Looking backthis month I realized that this little
blog of mine is now four years old!
Still a baby by many standards but at the suggestion of my son, who knew I was enjoying other designers’ blogs at the time, this little blog was born…
A quiet party ~ celebrating four years of friendship!
I think my favorite part about writing for you all is getting to share thoughts back and forth ~ our modern day
“pen pal letter writing”
if you will…
Actually, I know it is.
😉
So for this year’s fourth anniversary I thought we’d take a look
back at where we’ve been and a few of the changes
along the way…
Summer splendor in the garden at our Big House in Murrieta, California. Also an introduction to our Garden Maiden!
My very first post I shared this photograph with you
and shared a little about myself and the things
I like to do ~ a lot of sewing and gardening.
🙂
That year I bought a camera for my husband as an Easter present
and for Father’s Day coming up so he could take photographs of our son and his other pole vaulters at track meets… but soon that camera was taken back as I began taking photographs
around the house.
{He teasingly reminds me of this once in a while}
I had been taking photos with many instamatic film cameras
over the years but shifting to a digital camera was a totally
new experience
for me!
That was then ~ just after I had mostly finished the slipcovers for our sofas.
This is now ~ rather last summer’s slipcover project plus stenciling.
I had resisted buying one for quite a while but always knew in the bottom of my heart that I wanted to shoot good quality photographs like my father took when I was young and brother took
in his part-time photography business.
We hadn’t been able to afford a good camera until this particular
year and it really bothered me that I hadn’t captured my
children growing up with a camera that could really
show who they were.
I grew up with my father performing in many theatrical
Gilbert and Sullivan shows, operas and the like, and one thing
I’ve realized over the years is that photography for me is an
extension of the theater…
I get to create a performance for you with every photo
I share ~ a little of my heart as it were.
As a lifestyle blogger it is fun for me to share recipes with you from time to time though really I’m not much of a cook.
My mother loved to bake and I think I inherited that love
from her ~ so you’ll mostly get tea parties over here and a
few dinner recipes once in a blue moon.
I’ve looked at my style and I don’t think it has changed all
that much as I still love the Shabby Chic look and all whites.
Without a bigger “house” I can’t really share more furniture photographs with you until we find that next one.
We are looking and will begin the process of qualifying for a
home later this fall.
A few too many little emergencies this year have prevented us from buying this summer but it’s all good.
We are paying cash for everything these days and often
I think our resolve to pay cash is being tested.
Part of God’s plan, I’m sure.
😉
Six French style cane back chairs finally got a little “redo” with white paint to match these two. All received new seat covers.
But you know me ~ gardens are decorating the home
and roses are my loves!
A rare rainy day in the summer of 2015 in Southern California. 🙂
And the Garden Girls have been here since day one.
And too Mr. Yoda ~ here reclining in his dog bed.
So thank you for coming along on this journey here at
French Ethereal and I hope to share many more lovely stories
dreams and bits of theater with you in faded beautiful
Last fall I found the prettiest lace handkerchief with the tiniest little stitches and pretty flowers woven into it on a fluke while driving around Dallas and just happened to be passing
by a thriftshop…
Recently I used this pretty handkerchief as a napkin
in this pretty tablesetting but then I got to thinking
about it… and I wondered what kind of lace
was this?
Another of my newer thriftshop finds ~ this cotton hanky is delicately trimmed with just the tiniest little flowers all the way around it’s four edges.
Both of these handkerchiefs above were found at thriftshops ~
the lower is a man’s handkerchief from the early 1900’s
is my guess.
The Appenzeller wedding handkerchief {top} showcases
a beautiful and probably handmade bobbin lace edging ~
3″ at its widest and 4 1/2″ long at the corners.
Amazingly beautiful with a small peony or waterlily in the Appenzell embroidery technique
set just inside one corner of the cotton batiste handkerchief ~
this was certainly handmade!
Would you believe I found this one inside a large
but not great picture frame for a mere $4.00?
True story!
🙂
So here’s a little history of this type of lace for you.
A bit of an oops photo! I didn’t look at what direction I had the plate… Oh, well! Really shows the beauty of this lace. 😉
History of Appenzeller Embroidery
Appenzeller weiBstickerei is the name in German and in English
{pronounced like “apple” and weiBstickerei has a “double S” written as a capital B}
it is called “the whitework of Appenzell {Switzerland}.”
According to Tourismus Appenzell this type of whitework
“evolved from three related craft industries: tapestry,
cotton spinnery and chain stitch embroidery.”
The peak period when this embroidery technique was hand-sewn was during the 1850’s.
