How pathetic it is that I've not posted anything new in so many weeks! I simply refuse to grout. It's just the way it is. One day, I'll get my grout groove back and blow through the many pieces that sit there crying out to me for completion.
Phoebe's Wine Carafe was done in August along with the Southern Garden piece below. Phoebe Fed Ex'd me a few broken Ralph Lauren dishes (her special pattern) and another china plate that had a small rim chip. I added just the Little Mae & Pets transferware cream pitcher images. It's a very special child's transferware pattern from England that dates back to the 1800s. The little girl, Mae, sits on a stoop with a dog (that looks a lot like a crazy Blue Heeler), a kitty on her lap, and a white kitty drinking cream from a bowl by her feet. It is a very sweet and special pattern.
The piece is more primitive and less patterned and ornate than I usually choose to do when I'm creating from scratch, but I really wanted to try to use only the materials that were sent to me. Toward that end, I even used all the salvageable back stamps. I literally had only three tiny shards left over when it was complete.
I added the two cat brooches, of course, and also added some gold paint flecks to the upper rim after the photos were taken. I hated the somber, burgundy paint I chose, even though it matched the dark maroon in the Lauren china and Little Mae. Adding some gold sparkly paint to the carafe's rim lightened it up nicely and complemented the gold tones in the kitty brooches and on the edges of the English floral china plate.(Thank you, Jelly in S. Korea, fellow mosaicist, for shaming me into getting off my ass and posting something! God. If only the cats could learn to grout.)
