casual sofa covers?

As the proud parent of two spoiled Boston Terriers who have never been taught to stay off the furniture, which happens to be light colored upholstery, I am always on the lookout for attractive, but casual throws, blankets and quilts to toss over the sofa and three chaises that we - and the dogs - love so much (wherever we like to sit and get cozy, so do they). While browsing on Etsy recently, I came across this shop that has several gorgeous handmade textiles from India, which - considering the detail on some of them - seem pretty reasonably priced.

A few appliqued bedspreads that I have my eye on (I would have to check on whether these are machine washable, to serve the intended purpose):

The shop also has several beautiful throw sized Kantha quilts, which are made out of gorgeous recycled cotton saris using an embroidery technique called "kantha"to form intricate designs. I love that many of these are reversible, and have sort of random patches here and there. These are more for decorative use than what I am searching for - Pottery Barn and West Elm, who sell vintage kantha quilts of similar size for twice as much money, advises against washing these.

Here are a just a few that caught my eye:

Quilt 1 ~ Side 1

Quilt 1 ~ Side 2

 Quilt 2 ~ Side 1

Quilt 2 ~ Side 2

Quilt 3

Quilt 4 

Quilt 4 ~ Side 1

Quilt 4 ~ Side 2

 Quilt 5

Quilt 5 ~ Side 1

 Quilt 5 ~ Side 2 

I am such a sucker for intricate, soft textiles. I just love the stitching on these, not to mention the patterns. One of these may be too tempting to resist. It would be mine, all mine - dogs forbidden to set a paw upon it. 

Just like the cherished crazy quilt that my mom made for me out of scraps of fabric with very sentimental memories - the dress my Grandmother wore to my wedding, a pair of pants I bought in Paris when I was 15, a dress my best friend bought for me at a thrift shop in Germany in high school, a pair of purple embossed corduroy bellbottoms that were too hideous for my rebellious teenage self to resist. 

I'll have to share photos soon. (Of the quilt, that is - not of me sporting the purple bellbottoms circa 1995).

creepy photo history

 

Just google "hidden mother" and you will find a ton of blog posts published recently about the amazingly weird, creepy and fascinating piece of family portraiture history that involves mothers (or photographers' assistants) covered in blankets, rugs or curtains while holding children still on their laps for the photographer. 

Later the image would be framed in such a way that the mat would crop out most of the mother, and it would appear that the child was just nestled in a blanket. But take away the mat and and you find an awesomely creepy image of a ghostly figure holding a baby. 

I discovered this via A Cup of Joe, and the photos were found via Retronaut and Flickr.

of wood and lavender

Oh, lavender - how you did right by me this year, despite my neglect. I snatched you away from your comfortable pampered existence at Menne Nursery and into my oft ill planned garden of fleeting obsession and chaos, planted you, and, for the most part, ignored you, and still you bent over backwards (almost literally) showing off for me and putting everyone else to shame. 

You rewarded me for analyzing environmental conditions and planting accordingly.  Lesson learned: nature wins. A rare educational triumph for this stubborn, novice gardener.

40 lb box from Gothic City Antiques in Buffalo. Side note: Woah - they have a website!!! Its been a while since I've googled them, apparently!

Antique Butcher block work table, Craigslist. Top refinished and stained blue by Evan. 

Wouldn't that be amazing to have 40 lbs of lavender? We have a bit of an old wooden box problem. So the more often I find ways to put them to use, even temporarily, the less we feel like hoarders. 

This small wooden box was purchased recently at Albert Meadow Antiques in Bar Harbor (mentioned here). It has wire netting on the bottom, so I am thinking of using it as a planter for something whose roots will tolerate a shallow vessel. Suggestions?

I love that you can still see all of the wear and tear from the table's former life in a workshop.  

I just cut all of my lavender back a week or so ago, before our first freeze, and now I am looking for ideas on how to use it. I am thinking lavender honey ice cream, homemade lavender honey (to replenish my supply when this runs out) and lavender sugar. Can you tell I love the taste as much as the scent?