Machine embroidery became available during the Industrial Revolution and basically wiped out all handmade lace industry
with its cheaper costs and mass production ~
quality was sacrificed.
In an excellent paper published by the author of Studio Stitch Art ~ 20th Century Lace: The Struggle Between Machine Lace and Hand Made Lace
the author discusses that combining usage of the jacquard loom carding techniques with the lace backing created by the
bobbin net machine, infinite possibilities in lace designs
were now at the designers’ fingertips.
Skilled lacemakers were stunned at the better quality of
this new machinery but purists {Luddites} kept at their craft
and thankfully handmade lacemaking survived on a much
smaller scale still being passed down from
mother to daughter.
Lacemakers today still use these same ethereal techniques of sewing with silk, cotton or linen threads wound onto bobbins.
Pins are set out in specific patterns on a pillow and from there
the seamstress embroiders in very specific knots and twists.
This technique of creating stretchers, flowers and padded areas
created magnificent 3-D quality pictures which are almost
unheard of in today’s modern world.
I once read that a good day’s work was finishing a
1″ x 1″ square of lace in an 8 hour day…
Another of my little napkins used as a placemat… 🙂
Sharing with
Feathered Nest Friday ~ French Country Cottage
Thursday Favorite Things ~ Follow the Yellow Brick Home
Sweet Inspiration ~ The Boondock’s Blog
Wow ~ Savvy Southern Style
Thursday Favorite Things {following week, Lol!}
Keep In Touch ~ Let’s Add Sprinkles
An update:
This post was featured at
Thursday Favorite Things ~ Petite Haus
An update ~ here are a couple of books you might like that go along with this post:
enjoying the Easter egg hunt that happened for the kids there
and while the potroast bubbled and simmered away
in its crockpot set on top of the stove
{which made our little prairie home smell wonderful by the way}
Mr. Ethereal, my hubby bear, and I watched old favorite
movies.
After watching A Dog’s Purpose which if you haven’t seen it
is absolutely wonderful.
Keep tissues near as you will laugh and cry.
;)’
Then I pulled out our next latest $5.00 video bargain and one
of the best love stories out there:
You’ve Got Mail.
Now you might ask yourself what in the world does
You’ve Got Mail
Tom Hanks’ character Joe Fox and Meg Ryan’s
Kathleen Kelly
have to do with design??
In this scene Jean Stapleton’s character has invited the girls over for a farewell to the Shop Around the Corner tea luncheon. The setting with all its books, the tea table, the garden chairs and plants bringing the outside in is just beautiful, isn’t it?
Well the answer is…. Everything!
I love how the movie was staged. The furniture
the lighting and the decorations on the walls.
The brownstone row houses set in New York City.
Timeless. Classic.
Like my favorite Waverly linen pattern called
Norfolk Rose on the couch and on some of the pillows.
{This must subliminally be why I ended up buying
two yards of it last year to make my couch’s pillows!}
You get to see our home as it really is… 🙂 Loved and with a small glowing electric fireplace.
And our home when it is clean and shiny beautiful for you!
I crack up each time I watch this movie when Joe talks about
The Godfather as being the I Ching ~ the Nirvana
of everything.
And an explanation of everything according to him and it would seem every other American male out there.
Even my hubby understands the reference and it is
part of his psyche.
Weird.
😉
But really it’s the love that develops over time that I love about You’ve Got Mail ~ the relationships between the coworkers and
Kathleen and Greg Kinnear’s character and how there’s love there
between he and Kathleen.
But eventually there can only be one great love…
And the always romancing songs with notes just the right
pitch winding its melodic way in the background of the story
culminating in the actualization of a love that
will stand the test of time.
Timeless and classic
Then there is Kathleen Kelly’s bed and the scene where Joe
comes over to visit when she’s sick…
I have noticed this is also why I fell in love at High Point Market with the beds at Eloquence…
sigh!
You Do Know that I gave our old dark cherry bedframe
to our daughter as it was a queen size and we bought
a California king??
We will have to be buying a new bedframe at
some point…
And probably buying a smaller king mattress as in the
houses we are looking at here in Texas…
the Cali isn’t going to fit.
😀
And of course books and the mom and pop book shop
versus the newfangled idea of the big box store was all new
twenty years ago and feature throughout this movie
and are characters in themselves ~ along with then newbie
America On Line which we all know now
and love as just plain AOL.
Did you ever think that email would just become a
part of the fabric of our daily lives??
They are remaking memories
Whether it is intentional on the part of producers Nora and Delia Ephron or not that although many smaller bookstores would
go by the wayside the memories of loving books and stories
though changing where we would buy and read them
would remain and never die.
