country named for a line of latitude?
24. The River Danube flows out of Germany's Black Forest and passes through or alongside 10 countries. What body of water does it empty into?
25. Which is longer: the Panama Canal or the Suez Canal? Which is older?
26. Where is "the abode of snow"?
27. What Australian state might be best described as "the land down under the Land Down Under?"
28. What's the only nation on the South American mainland that's a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, that has English as its official language and that drives on the left?
29. Orchard Field in Chicago is now much better known as what?
30. What country claims Magyar as its national language?
31. In France, can you check into a nice double en suite room at a Hotel de Ville?
32. Who gazes down upon Trafalgar Square in London?
33. What is the only continent without an active volcano?
34. What U.S. state capital was once known as La Petite Roche?
35. What are the only two nations in South America that don't border Brazil?
36. Where would you find the black, cube-shaped building known as the Kaaba?
37. What departed Gare de l'Est in Paris and arrived 80 hours later in Sirkeci Station in Istanbul?
38. They call their country Sverige. What do we call it?
39. What North American city gave Winnie the Pooh his name?
40. Does water really swirl down a sink in one direction in the northern hemisphere and the opposite way in the southern hemisphere?
41. Which is larger in terms of square mileage: Asia or the surface of the moon?
42. What city has been called "the Manchester of Japan?"
43. The Pentagon, the world's largest office building, has twice as many restrooms as a structure its size needs. Why?
44. The Italians call it "Monte Cervino." What does almost everyone else call it?
45. Egypt is synonymous with pyramids, but its neighbor to the south actually has more of them. Which country?
46. Which is farther from sea level: the summit of Mount Everest or the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean?
47. What nation's flag used to have a yarn-spinning wheel in the center but now has the Buddhist Ashoka Chakra, the wheel of law?
48. Which is father north: Cannes, on the French Riviera, or Hamilton, Ontario?
49. What nation's prime minister went for a swim in the ocean on Dec. 17, 1967 and was never seen again, an event residents of this black-humored nation sometimes refer to as "the swim that needed no towel"?
50. Most of this nation drives on the right, but two of its most densely populated parts drive on the left. Which country?
John Flinn is the former travel editor of the San Francisco Chronicle.
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|Hockey Today
|Written by Admin
|Thursday, 07 February 2008 03:03
Thursday, Feb. 8
Dallas at Minnesota (8 p.m. EST). A meeting of two of the three division leaders in the Western Conference.
-Joni Pitkanen, Oilers, scored a goal and notched his 100th career assist to help Edmonton defeat Chicago 4-1 for its second straight win.
-Matt Bradley and Viktor Kozlov, Capitals, scored 64 seconds apart early in the third period to lift Washington over Philadelphia 4-3.
NHL scoring leader Alexander Ovechkin got his league-best 46th goal to help Washington down Philadelphia 4-3 and who move into first place in the Southeast Division. Ovechkin has 12 goals and nine assists in 12 career games against the Flyers.
Buffalo got past New Jersey 3-2 in a shootout on Wednesday to win for the fifth time in six games and prevent the Devils from sweeping the season series for the first time since 1997-1998. The Devils had had won the previous three meetings between the two teams this season in shootouts.
ding the Sharks' three-game home winning streak.
Mathieu Garon stopped 40 shots and Edmonton upended Chicago 4-1 on Wednesday to hand the Blackhawks their fifth straight loss.
Rick Tocchet is rejoining the staff of Phoenix coach Wayne Gretzky after an absence of two years while he dealt with legal issues surrounding his involvement with illegal gambling. He was sentenced last August to two years' probation after pleading guilty to promoting gambling and conspiracy to promote gambling. Tocchet returns to his former job of associate head coach.
Former Flyers goaltender Ron Hextall became the 19th person inducted into the team's Hall of Fame in a ceremony that took place between the first and second periods of Philadelphia's 4-3 loss to Washington on Wednesday. Hextall, now an assistant general manager with Los Angeles, played 11 seasons in Philadelphia over two stints. He ranks first on the team's all-time list with 240 wins, and was the first goalie to ever score a goal by shooting a puck into the net.