Between "harvesting my crop of lavender before the first freeze" and making a big bubbling cauldron of apple pear butter that same evening, I felt like a parody of Martha - and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. It was old-timey, olfactory goodness at its finest.

souvenirs from Bar Harbor

Whenever we go to Bar Harbor, Maine, I always hope for one rainy morning or afternoon that I can justify spending time playing tourist, poking around in the shops downtown by myself. Non-rainy days are spent strolling with the dogs or biking through the carriage trails, hiking, ocean absorbing, and in the summer, swimming. (More on all of those less consumer driven activities in another post.)

This trip gave me several rainy days to choose from. Evan's family (our hosts) has become increasingly wary of "going into town" over the past several years, now that Bar Harbor has become a cruise ship destination. I can't say I blame them. Every time my eyes try to register their gargantuan presence in the quaint port, my first reaction is a mortified "What the hell is THAT?"

Bar Harbor's quaint, lovely little port. 

This is bad enough...

...but this is just disgusting. Can you see the pretty little sailboat in the foreground, completely dwarfed by the cruise ship?

Photos taken last summer.

So I shouldn't have been surprised at how bustling all the shops were on a dreary, cool day in October - apparently, thanks to the cruise ships, tourist season is longer these days than in the past. While tourism dollars make coastal Maine's world go round, negotiating herds of some of the slowest moving people on earth as they try to hunt down the cheapest lobstah in town (whether to eat on a roll, buy splayed across a souvenir t-shirt, or cast in rubber ... and yes, the tourists like to pronounce it as they think every Maine native would) is an exhausting exercise for "natives". If it weren't for the Hannaford grocery store, and handful of other necessary services located downtown, most natives probably wouldn't set foot downtown anytime from Memorial Day through the end of October.

For the most part, shops in downtown Bar Harbor are crammed with mostly the same stuff, crammed with people mostly looking for the same types of souvenirs. There are a few exceptions though, and In the Woods (located at 160 Main Street) may be my favorite. The first thing you notice when you walk in the shop is the awesome smell of unadulterated cut wood, and then how soothing and aesthetically pleasing the shop is as a whole. 

It is not crammed full of stuff, and shoppers have plenty of space to take everything in. It feels like you are exploring the wood shop in someone's house - a perfectly rustic and cozy house with lots of exposed brick and, of course, wood. The kind of place that you want to pad around in a pair of Acorn slipper socks, sipping hot cider or mulled wine by the fire before retiring to a cold but cozy bedroom scattered with braided rugs, with an antique iron framed bed covered in layers and layers of heavy quilts... you get the idea.

There are bins of simple carved wood trinkets and doodads -

 - and shelves of adorable children's toys. I wanted to snatch up these wooden lobster boats for my niece and all of my friends' children. But alas, the unemployment budget fairy on my shoulder whispered "Next year, Amanda, next year."

 

They also have a well curated collection of interesting imported items.

Beautiful decorated washboards from China.

Baskets from Pakistan.

Cozy Hazara socks from Pakistan.

Wooden print blocks - not sure where from.

It is the only store I visit downtown where I have to exercise serious willpower. I walked around with a very reasonably priced, locally crafted paddle style bread board for a long time before deciding that I could live without it until next summer/fall when we return.

What I could not pass up were the hand shaped and etched antique brass lassi cups from India, ranging in price from $20-24 (I had never seen them before, but my instincts told me this was a fair price - confirmed when I looked them up online and found them being sold here and here, starting at $50 a piece). They are no longer considered food safe, but I thought they would make gorgeous flower vases. I bought two of them (rationalizing that they were unlikely to be there next season), seen here at home with some cuttings from one of our hydrangea bushes.

