die angorakatze

Die Angorakatze / Le chat angora

Jean Honoré Fragonard & Marguerite Gérard (c.1783)

Wallraf-Richartz-Mus., Köln

still-life with pansies 1874

Still Life with Pansies (1874)

Henri Fantin-Latour

MetMuseum.org

fan-tea-towel-tastic!

Can I tell you how much my week has been improved 
by receiving this pretty parcel in the post?

...and unwrapping it to discover...

My very own bespoke artisan (these are all the 'it' words aren't they?!) vintage tea towel cushion handmade for me by Kylie of the gorgeous lucy violet vintage blog in Perth. Not only handmade, but hand chosen for someone (me! ME!) who collects South Australian themed tea towel cushions. (Yes, I realise that is something of a niche.) 

Isn't it gorgeous? 

And look at the super-dooper things you can see in 

SOUTH AUSTRALIA: 
THE FESTIVAL STATE.

Oooh, the Port Pirie Lead Smelter. 
(High on the list of places one should not allow children to live)

And the Whyalla shipyards. And pelicans. Adelaide's pelicans have had some bad press lately, sent to rehab for thieving picnickers' lunches. As a child my brother refused to give up his sandwich to a pelican and was in the process of disappearing into the pelican (both were equally stubborn) when my parents extracted him. *sad face*

Colonel Light's Vision. 
Is it just me, or has Col. Light been working out on his glutes?

The River Murray (Australia's longest river), looking unusually water-filled.

The Flinders Ranges looking uncharacteristically verdant.

The Chair Lift at Victor Harbor (actually, on Granite Island, home of fairy penguins). This one made me do a double-take, as I am absolutely in the right age group to have been on this as a child, and it no longer exists, and I have gone and asked my mother WHY we never went on it (entirely ignoring that I HATE things that move), and she said that she thought it was because she couldn't face it with four children. Parents!

The Blue Lake! It is blue for part of the year, and I saw it last February when it was very blue. Seriously, it is this colour:

And look at our local flowers: the Sturt Desert Pea and a Sturt Desert Rose (floral emblem of the Northern Territory, a state once part of South Australia), and a Large Frumed Mallee. "Frumed"? *googles* Oooh, a typo for "Fruited" - so excited, as this is my first tea towel error (er, I mean, apart from aesthetically).

Kylie also sent me a little note, saying that it was her first ever time at making a tea towel cushion and I was not to judge it too harshly. Now, now, I think she protesteth too much. As someone who would have failed Home Ec if it was possible to fail (I also baked a cake onto the bottom of a school oven and never believed that drinking the water in which veges were boiled gave you back all the nutrients. Seriously...), I wish I could sew a straight line, let alone put in a zip. A zip! It's like a magic trick and map-reading and the solution to Fermat's Last Theorem all in one! 

So, thank you thank you thank you so much, Kylie for a delightful addition to my collection, and I should probably finish by showing some of my others, so you can see how magnificently this one fits in with my bonkers decor.

This is the South Australian Women's Bowling Association Golden Jubilee. 
Look at the little bowling ladies!

The uranium treatment plant at Port Pirie (the same Port Pirie with the lead problem, above). Note "Maralinga" on the map too. Not a top tourist spot.

Large "fruited" mallee.

Sturt desert peas.

A relic of the Grand Prix which Adelaide lost to Melbourne. 
I should have edited my stomach and feet out, sorry.

All of these were made by bob window, but I suggest that if there is ever an Iron Chef-style competition for Vintage Tea Towel Cushions, then Kylie could so take him in a fight.

I love tea towels - they're about nostalgia and craziness and design and colour and loony parochialism and social history and so much more. 

  Thank you, Kylie, for making my week 
fan-tea-towel-tastic!

grey squirrel

Grey Squirrel

Quadrupeds series (N21) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes

Lithograph, American, 1890

MetMuseum.org

oleanders 1888

Oleanders (1888)

Vincent van Gogh

MetMuseum.org

squirrel and cherries

Squirrel and Cherries

Qi Baishi

(Chinese, 1864–1957)

MetMuseum.org