Even the movie itself is like a second or third remake
of a good old late 1930’s classic and this is talked about in a
10 year reunion with the Ephrons, Hanks and Ryan!
Kathleen Kelly climbs into bed while Joe Fox brings her tea over and tucks her in. Love the gilding on this bed! Although today we would probably change the stripes out for a solid linen this bed is still a classic design.
They come full circle
So they come full circle with bookshops changing to meet the needs of the times and for me there is also the scene with Kathleen Kelly’s bed…
I love that bed and it looks like some of the beds I saw at Eloquencewhile touring there this past fall. And then last year while wandering around Dillards at one of the malls in Frisco or Plano I found this bed by Cynthia Rowley.
Whether one of these companies made the bed used in this movie with it’s striped Ralph Lauren 1980’s look or another big design house made them…
I love the curving design of the headboard from You’ve Got Mail and it’s sweet antique quilt and comfy bed linens and the bed’s Gustavian-Louie posts.
Timeless, classic and still on trend and chic!
A photograph I took of books while visiting Second Impression Antique shop in South Dakota.
Remember
I do miss a favorite old bookstore that used to be in Temecula
when we first moved to Murrieta, California in the early 1990’s
and it was called The Little Professor.
I took my two kids there for storytime along one painted wall with children’s book characters brought to life there was a hole.
This hole was big enough for even adults to crawl through so that
we could all go inside and back in time to enjoy the best
stories of our childhood.
Somewhere over the rainbow
But eventually there can only be one great love…
Keep the tissue box nearby
And I won’t spoil it for you if you’ve never seen this movie.
But do go rent it or buy it online somewhere
and enjoy the beautiful set designs
the city of New York in the fall and the wonderful romantic comedy that it is.
Sharing with Wow Feathered Nest Friday Sweet Inspiration Thursday Favorite Things
Springtime is finally here to North Texas and now that the danger of hard freezes is over we can finally get outside and
do a little more gardening!
Today I’m sharing how to create a new rose by rooting
from a cutting…
Both of these roses are Ducher roses.
Last week while I was down at Magnolia Market in their garden
I saw several garden employees working and I had some
questions about a particular rose bush.
The woman I spoke with was trimming back plants saidshe believed it was called a Ducher rose ~ a creamy white rose that I realized later looked a lot like two of my old climbing rose with the monster 14′ canes ~ *Cécile Brunner and New Dawn.
The blooms are the identical size and shape and it didn’t dawn
on me until later last weekend that that’s why I was so drawn
to this new-to-me Ducher rose.
🙂
An iPhone 7 photo taken at Magnolia Market at the Silos’ gardens.
This Ducher rose is an *antique china rose which has small 2-3″ bloomson its stems ~ and since the gardner was cutting
she told me about it and gave me two clippings!
{One I shared with an employee at a resale shop in Waco.}
Toting it home in a glass Coke bottle filled with bottled water
I was excited to have something special from Chip and Joanna Gaines’ beautiful market gardens.
🙂
After enjoying the rose spray all weekend I pulled out my pruners on Monday morning and got busy clipping and saving the blooms.
From there I stripped off the rest of the leaves and little branches
hopefully creating four future rose plants.
Supplies needed
pot(s) for planting/rooting
loamy potting mix
good potting soil
pruning shears
rooting medium
How to root cuttings
Cut sections of a new green growing rose cane (or branch).
Strip all flowers, leaves and dead branchlets off and
cut to at least 5″ lengths.
Leave several bud unions on the cutting ~ these will become
the new branches and from these will create the little roots.
Recut the tip of the bottom section a little and dip or put
immediately into water.
*Rose cuttings’ ends close quickly with sap so they must be put into water quickly or
recut once taken inside to put in a vase or to use for rooting.
Prepare your soil ~ a mix of well draining loam and potting soil.
Poke holes in the soil mixture with either a pencil or your finger.
Take your cutting out of the water (or recut and wet just before)
and dip in the rooting medium.
Place gently several inches down into the holes.
Tamp the dirt mixture around the branches to root.
Holler like my husband’s grandfather used to do, “Grow, dammit, grow!”
{Okay, you don’t really have to do that, but whatever helps!}
😉
Water lightly and keep the soil moist.
How to check the for rooting
In about 3 weeks or so, pull gently on each cutting and
see if it “feels snug.” If it does then the new plant
is rooting.
Wait for new shoots and leaves to emerge before
gently transplanting to separate smaller pots.