All-Star defenseman Dion Phaneuf has signed a six-year contract extension with Calgary on Wednesday. ... Columbus recalled goaltender Steve Mason from the Ontario Hockey League's Kitchener Rangers and left wing Joakim Lindstrom from Syracuse of the AHL on Wednesday. The club also reassigned defenseman Duvie Westcott to Syracuse and signed left wing Jason Chimera to a four-year contract extension through the 2011-12 season. ... Edmonton sent forward Patrick Thoresen to Springfield of the AHL on a conditioning assignment.
``They're not all going to be pretty. I think everybody on the bench knew we needed to get through.'' - Buffalo goalie Ryan Miller, who made 24 saves in the Sabres' 3-2 shootout victory over New Jersey on Wednesday. Miller hasn't allowed more than two goals in his last six starts.


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The Equifax team is gearing up as the countdown begins to Used Car Week at Red Rock Casino, Resort & Spa in Las Vegas, Nevada November 10-14. This week-long event hosts four outstanding conferences in one: CPO: The Pre-Owned Conference – Nov. 10 & 11 SP: The SubPrime Forum – Nov. 10-12 Re3: Recovery, Repossession, [Read More…]
A Week of Innovation and Leadership in the Used-Vehicle Industry
Tips for Auto Dealers Working with First-Time Buyers
Webinar: Credit Trends and Business Intelligence for Automotive Lenders: Improve Your Competitive Position in the Market
Business intelligence is critical to staying ahead of the competition – now and into the future. Are you leveraging the latest business insights to better understand your market situation? Don't miss this opportunity to get the latest market intelligence from Moody's Analytics and learn how you can compete more effectively in today's competitive automotive environment. [Read More…]
Prescreening Prospects: Are You Really Identifying the Right Customers?
NIADA's Scott Lilja on the Auto Dealer Challenges Facing Today's Independents
Today's independent auto dealers are under pressure. Changes in financing, competition, inventory, regulatory issues and shifting buyer preferences are among the challenges that have left many members searching for answers. Jennifer Reid, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Equifax, recently caught up with Scott Lilja, Senior Vice President of Member Services at National Independent Automobile [Read More…]
Next Generation Showroom Shoppers: What You Need to Know about Millennialls
Millennial vehicle shoppers (18 to 32 years old) comprise a huge market of new car buyers. They are more informed than previous generations. They are different from any other category of buyers.. Your dealership challenge is to inform, seduce and reward this new population of shoppers with exactly want they want. Image is everything Last [Read More…]
Finally, a Sales Tool That Provides Instant 24-7 Access to Reliable Auto Financing Data
Anyone who has ever been in Sales or Finance at a dealership knows the pain of the late night vehicle buyer who, hours after close, finally takes delivery of a vehicle. These deals regularily take place after lenders are closed for the day, and require vehicle delivery tools that are available anytime, day or night. [Read More…]
Deliver Vehicles Faster and Get it Right the First Time
After nine years of a tough grind, vehicle sales and auto lending is back. But margins are under pressure, so dealers want more speed and efficiency —while staying price competitive and maintaining a good customer experience. To thrive in this market, dealers must move customers from being online shoppers, through to showrooms, and get vehicles [Read More…]
New Report Reveals 3 Fast-Growing Credit Growth Areas of 2014
Consumers are borrowing more money than they have in years, and they are making their payments on time, says a new report. Analytics show that credit growth remains strong in 2014, with bank-issued credit cards, home equity lines and auto loans proving particularly popular with borrowers. Analyzing the data generated by credit applications to study [Read More…]
Alternative Data for Subprime Auto Lending
The appetite for subprime auto lending has returned. Delinquencies are falling, and finance policies have loosened from the restrictive standards seen at the height of the recession. But to protect your loan portfolio and gain better insight into your customers, you'll need better data, smarter risk metrics and dead-on pricing. A case study A client [Read More…]


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'Walking Dead' promo turns NYC streets into scary sidewalks
Recent Headlines
'Hunger Games' tops box office, sets new record
"The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1" tallied $123 million in ticket sales to score the year's biggest U.S. opening.
in Music
PHOTOS: American Music Awards red carpet arrivals
Music's biggest stars strut their stuff on the AMA red carpet.
in Music
Boy bands top American Music Awards, ladies lead performances
Boy bands bested pop's leading women in the top award categories at the AMAs.
