Tuesday Cuppa Tea For February...Valentine's Day Is Coming...Antique Valentines

There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.

Jane Austen

Hello and welcome to the first Tuesday Cuppa Tea for February...it amazing it is here! Seems like it was just New Years Day!

As Valentine's Day is fast approaching, and I found some wonderful pink items, I decided to do a Valentine's tea this week on my tea table in the sunroom. Would you like to join me?

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.

Jane Austen

To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.

Jane Austen

I set the table with my favorite vintage hand embroidered tea cloth...a teapot on one corner, teacups on another and cream and sugar on the next...

Next, I pinned up the sparkly heart wreath I got behind the table....

The canle holders are milk glass from Antiques And Teacups, and I added some red pillar candles I still have hanging around and silk pink and red fuschia bobeches...or candle rings, if you aren't familiar with that term...

Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.

Jane Austen

I was so happy to have recently found a gorgeous teapot in the Olympian Rose pattern made by Royal Patrician, who closed in 2009, and whom I miss greatly. We stocked them in our shop...first when we had our bricks-and-mortar antiques and tea items store, and until they closed online. Wonderful things! So sad they are no longer, although a few molds have surfaced made by others.

There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.

Jane Austen

I am also using a Haviland, Limoges France demitasse size cup and saucer made in the 1900-1910 with designers GDA or Gerard, Dufraissiex and Abbot. I have had several items of this set, but somehow the cup and saucer was misplaced and has just been found...the pattern is absolutely gorgeous!

The fun things you can learn from marks! You will notice, in the mark photo below, the circle mark, which says C. Field, Limoges? This means that Charles Field, had this set made for Marshall Field's in Chicago, a landmark upscale department store...that survived until Macy's bought them in 2005.  They commissioned a lot of fine china, just like Tiffany's did in the late Victorian era.

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.

Jane Austen

Also on my tea table, is a gorgeous pink Aynsley teacup with a hand painted fruit center and heavy gold overlay from the 1950s...

Aynsley is a favorite English maker...

Aynsley opened in 1775 and was acquired by Belleek in 1997, but the pottery was closed in Longton pottery in 2014. In February of 2015, Belleek announced that someone was interested in buying it for a new pottery venture, but instead it seems to be an art pottery center, and Aynsley is no longer made in the UK. So sad...

If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.

Jane Austen

On a lighter note, on a plate from the Haviland, Limoges set, are some mini cupcakes I ut together for tea...made them with a yellow cake mix, vanilla frosting, sprinkles and some hearts I found I had in my craft box...so I am set for a few teatimes for goodies for my sweetheart and I.

A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.

Jane Austen

I am so glad to have you join me. The Jane Austen quotes are because I love her, and have collected them for quite awhile. That girl had a great way of putting things! I would have loved to have had tea with her! She is so funny! I am now sorry I didn't note which book they came from...guess I'll have to read them again!

For more information on any of the pieces shown on Antiques And Teacups, just click on the photos.

Here is the linky for your tea related posts...please remember that it is SSSLLLOOOOOOWWWW but if you are patient...it's there! And I love to read your comments, and can find you to visit! Thanks so much for joining me for tea!

No Place Like Home

 Tea Cup Tuesday 
 Bernideen’s Teatime, Cottage and Garden

An InLinkz Link-up

Blogger Changing How you follow blogs - FYI

Just thought I'd better post this...was reminded about it when I logged in yesterday by Blogger....here is the alert message they sent me for our Antiques And Teacups blog...and any other blogs you follow....

An update on Google Friend Connect

December 21, 2015

In 2011, we announced the retirement of Google Friend Connect for all non-Blogger sites. We made an exception for Blogger to give readers an easy way to follow blogs using a variety of accounts. Yet over time, we’ve seen that most people sign into Friend Connect with a Google Account. So, in an effort to streamline, in the next few weeks we’ll be making some changes that will eventually require readers to have a Google Account to sign into Friend Connect and follow blogs.

As part of this plan, starting the week of January 11, we’ll remove the ability for people with Twitter, Yahoo, Orkut or other OpenId providers to sign in to Google Friend Connect and follow blogs. At the same time, we’ll remove non-Google Account profiles so you may see a decrease in your blog follower count.

We encourage you to tell affected readers (perhaps via a blog post), that if they use a non-Google Account to follow your blog, they need to sign up for a Google Account, and re-follow your blog. With a Google Account, they’ll get blogs added to their Reading List, making it easier for them to see the latest posts and activity of the blogs they follow.

We know how important followers are to all bloggers, but we believe this change will improve the experience for both you and your readers.

Blog followers really become friends, and so, my friends, just want you to know what is going on...I wish I could change this, but...we are powerless...

sigh....

Pride And Prejudice Anniversary...Huzzah Jane Austen!

Just want ed to mention that today in 1812, 203 years ago, Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice was published...

On January 28th, 1812 to be exact.  It is my favorite of her books, I think...I also love this great tea themed Jane Austen tea book by Kim Wilson...perfect for Jane Austen and tea history fans...whoever they might be.....Lol!

I just got out the book to share a quote...and there are very many memorable ones from Jane Austen. The book has all sorts of great information about Jane and tea related quotes taken from her novels. There are also teatime recipes and little snippets of tea lore. All together a fun book.