{I put all four of mine in one large pot for now;
they are spaced equidistant apart.}
Roses release a chemical that will kill off other roses in a pot
{which is why when you plant a new rose in an old roses’
spot in the garden you have to first remove all the old soil
or it won’t do well or will just die.}
Taken with my iphone at Magnolia Market gardens.
*In a really nice article found on Wikipedia, the Cécile Brunner and Ducher roses created by Joseph Pernet-Ducher, French rosarian and hybridizer, are of the same lineage. Cécile Brünner was bred by Marie Veuve Ducher, his wife and her family’s rose growing business, and introduced by Messieur Pernet-Ducher in 1881. Although, in another Wikipedia article it states that Jean Claude Pernet bred Cécile Brünner, but it was within the family. Joseph
Pernet added his wife’s last name to his as a way of identifying “his association with the two rose growing entities.” Joseph was the most famous of the family.
Joseph was a “third generation rosarian” and his father, Jean Claude Pernet, called “Pernet pere” or “Pernet’s father,” bred some roses you may know: Baroness de Rothschild (1868) and Prince Napolean (1864) among others. His father, Claude Pernet, began the rose nursery in 1845 but there are no known roses that he bred.
As far as I can find, the Ducher rose is a china rose (an old rose originated in China and which has small rose blooms and repeat flowers) but is in a class of roses called the Pernetiana, a subclass of hybrid tea roses. Ducher may not be specifically the name of this rose but is now sold this way, thus identifying that M. Pernet-Ducher created it or that it was created in his memory (like the Souvenir de Georges Pernet, for one of two sons killed in WWI). It comes in a variety of colors. I could not find this rose’s actual name although it may be a descendant of Soleil d’Or. Another nice article is by Hedgerow Rose called Types of Roses.
I am part of the Amazon affiliate program and will earn a small commission from
anything you may purchase here; however, you won’t pay a penny more.
For my full disclosure, please see my Disclosure page above. Thank you for helping me
Now put cobwebs, cleaning and this photograph together
and you’ll get a little picture of what I’ll be doing over
this next week…
😉
Sawhorses, bookcases, the 1940’s Danish maple table I refinished and had made into a sofa table, and my favorite easy chair that is worn and shabby ~ sitting next to our 1880’s reproduction French armoire bought around the year 2000 from a woman closing her gift shop at a mall in Oceanside, California.
So, first orderof business was to call our storage landlord
and ask if it would be alright to set off some of those “bug bombs”
in our storage units and my message was returned with a yes!
“Whew!!!”
I just need to make sure my neighbors will not be there when I set them off ~ hopefully I can do that this coming Thursday evening and let the spray sit inside over the weekend.
I’ll leave my neighbors small notes next to their locks to let
them know that I sprayed so they don’t wonder about
the smell.
🙂
Happy Memories
I am thinking of selling some things while I am out there
and I’ve considered selling this antique oak dining table…
except for my birthday one year my father-in-love made
me two leaves for it.
Those leaves go with the original ones that came with the table when I found it in Auburn, California in 1993.
There it stayed at that shop as I worked to pay it off
at $100/month.
Then this old Victorian stayed with my longest known best friends whom I’ve known since our freshman year of high school
at their home in Northern California
for another year.
Finally when our son was 5 months old in January of 1995
we drove up to see our inlaws, our son and daughter’s
great-grandmother {who passed shortly thereafter}
and to visit our friends ~ that table of memories made the
trip home to Southern California to live with us
in our first and then our second homes.
Can I really part with it?
This chair basically came with our second house.
The previous owners were selling all of their furniture with
their move up the hill to an area called Greer Ranch.
This chair in all its floral beauty was so comfortable and
practically new so I made an offer and it stayed with its home.
I made a slipcover out of a matelassé bedspread that I found at AmVets Thrift Store in Escondido, California
probably eight years ago now.
The chair is beginning to lose its seat and the stuffing has
fallen apart in the back piece but I remade a new cover
for the back piece out of heavy muslin and
{shown above}
then lovingly made the welted slipcover taking care
using the original cover as my pattern.
There are the the most beautiful roses in a twining vine
along parts of the matelassé and I designed the cover
lining up the scalloped edges of the three edges of the quilt
to create the skirt bottom around the chair’s lower edge.
Can I sell this chair?
Maybe…
Now I have been looking for a large Welsh cupboard for probably 20 years or more and the ones I found in antique stores
I just could not afford.
One day however I found this sweet new Shabby Chic cupboard
and buffet at a now-defunct gift and tea shop for $300.
Once again it was another of my layaways.
It took only a month or two to pay it off.
Made around the angel picture frame, the man from Riverside
who made a number of these cupboards and sold them to the
owner of this shop
{or consigned them, I don’t remember}
probably doesn’t make them anymore.