Today in entertainment history: Nov. 24
A look back at some of Hollywood's most memorable headlines.
in Music
New awards, big performances set for Sunday's AMAs
Taylor Swift will kick off the American Music Awards on Sunday by performing her chart-topping single "Blank Space" and will…


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Tag: LensFX
LensFX for iOS 'Hollywoods' your photos
We've seen a few apps that add Hollywood-type FX to your videos, but here's an app that does the same for your photos. LensFX (free with some in-app purchase options) will let you take a photo, or load one from your camera roll. You can then choose from more than 130 effects to add, like...
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- iOS 8.0.1 update now available (Updated -- Don't update!)
- NFL Mobile updated for 2014 Season with new Fantasy Football features, NFL Now integration


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Whatever Happened to the Reformation?
Book by Various Authors
Bruce Ware, Darryl Hart, John MacArthur, and others join the editors in calling evangelicals to recover their Reformation roots. Too many evangelicals believe methodology and results trump theology. To reach a postmodern society they too readily adopt an unbiblical view … Learn More
The Bondage of the Will
Book by Martin Luther
The Bondage of the Will is fundamental to an understanding of the primary doctrines of the Reformation. In these pages, Luther gives extensive treatment to what he saw as the heart of the gospel. Free will was no academic question … Learn More
Postmillennialism: An Eschatology of Hope
Book by Keith Mathison
In this enlightening work, Dr. Keith Mathison sets forth a wealth of biblical, historical, and theological evidence for an optimistic eschatology. Unlike end-time forecasts that see modest growth in the church before Christ's return, postmillennialism expects the Spirit-blessed Gospel to … Learn MorePaperback $18.00 $14.40 Add to Cart
Heart Aflame: Daily Readings from Psalms
Book by John Calvin
"Blessed is the man … his delight is in the law of the Lord." John Calvin described the Psalms as "an anatomy of all the parts of the soul." The description is an apt one, says Sinclair B. Ferguson in … Learn MorePaperback $15.00 $12.00 Add to Cart
The Big Book of Questions and Answers
Book by Sinclair Ferguson
The Big Book of Questions & Answers can help parents and teachers talk naturally to children about the Bible. Here they can discover the key doctrines of Christianity. Activities with each question help reinforce learning and include time for talking, … Learn MorePaperback $15.00 $12.00 Add to Cart
The Last Days According to Jesus
Book by R.C. Sproul
"This generation will by no means pass away," Jesus said in the Olivet Discourse, "till all these things are fulfilled." "These things" include "the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven." Critics like Bertrand Russell (author of "Why … Learn More
Principles of Conduct: Aspects of Biblical Ethics
Book by John Murray
Now back in print with a new foreword by J. I. Packer, this classic study clearly shows the organic unity and continuity of the biblical ethic. Murray addresses ethical questions relating to such topics as marriage, labor, capital punishment, truthfulness, … Learn MorePaperback $16.00 $12.80 Add to Cart
Praying the Saviour's Way: Let Jesus' Prayer Life Reshape Your Prayer Life
Book by Derek Thomas
Even in today's post Christian society the Lord's Prayer remains widely known. Its beauty is that it can be understood by a child but has tremendously profound lessons for those of us who investigate it more deeply. However, our tendency … Learn MorePaperback $10.00 $8.00 Add to Cart
No Place For Truth or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology?