"I am sorry to hear that there has been a rise in tea. I do not mean to pay Twining till later in the day, when we may order a fresh supply."

from a letter from Jane Austen to Cassandra, 6 March 1814

from page 30 of Tea With Jane Austen

There was also mention of this Wedgwood dinner set...image from Sotheby's...which was bought by Jane's prosperous brother Edward, adopted as heir to the Knight family and subsequently heir to a tidy inheritance...and Jane shopped for this Wedgwood teaset with her brother, which she mentions in a letter to her sister Cassandra....the pattern is a small lozenge in purple with the Knight family crest and was on loan from the Knight family and on display at the Jane Austen House Museum until December 2010, when the cash strapped family had to sell it at auction. I couldn't find the buyer or final sell price, but I hope it went to a loving home and will appear again some day.

Surprise in Victoria Magazine

Do you get excited when something you have shows up in a magazine? I do...kinda fun! When I got my Victoria magazine issue for January/February 2016...

I was surprised to recognize the silver flatware used in a photo shoot on pages 51-54 called The Allure Of Luxurious Linens, as the same as them last remnants of a set of sterling silver we have in in one of our websites, Antiques And Teacups on Etsy...cool!

We had had the entire set from an estate several years ago, but only have a few pieces left...and it is a gorgeous set of 1930s International Silver Company, USA sterling in the Prelude pattern. But how fun to see it in Victoria!

All that's left are 4 dinner knives...one is a slightly different size...4 cocktail forks and an oyster or lobster fork. But I certainly understand why the Victoria stylist chose the pattern because it is beautiful! Very fun!

Tuesday Cuppa Tea, Burns Night, Scottish Thistles

Hello and welcome to Tuesday Cuppa Tea!

 This week includes January 25th, the birthday of Scotland's most famous author and poet Robert Burns, so I have a Scottish theme for my teacup. I think I have shared this Shelley Thistle design once before, but I love it is a favorite, it comes and goes in the shop,  and it's apropos as it is a national Scottish symbol, so....

This is a Shelley, England cup and saucer in the Thistle pattern and in the Cambridge shape made between 1955 and the closure of the pottery in 1966. Thistle and tartan are such quintessential Scottish themes, and Shelley paid homage to them with this pretty teacup!

Shelley was great at giving patterns and versions a number kept in pattern books. This is pattern number 13820. If you have the pattern books you can look it up and find out if any other info was given, which I really appreciate. 

Another item with a thistle design, I also have a Glamis Thistle teapot...another love...named for Glamis Castle, the birthplace in Scotland of Queen Elizabeth II's mother, Elizabeth the Queen Mother or Queen Mum as she was called.

The teapot is a large 4-6 cups, and was made by Springfield, England, one of the recent English potteries that have sprung up since the demise or consolidation of most of the big potteries who are household names, but not made in England anymore.

For more info on the Thistle teacup or teapot at Antiques And Teacups,  just click on the photos.

The Scottish Thistle seemed so appropriate with it being Robert Burns birthday. Burns was born in Ayrshire on January 25, 1759 and lived in the cottage below....which is a popular destination which we, of course, had to visit on one of our trips to Ireland. 

There are loads of souvenirs associated with him. Below is a tea towel I got at the Burns House ago honoring Robert Burns with one of my favorite quotes at the bottom...

The poem says:

Then let us pray that come what may

As come it will for a' that...

That man to man the world o'er,

Shall brothers be for a'that.

Robert Burns is revered as one of the most famous poets of all time, and certainly the most revered Scottish poet and song writer.  He is called one of the founders of the Romantic era and also as a social reformer. His works were both lyrical, romantic and full of social and political plain spoken opinions.  There are huge Scottish clubs and societies all over the world where this is celebrated, and everyone is asked to wear Tartan. An example of an invitation:

The evening will usually start with the singing or saying of what is called the Selkirk Grace:

Some hae meat and canna eat,

And some wad eat that want it;

But we hae meat, and we can eat,

Ans sae let the Lord be thankit.

A traditional Burns supper...or party...or tea, has several essential ingredients. Basically those are "neeps and tatties" or turnips and potatoes, a "wee dram" of whiskey....which is where some of the all male celebrations get a bit rowdy, and last but not least, Scotland's national dish...haggis! Haggis is a sheep's intestines stuffed with...okay, you don't want to know. I tried it, and DIDN'T like it! 

Part of the dinner is the Address To The Haggis after it is bagpiped into the room with much ceremony and toasting. As a way to celebrate Robert Burns birthday, Burns Night is celebrated in many places where whiskey flows and haggis is eaten and generally both the poet and Scots ancestry is celebrated...I have often thought it was maybe an excuse for the whiskey, but... 

The evening is of course ended with Robert Burns famous song For Auld Lang Syne, preferably to the sound of bagpipes.  Much fun and good food is enjoyed. Sometimes even Burns teas are given, by those not overly fond of the whiskey...that would include me!

I found this great website, http://www.bagpiper-online.co.uk/music.php where you can listen to bagpipe music. How cool is that!

So Happy Birthday to Robert Burns!

Below is the list of some of the blog parties I will be part of and there is the linky for your tea related posts...please remember that it is SSSLLLOOOOOOWWWW but if you are patient...it's there! And I love to read your comments, and can find you to visit!

No Place Like Home

 Tea Cup Tuesday 
 Bernideen’s Teatime, Cottage and Garden

An InLinkz Link-up