hand block printed textiles by galbraith & paul

We couldn't stay away. Beth & I made the trek again into Manayunk, PA for Galbraith and Paul's annual sample sale on Saturday. I swore I'd never come back to Manayunk after getting 2 parking tickets in one day last time, but I was so bummed-out that my camera didn't work then, that I was able to be persuaded. I just am so heartened to see a handmade business thriving right here in the USA and on this scale. People fly in for this sale. The fabric is highly sought-after. I'm sure they've felt the pressure to get the price down by taking production off-shore, but so far the fabrics are all made here.

It was the usual feeding frenzy with the piles of pillows and the "by the pound" scrap table seeing a lot of action. I was tempted to start a new decorating project, but I only just finished the padded headboard  using the smokebush printed linen I bought here last year.

Originally, Galbraith & Paul were known for their handmade paper lampshades. Now the lampshades are fabric. Room and Board carries the pillows & lampshades. They have also ventured into rugs and wallpaper.

 So mod- so fab!

A complicated pattern like this takes either multiple blocks and/or requires hand painting more than one color on a block. It requires skilled artisans to execute.

These are some of the "blocks".

The ink is applied with these little rollers.

Just like at the paint store!

My friend Beth's new best friend: Liz Galbraith. Mr Paul was working the register. Even Liz's little boys were helping customers.

A glimpse of future designs on the pin-up board in Liz's studio. The loveliness continues...

savoring the change of seasons at terrain

mums

We had gorgeous Indian summer weather this past weekend after the tropical storm passed! Perfect, because we had family visiting, an outdoor wedding to attend, and time to go exploring as well. The day after the wedding festivities, we took in the Brandywine Festival of the Arts, then decided to see what the Terrain at Styers garden store had on display.

Terrain is owned by the same group that owns Anthropologie. Need I say more? You know the displays are gonna be good! A few years back, they purchased the venerable Styers Nursey in Glen Mills, PA as an experiment, then transformed it into the stylish purveyor of plants, furniture, accessories & gifts that it is today. There is even a cafe featuring local organic fare. There are supposed to be more stores in the works based on this flagship.

one of the outbuildings

Some people miss the old Styers which was more of a hard core gardener's nursery with a huge selection from the common to the exotic.

sedum, etc.

The plant selection is definitely pared down now, but what I like about the place is how they make even the most common plants look good through thoughtful pairings and compelling displays.

asters and anemone

Mums, pansies, asters, and sedum never looked so good!

coleus & potato vine

A feast for the eyes!

rustic shovels

white pumpkins

 Inside the main building is where most of the accessories & gifts are found.

dried flower & herb wreaths

velvet pumpkins

a coffee table book

one-of-a-kind stool

cast iron acorn

It's all notoriously pricey, but we always manage to walk out of there with something ;)

bidding at an estate auction

Every other Tuesday, our local auction house, Bunch Auctions, has an auction. Auctions are great because it's how you pay wholesale for vintage & antique store items. Preview day is the day before, and is good  fun to examine everything closely and imagine the households they came from. My friend Anne & I went, with my little boy in tow, to rub elbows with the dealers and check out the wares. This week's email notice showed more textiles than usual, so I was pretty sure I'd find something to bid on.

I have bid on items at the auction before, but not lately. I once bought a big item at auction, a large library cabinet that I use for storing china, and the experience was an incredible adrenaline rush. I had my number card and kept holding it up, just like on TV. Finally it was down to me and one other bidder. Sweat was pouring from my armpits, I was $500 over my limit and I just kept going until the other person couldn't take it anymore. I had to have it. I was shaking for hours afterward, but I do love the cabinet.

Today I wasn't going to get emotional about it. I was going to be business-like, set a limit and stick to it. The best way to do this is by submitting an absentee bid. Not only are you not able to go over what you plan to spend, but you don't have to be there, waiting around for hours before the auctioneer gets to your lot. Minimum bid is $10, so as long as what you want is worth at least that, it's a good option. I registered at the desk, got a number, then a lady with a clipboard recorded my bids and tagged the items so the auctioneer would know I was bidding on the them when the time came. They are very organized about it. I went home, forgot about it, then got a call a day later. I won everything I bid on and didn't max out!

You can sign up to do phone bidding too, if it's a big item. They call you when your item is up and the phone lady bids for you while you're on the line. I don't see myself ever doing that, though.

There was a pile of sweet 1940's childrenswear that I was drawn to, but didn't need to own, so I took pictures. You just have to shut off that hoarder instinct and think about what you really will use.

Such a darling playsuit from the days before onesies, with a button-off skirt and matching bonnet.

Smocking. Love.

Some nice, but not terribly old hand-quilted quilts.

An old one.

A box o' linens. There were a lot of these boxes intended for selling as one lot, but the clipboard lady said I could take what I was interested in out and make a separate lot for a $10 minimum bid, which I did.

I liked this colorful set. Won it!

Won this tablecloth & napkins set as well. Nobody else bid on it, so I got it for $10. The picture doesn't do it justice. I'll show it cleaned up and unfolded at later date.

Boy, did I want this sofa. The hubs would never go for it though. Too feminine.

The little guy found plenty to be interested in too. In addition to a braille typewriter, he found this weird teapot contraption that takes a sterno canister.