Book by David Wells
Has something indeed happened to evangelical theology and to evangelical churches? According to David Wells, the evidence indicates that evangelical pastors have abandoned their traditional role as ministers of the Word to become therapists and "managers of the small enterprises … Learn MorePaperback $28.00 $22.40 Add to Cart
A God Entranced Vision of All Things: The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards
Book by Various Authors
This collection of ten essays, put together in honor of Jonathan Edwards' 300th birthday, celebrates the contributions of Edwards to our understanding of God, salvation, the church, the family, and other topics. Contributors include Mark Dever, Paul Helm, J.I. Packer, … Learn MorePaperback $19.00 $15.20 Add to Cart
By Faith Alone: Answering the Challenges to the Doctrine of Justification
Book by Various Authors
The Reformation swept across Europe with a God-glorifying gospel of grace. Now the doctrine of grace cherished and proclaimed by the Reformers is under renewed assault from an unexpected place-the evangelical church itself. With the help of several theologians, Gary … Learn MorePaperback $18.00 $14.40 Add to Cart
The Holy Spirit: His Gifts and Power
Book by John Owen
The fraud and manipulation, which abounds in the church under the pretence that it is the work of the Holy Spirit, make this book required reading. Things excellent in themselves and acknowledged by all Christians are often counterfeited; the more … Learn More
Lifeviews: Make a Christian Impact on Culture and Society
Book by R.C. Sproul
As a Christian, you are called to be a witness of Christ's Gospel, to be "the salt of the earth and the light of the world." How can you make that kind of impact in a society filled with darkness … Learn MorePaperback $17.00 $13.60 Add to Cart


text: Matt Mayer is truly thrilled to be a writer, director, producer, improviser and performer at the UCB Theatre in NY, where he's been studying since 2006. I mean, hair standing on end thrilled. He hails from a little town called Mahwah, NJ. It's little not in size, just in importance to the world and to him. Matt is a field producer/director, editor and writer for the comedy TV show Take Me To Your Mother, starring Andrea Rosen, on NickMom. At UCB, Matt performs on Harold Night with his team Greg. As a member of the sketch group Whale Thief, Matt co-produces, -writes, and -directs the monthly UCB show Sketch Cram wherein a brand new hour-long sketch show is made entirely in a day. Whale Thief also produced the recent collaborative project Movie Cram, which produced a feature length comedy film, from pitch to premiere, in 24 hours. Having been on various house teams at UCB since 2009, he is a former member of Harold teams Monstro, CAPTCHA, Very Good Kiss, Johnny Romance, and Sherlock & Cookies, and he's a former Writer/Director/Editor for the UCBcomedy.com BETA team The Brig. The secret's out. Matt plays the self-proclaimed Sexiest Wrestler In The UCBW, Razor Raymond. In The-Internet-Matters-Now News: Matt was the director and editor for the 2012 internet video Shit New Yorkers Say, which has nearly 4 million views. Videos featuring Matt's talents in front of or behind the camera have netted well over 10 million views. Matt directed the long-running UCB stage show Welcome To Camp, written and performed by Abbi Jacobson. Matt has been in several short films, including recent 3rd place winner of the SVA Live Action Short Film Graduate Film Festival, Blue Beat. He also did the graphics for Shannon O'Neill's one-woman show Prison Freaks: A Talent Show, directed by Will Hines. That show was very important to Matt. Okay? Please visit his website mattmattmayer.com


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Find records of Agnes Albinini
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Agnes R Albinini (1928 - 2003) was born on January 1, 1928. She was born into the Albinini family.
There are no known marriages or children on record for Agnes. Agnes died on May 23, 2003 at 75 years of age.
Agnes R Albinini's last known residence is at Canonsburg, Washington County, Pennsylvania.
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Watch These Twin Babies Communicating in Their Own Language — Daily Distraction
It's pretty much impossible to understand what a baby is actually saying, unless of course you're also a baby.
It's pretty much impossible to understand what a baby is actually saying, unless of course you're also a baby.
You would think that a fish would prefer to stay in the water.
A man in his 30's should not own super hero t-shirts, or so I've been told. If there's ever a day where being an overgrown child is accepted, today is that day.
The urge to chop something in half can be hard to resist, but your hand will probably thank you if do.