These custom-made cupboards were hot items then
and were beloved because of the items incorporated
into their designs.
No, this cupboard really doesn’t hold much on its upper shelves and I used our table saw and cut and installed a second interior bottom shelf inside the lower doors matching the paint from one of the original doorknobs.
It was made more functional with that shelf addition and it has held hundreds of pounds of stacked china on the bottom shelf and
17 teapots and various creamers and sugars
along the upper shelf hidden behind those doors.
I have planned to sell it as it has had a good life with us
and I’m ready to find something bigger and different
but really
I am pretty attached to my furniture and as a curated group
they all go together and a part of me.
The $5.00 goose which was part of the goods sold at the model homes of which our first home was a part of ~ Vista Homes, Beezer Homes, Murrieta, California.
Chalk it up to moving over 40 times in my life with
all of my parents’ military moves then college and
our young married lives.
Well, you get the picture…
😉
Some people are more than able to sell everything they own
and move on.
Perhaps they lived in one house all of their lives and their homes
were very stable with extended family and cousins surrounding them all of their young lives and they aren’t affected
with this crazy deep need for
“home.”
Just thinking about having these pieces of furniture
near me ~ even if they are still in storage ~
I’m already excited!
And I have sold many pieces of furniture over the years
but for now most of the big pieces will stay.
I always said I’d keep and pass on the large red sectional
that is Hickory Chair and eight-way hand-tied.
It’s a down-filled sofa and is sooo comfortable to lie on
and take a nap on a lazy afternoon.
I think it has to go…
It won’t fit in whatever house we find here in
North Texas.
The mirrors will definitely be staying
A piece is already broken off the big one as I remember
my daughter was overtired and was being rough with it when she was moving it in and out of its spot between the bookcases…
Another 1920’s or 1930’s mirror was broken as it was being taken off the wall in our living room and readying it to be packed.
You know, when I started French Ethereal last summer…
It was totally on faith that I even started blogging and I hoped that it might be blessed but I especially hoped it to be a blessing to You!!!
I had spoken with my friend Lisa before ourEaster/Spring break, and she had been interested in going with me to the annual combined churches of our valley’s Cross Walk.
This year, our school break coincided with us being able to
attend the big Cross Walk!
So…
it was really with great joy that I got up early
and started the day on Good Friday with
just a quick 30 minute
communion
at
Calvary Chapel of Murrieta.
Pastor Brian Bell of Calvary Chapel of Murrieta, CA, is about to give a morning prayer before everyone heads out on the Cross Walk on Good Friday! He is the man in the red shirt on the right. 🙂
Good Friday is remembered for being the day
that Jesus took all of our sins to the cross.
When I began this blog, I wanted to always
have a little Faith to share with all of you!
It’s way out of my comfort-zone to share this with you,
but
it’s something that
I believe
very strongly about ~ getting to know Jesus
through the Word,
so I am happy to share Friday’s walk with you!!!
🙂
Lisa and Yours Truly in a little “selfie.”
The walk began next to the Temeku Theaters in Temecula, California then everyone walked along Ynez Road to Overland Overpass and crossed over Jefferson Avenue heading south to Sam Hicks Park. Volunteer policemen and retirees were stationed to help us cross the intersections safely. I don’t know how many people walked the route, but there were perhaps several thousand!
Rancho Community Church’s worship team sang for everyone at Sam Hicks Park in Temecula. They sang one of my favorite worship songs, Amazing Love by Hillsong. The man below is carrying a cross draped with a lovely purple cloth across its shoulders. The sign on the cross says INRI ~ Jesus, King of the Jews.
It was a quiet time
for some
and a loud, whooping time
for other folks!
The pastor from
Rancho Community Church
gave the final speech and prayer at the park.
All in all
a great day!
Iesus Nazarenus Rex IudaeorumINRI
INRI is an acronym meaning Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum, or “Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews.” The actual inscription on the Cross was written in three languages, Latin, Greek and Aramaic. We know from Scripture that what was actually written was “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”.Dec 6, 2012
***Please check out the New Testament books of
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John for accounts of Jesus’ actual week leading up to and including dying on the cross. It was for real that He rose again here on Easter Sunday. Over five hundred people got to see and talk with him over the next 40 days after He arose from the grave on Easter Sunday. At the cross, though, Jesus said seven different things to different people, including asking his cousin, John the Baptist, to take care of his mother for him. Jesus’ final words were, “It is finished.” This means that He finished what He came to do: be our sin offering to God for us and to be our “bridge.” We just have to believe… Blessings to you and your family and friends this lovely, holy day!!!