Here are some other shops downtown worth checking out, among the dozens of run of the mill tourist shops and shops carrying goods most people can get back home (my rule for a souvenir is either that it was crafted by someone locally, or that I cannot easily get it back home):

 Island Artisans
Spruce & Gussy
Albert Meadow Antiques
Bar Harbor Brewing Company
Bar Harbor Book Shop
Window Panes
Macey's

For any readers who have been to Bar Harbor, what are some of your favorite shops?

The Stock Exchange on Hertel Avenue

Last Friday I took a stroll down Hertel on my new bike (her name is Violet). We are on the hunt for a few pieces of furniture, and want to see if we can get at least half of them vintage, antique, preowned, craigslisted, etc.

I had not visited the slew of antique and vintage furniture shops on Hertel Ave for a while. I rediscovered "The Stock Exchange" and had some fun poking around in their basement. This is not a place to be afraid of going into for fear of being given dirty looks by snooty antiques dealers, or being intimidated by high end prices. Mark, the man working in the shop, couldn't have been nicer, and the prices on most things couldn't have been more reasonable.

Ooh, la la. 

It appears that one of the owners shares my penchant for old upholstered chairs - as I descended into the basement, I was delighted to discover that it was entirely, wonderfully, packed to the brim with them (which, incidentally, is how Evan would describe our own basement, minus the "wonderfully.")

This one was a favorite, and if I could have imagined a place for it, I'd have come back with my car that day to rescue it from the basement. The seat cushion is full of lofty down.

Close up of the jacquard. 

Another one with a loose seat cushion of down. I'm crazy for this style!

The proportions on this one are so goofy, it made me smile. 

I imagine it fitting in well on the set of Pee Wee's Playhouse.

A lovely pair - I love the caning, which was in perfect condition.

This one was so cute, but the photos don't do it justice. 

A red gingham, would be so cute in a nursery.

This big guy was in GREAT shape. It was a newer sofa, acquired at an estate sale. I was staring at it longingly on the way in, and again on the way out. It was velvety, but not in that suede-y, microfiber kind of way that I'm not crazy about. It was deep and so wickedly comfortable. It was positioned awkwardly, right inside the doorway. "Sold, I assume?" I asked Mark. To my surprise, he said no. And furthermore, he said that if I was interested, the owner would probably let it go for a very, very good price - since its taking up way too much space. I don't want to put it in writing here, in the unlikely event that a) somebody reads this and b) decides to buy it and quotes me on it. Lets just say, it was really really tempting. Except that its huge, and would not fit into our current plans to replace our ugly mancave furniture by downsizing with smaller scaled furniture more appropriate for our living room. We're now thinking we're going to do two chairs (maybe one recliner, maybe a chaise, or oversized chair and an ottoman) and a small scale sofa or loveseat. 

I loved the chairs and loveseat in this window display. For the gazillianth time I found myself fantasizing about having enough rudimentary reupholstery skills to consider spending more than $100 on a piece that needs recovering. Everything - everything - about that loveseat is perfect in my book, except for the pink plaid. I love the lines, the tight back, and that the cushion is down filled. If I'd seen this 10 years ago as a single gal I might have overlooked the color, but it doesn't really do it for me these days (and I don't even have to ask if it does anything for Evan). 

This smaller scale sofa in the other window also caught my attention. The more I looked at it, the more I liked it. The price is very right, and Evan likes it too, so we may just end up snagging it this week! The wood trim is oddly painted brown, which we might consider repainting to contrast with the upholstery.

If you haven't been for a stroll up Hertel Ave recently, and you are a fellow addict of all things old, vintage, retro, antique - whatever you want to call it -  I suggest you do so, and pay a visit to the Stock Exchange. 

{update: visited the brown sofa again and determined that it was a little too small for our needs - its more of a "settee" than a love seat. The big light tan sofa is gone - someone must have snatched it up for a great price!}

The Stock Exchange
1421 Hertel Ave
Buffalo, NY 14216-2826
(716) 838-8294