We're not sure whom to admire more here—the brave little kittens, or the incredibly patient and gentle dogs.
Modeling is tougher than it looks. Do you see the shoes these women have to walk around in?
Everyone stumbles now and again, and sometimes it happens to be near a pool and SPLASH! Good times for all.
Hedgehogs are fairly irresistible, aren't they?
I was online and got lost - as people tend to do when they're surfing the internet - and came across this video. Good luck not smiling as you watch this!
A kid tries to fire a homemade water cannon and things proceed to go hilariously wrong. Don't worry the young man is OK and hopefully a bit smarter after hitting himself in the face.
It just looks like so much fun, doesn't it?
Summer is coming, which means pool parties. Which means belly flops.


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What to put in Easter basket??
Find a Conversation
|Tue, 04-08-2003 - 12:16pm
Thanks and God bless,
|Tue, 04-08-2003 - 12:27pm
This year he's getting...a bubble tumbler, toddlers bible, book (Koala for Katie) it's a toddler adoption book, some assorted soft candy for the eggs oh...and also a Cha Cha Cha bear from Bear In The Big Blue House. I can't wait!!
Let me know what you decide for Jonah's basket. Our friends have a 4 month old and aren't doing anything special for Easter for him. I think that's kinda sad! I had looked forward to doing Easter, birthdays and Christmas for so long there is no way I would miss one! No matter how little the are.
Oh, I almost forgot last Easter my crazy parents came down from Canada and bought him a Radio Flyer wagon! They put his carseat in it and pulled him around all weekend.
Kelly (mommy to Matthew, 16mos)


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Vicente del Bosque: Sergio Ramos wrong to question Spain teammates
Spain boss Vicente del Bosque has told Sergio Ramos he was wrong to question Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas' commitment to the national side.
The Chelsea duo withdrew from the most recent Spain squad due to injury, but Real Madrid defender Ramos appeared to suggest that they could have played, telling EFE: "Above all I would have like the players to show the same commitment to the national team as they do to their club."
Ramos subsequently said he had not directed the comment at the pair, but his...


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Discussion in 'Detroit, MI' started by lavagrrrl, Jul 2, 2006.
Jon and I saw it today, and we both loved it.
What did everyone else think?
Loved it looking forward to the next two that all are already signed up to do.
I thought that is was great. It was the best movie I saw since Episode III. Maybe a little to much Lois and not enough Superman. The story fits in great after Superman II.
I know that the cut a lot of stuff to be under the 2:40 min. run time. There was the scene when Clark meets Ben Hubbard that was in the trailer. If you buy the Topps cards there are some pictures of Superman on Krypton. And if you buy the movie book they show more stuff of a young Clark on the Farm. I can't wait for the DVD.
I saw it on the 2nd at the Emagine, loved it, then went yesterday to see it at the IMAX and loved it even more. Probably will go again this weekend just to give it money to battle the giant cash mountain that sheep gave to the second damned Pirates movie. My only real concern going into the thing was casting some beach-loving bleached-blonde airhead as Lois Lane but she was surprisingly adequate. Kevin Spacey was the man, as expected, but Parker Posey as his female sidekick was definitely battling with him over stealing their scenes.
Wow, I guess I am in the minority here. I thought it was just ok. I thought the acting was very wooden.
I thought that Brandon Routh filled out the suit nicely and looked like a young Christopher Reeve but there wasn't enough dialogue or character development for Superman or Clark Kent to get a real idea of his acting ability or personality. He just seemed to be missing that twinkle in his eye.
I thought this Lois Lane was really not spirited or feisty enough. (Maybe it was just because she was hungry? She looks like she only weighs about 80 lbs.) The flying sequences/special effects were ok.
Kevin Spacey did an excellent job channeling Gene Hackman--his voice even sounded just like him. Parker Posey's character was just so bizarre...I kept thinking that Jennifer Tilly must not have been available or was too old now maybe.
The stuff with the Pomeranians was just SO distasteful...not funny...not at all...
Would have liked to see more of Clark's Mom--she seemed to have the most soul and acting ability...
