Victorian Morning

I was working at the dining table this morning, and suddenly realized just how Victorian my workspace looked. Funny! I had to take some photos to demonstrate:

The dining table as a whole, suitable cluttered in Victorian fashion. Note curtains in the background (they liked curtains), and richly-patterned rug, very much in keeping with their sense of style.

The Victorians enjoyed books about the domestic arts. This one is The Victorian House Book, by Robin Guild -- I'm almost done reading this, and highly recommend it -- it's the perfect resource for someone contemplating buying/renovating a Victorian, with tons of interesting information on how Victorians lived (but not in overly tedious detail), a host of gorgeous photos of different styles of Victorian (and renovated) decor, sketches and diagrams of everything from gardens to fireplaces to curtains, and tons of practical suggestions for how one might renovate in a comfortable, livable manner. I don't agree with everything Guild suggests, but almost!

A mug of tea (strong black tea, with milk and sugar, just they would have drunk it), in a mug I actually bought in England, with a delightful illustration and text from Charles Dodson's original Alice in Wonderland. (Mclaggan Smith Mugs, Ltd., copyright the British Library Board -- and now that I've visited that site, I want many more of their mugs -- dangerous!) I also love my new table runner, embroidered with cheerful orange and magenta flowers on a dark mustard yellow background. Not hand-embroidered, alas -- this one's the Bridget runner from Crate and Barrel (currently on sale, if you're tempted). Hand-embroidering something like this is far beyond my skills -- and my patience!

This is more my crafty speed -- a baby blanket I'm crocheting as a gift. I recently ran out of green yarn, luckily just past the end of a good round, so I switched to white yarn. Both of which were left over from other projects, so I feel quite frugal and thrifty about this blanket. I also love the way it's coming out. As you can see from the pattern, it's only about halfway done, if I were making a regular-sized baby blanket. But I think this one will be sized small for a preemie, so just another round or two and I'll be done. I particularly like that this looks so fancy, but is actually quite simple to make -- it's almost entirely a simple double-crochet stitch, so an easy project for beginners, as long as they know how to count! :-)

Agricola board game that Kevin and I were playing last night -- the Victorians were very fond of parlor games, as am I! Although I think they might have had a separate little table for it. Ah well.

A new rose from my garden -- Abraham Darby, one of my David Austin roses. This one is just opening, so you may want to take a look at a fully-opened one to get a better sense of what they look like. It has a lovely fruity rose scent to go with that pretty apricot color. I think it's a little bland for me in color, and probably won't make it into my garden at the new house, but we'll wait and see. I should at least let it open fully before I decide.

And a few Rainbow Knockout blooms -- they start out dark apricot and fade to pink. Nice.