Now I'm in the mood for my other favorite pastime: hitting all the local Goodwills.

vintage finds at the annex

I sneaked out of the house yesterday, kid-free, to run a boring errand and, drunk on freedom, couldn't resist making an extra stop at our local resettlement shop, The Annex Marketplace. They clean out people's homes who are downsizing or who have died and then sell the stuff out of a warehouse dangerously close to my house. It's only open Thursday, Friday, & Saturday every other week, so sometimes I forget to go.

They have all kinds of furniture and housewares, but I usually head straight upstairs to the textiles. I couldn't resist this springy sheet set. I'm liking 1970's- looking Springmaid-ish florals these days.

This doily was so pretty, I had to get it also.

A stack of heavy linen napkins caught my eye. I nabbed them with a vision of a tote bags...

This little piece charmed me as well. It could become a tiny little accent pillow. Don't like the lace though.

PS-don't tell my husband why I took so long!

galbraith & paul sample sale

This past Saturday, the 4th, was Galbraith and Paul's famous annual sample sale. Galbraith and Paul produce the most gorgeous hand block-printed fabrics in a lovely old factory building just off Main Street in Manayunk, PA. I first admired their work in the Room and Board catalog but didn't realize they were nearby.

My Friend Beth is fan enough to own one of their large drum pendant lamps in the "smokebush" pattern, so of course we were going, along with my friend Liz, who is always game for this sort of thing. The sale is held right there in their light-filled work space which was so inspirational to see with its high ceilings, tall windows, brick walls, rows of long printing tables, and all the printing plates and inks out too see. Mounds of pretty pillows were heaped tables. Lampshades, rolls of printed yardage, rugs, and scraps by the pound were all for sale at nice discounts.

This is where the story gets sad. I very conscientiously remembered to put a newly charged battery in the camera for this sure-to-be-blog-worthy event. When I took my camera out to start shooting, it was dead! I was flabbergasted! (Miraculously, it worked at home later when I tried to show my husband the problem). Beth gave me hope by producing her iphone which I proceeded to NOT take about 50 photos with. Apparently I was pressing the wrong button the whole time and got not a single shot! We didn't catch the goof until the next day at which point it was too late to remedy the situation. So, because I am an idiot, you will not be seeing any cool eye-candy shots of the studio (the above picture is from their website), just shots of what we bought. Excuse me a minute while I get a new tissue *sniff*.

Each color in these prints are inked on the block by a real human for every repeat of the pattern. This takes skill, patience and time, therefor retail prices of the fabric are over $100/yard. The sample sale price was $65/yard.

The versatile smokebush pattern. I bought a few yards in gold on linen to make a padded headboard for my guest room renovation project which I will share later.

After the feeding frenzy of a sale, we worked up an appetite and headed back to the car to repark near a restaurant. TICKET! This is what I hate about Manayaunk. The parking is impossible. There isn't enough of it and the meters are not well maintained. This one was broken and so was the next one we fed all our quarters to. The side streets have one hour parking which isn't enough if you want to sit down in a restaurant, especially Le Bus which has painfully slow service every time. Not wanting to receive another ticket, I left the restaurant in the middle of our meal to move the car. I circled the block and nabbed another spot apparently not far enough from my old spot to avoid another ticket. Basically my tickets for the day ate up the money I saved by buying fabric at the sample sale instead of retail!

So the day ended with a bad feeling for Manayunk, but a good feeling for handmade business and good design.

woodside farm creamery tour

This past Sunday (July 18th) was National Ice Cream Day, the only day of the year that Woodside Farm Creamery in Hockessin, DE opens its doors for tours of its dairy operation. Woodside supplies our favorite ice cream parlor in Wilmington, Sweet Lucy's among many others, so the kids were raring to go.

The farm has been run by the Mitchell family for over 200 years. The main house oozes old-fashioned charm. I find myself engaging in 1940's farm life fantasies involving chicken coops, baking pies, canning and sewing play clothes out of calico for a passel of barefoot children. But I digress. I'm sure it's a boatload of backbreaking work running a dairy farm with no time for baking pies or crafting.

Emma did some sketching of the animals.

The milk for the operation is supplied by 30 jersey cows. Jerseys give the creamiest milk. These little guys are the calves.

The milking process was intriguing to the children. It takes about 6 minutes to milk a cow using the milking apparatus. Each Jersey cow gives 20or 30lbs of milk a day which sounds like a lot to me, but apparently is about half of what Holsteins give.

The farm doesn't advertise itself as being organic, but it uses a number of sustainable practices. The cow manure is composted in this 5000 gallon drum and used to fertilize the orchard, alfalfa, clover, & rye grass. To keep the flies down, special tiny wasps are introduced as a form of biocontrol. The wasps attack the fly pupae and are supposedly not very noticeable to humans or livestock.

Best of all, this past year the farm installed a huge array of solar panels to run its refrigeration. There they are in the distance. CMI Solar Electric did the installation. They also do residential work. Another fantasy of mine is to cover the whole south side of our roof with solar panels. Someday...

 

The ice cream machine. Not as big as I was expecting, but it does the job apparently.

Oh the flavor choices! "Dirt" (has gummi worms in it), Bacon (?), Black Raspberry (had it- mmmmm), Birthday Cake, and the list goes on.

The most popular flavor is vanilla- by far, they say. Even with all those choices, that's what the kids want- with sprinkles of course.