Looking forward to seeing Pirates 2, which is what we set out to see, but it was sold out so we saw Superman Returns instead...
POTC2 was good, but are you kidding me - $132 million in three days? That was unexpected. Nearly $20 million more than Spiderman's record.
I loved Superman Returns thought it was a great movie. Also loved POTC 2.
Good movie, I just did not care for him looking liek he was going to go into a full out cry 3times in the movie. and at the end when Lois said " will we see you around" I was hope'n for him to say "every other weekend"
I still like Bat Man begins over this film. The Bat man was based more off the butt kicking Dark Knight comic that I loved In the mid 90's
and the Spider man 3 next May


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March usually brings the first sightings of carpenter bees in north Florida. While they do resemble the well-known bumblebee, they differ in appearance and behavior.
Carpenter bees are large and robust. The upper surface of their abdomen is bare and shiny black. Bumblebees have a hairy abdomen with at least some yellow markings.
For Oak Island residents and vacationing birders alike, the island offers a number of good sites for finding and photographing birds.
Ocean, dune, estuarine, salt marsh and maritime forest habitats host a wide variety of birds—and a mix of species that slowly but continually changes as seasons change—sometimes almost weekly.
Fall migration and winter offer the most exciting experiences; however, spring and summer offer the return of special breeding birds like painted buntings.
Daisy, an 8-month-old walker hound, peered through the bars of her cage, welcoming the touch and kindness of any human hand that reached out to her.
"She was turned in by her owner because she doesn't hunt," said Richard Cooper, director of Brunswick County Animal Services, as he walked past noisy rows of barking, homeless dogs at the shelter on Green Swamp Road.
He also told about a mother dog and her litter of 13 puppies that were recently brought to the shelter.
He was bred to fight bears, mountain lions and wolves, yet this 135-pound gentle giant is teaching children how to be safe around dogs of all shapes and sizes.
Tagged as "The Traveling Dog," Amadeus has been to 42 states, teaching children how to be safe around dogs.
On Wednesday, April 23, the Ocean Isle Beach dog will visit children at Virginia Williamson Elementary School in Bolivia.
Oak Island Art Guild exhibit, Oak Island Recreation Center, 3001 Oak Island Drive, Monday–Friday 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Artwork available for sale. Exhibit is renewed every 60 days. For more information call exhibit coordinator Miriam Pinkerton at 278-5562.
Ongoing through Aug. 3
Robert Delford Brown, "Meat, Maps and Militant Metaphysics," Cameron Art Museum, Wilmington. This is the artist's first solo museum exhibition. For more information, call 395-5999.
Ongoing through May 10
While students are out of school on spring break, don't forget to appreciate local activities such as the Museum of Coastal Carolina in Ocean Isle Beach and Ingram Planetarium in Sunset Beach.
Described as a natural history site, the museum offers educational programs for school groups, a monthly lecture series and field trips on the island in the spring, summer and fall.
A joint creative connection between Hard Rock Park and legendary guitarist Jimmy Page, "Led Zeppelin—The Ride" was conceived to give Led Zeppelin fans the ultimate amusement park experience.
"Led Zeppelin – The Ride," named by Page, will also feature the Zeppelin smash-hit "Whole Lotta Love" which was selected for the ride by Page himself. The band's hit will be pumped out on the coasters powerful 64 speakers, generating 1,200 watts of music as the coaster hurtles the screaming rider down its mile long track at speeds hitting 65 mph.
For the past two weeks, we have been examining the process of transforming your yard into a beautiful planned garden. This week, we focus on the final steps in the landscape process.
Steps in the Process
Develop a plot plan
Conduct a site analysis
Assess family needs
Locate use areas
Design, construct, and plant
Assess Family Needs
Pine pollen may be coating sidewalks and cars with yellow dust, but it is not to blame for making people sneeze.
People suffer from pollen allergies, but pine pollen doesn't contribute to it. The chemical composition of pine pollen appears to make it less allergenic than other types.
Because pine pollen is heavy, it tends to fall straight down, and does not scatter easily in the wind; therefore, it rarely reaches human noses.
Azaleas are blooming all over southeastern North Carolina right now.
During these special two to three weeks, it's easy to see why people are so enthusiastic about them. These plants have few rivals when it comes to making a colorful impact in the landscape.
But, lots of people struggle to grow azaleas well. The secret is really no secret at all. You just have to do a good job of preparing the soil and choose the right location.
Birds called waders are always lurking around the salt marsh. Some are large and some small.
They drop by to scrounge up some grub, especially when the tide is low, a time when mud flats are exposed and fish are concentrated into small pools of shallow water called pannes.
This article is about two of the little guys. The big guys like the great blue heron and great egret can wait for a later article. They are so large and photogenic they get enough attention. I am pretty sure every Brunswick County resident who owns a camera has taken a photo of them by now.
Ongoing through Aug. 3
"High School Show," Franklin Square Youth Gallery, Southport. More than 100 students will have their work on display. For more information, call 457-5450.
March 26-April 9
Annual juried student exhibition, UNCW, Wilmington. For more information, call 962-3500 or visit http://www.uncw.edu/arts online.
Elsie Jordan from Brunswick County joins Pennsylvania native potter Betsey Mitchell and Cape Cod painter Michael Caiazza as featured artists whose work will be on display from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, March 31 to May 10, at Franklin Square Gallery in downtown Southport.
This cooperative community gallery is open to the public free of charge.
Their work is under the spotlight at the ongoing members show sponsored by the Associated Artists of Southport.
When the white blooms of flowering pears make their annual appearance this time of year, it's difficult not to get excited about them. Throw in a little early-morning sunlight for backlighting and you have something to wax poetic about.
The red fall color is usually pretty reliable, too. Unfortunately, there's a down side to the saga of the Bradford pear. Like most pears, its fast growth means weak wood. Add the inherently narrow branch angles, and you have a recipe for breakage once a few years have gone by.
Last week I mentioned that former extension specialist Kim Powell wrote a wonderful guide going over the steps for landscaping which I have edited for our area in the southeast. The process takes you through the necessary steps to determine just how to succeed in transforming your yard into a beautiful, well thought out, planned garden.
Steps in the Landscape Design Process
•Develop a plot plan
•Conduct a site analysis
•Assess family needs
•Locate use areas
•Design, construct, and plant
This is the time of year we all start thinking about having the best landscape ever. In my mind, the best landscape ever is beautiful all year long with little care from the gardener. It is time to prepare the beds for new plants as well as last year's perennials so let's get a good start toward creating an easy care landscape.
The red-tailed hawk is the hawk most folks associate with the name. They are the most visible, often seen soaring overhead and perched in treetops along highways. Red-tails are year-round residents of the Lower Cape Fear; however, they are seen more often in winter when birds from the north join our resident population.
The Eisenhower Interstate Highway System was enacted in 1956 for the benefit of red-tailed hawks. Just kidding, but they do enjoy hunting on the wide easements.
Brunswick County stars are gearing up to take center stage and show off their dancing skills.
"Dancing with the Brunswick County Stars" will take center stage Aug. 1.
Like the ABC version, 22 Brunswick County locals paired with local professionals will perform a choreographed ballroom routine, and only one couple will be crowned as the dancing king and queen.
CALABASH—Back when he assisted with the rescue of a team of royal horses during World War II, Julius King Suggs was a few decades younger.
Little did the corporal in the 42nd Squadron of Gen. George S. Patton's Third Army know that someday he would be reunited with the offspring of the horses he helped save—the fancy-footed Royal Lipizzaner stallions, right smack at his daughter's stables on Hickman Road.
Holden Beach will be the place to walk your dog(s) this Saturday, March 29, as the second annual Bark at the Beach celebration and fundraiser unfolds under the Intracoastal Waterway bridge.
Registration begins at 9 a.m., followed by the walk at 10 a.m. The fee is $20 to walk one dog with a walking buddy. T-shirts also will be available for participants.
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