Greetings from Montevideo, from Alison Schwabe, Aussie quiltmaker

In a current family grapevine discussion I began wondering about the obsession an aging relative seems to have about her fine bone china gold rimmed cups and saucers. Our own mother was also rather obsessive about who would take care of her considerable stock of them. She grew up in a time when afternoon tea was served daily in Australian homes with home baked goodies and some degree of ritual. On week days this was around the kitchen table, saturday afternoon possibly outside in the garden, in each case using kitchen cups and saucers and accessories. On sundays it was served with ceremony in the lounge room - generally with close rellies in attendance, mulling over the week just passed and what they knew or presumed of the week to come. The household stock of delicate porcelain china cups, saucers, silver teaspoons and cake forks, matching milk jug and sugar bowl and other accessories, including pretty cake plates, had regular and frequent workouts. Many years back, knowing she was approaching the end of her life, she had a fixation about someone taking the tea cups and saucers. Someone did take a few, I didn't, but I did take a very old coffee set for my daughter who's marrying soon, and I'm about to hand it on to her.

Right now an elderly aunt is in some state about her cups and saucers. A couple of years ago, she moved into an assisted living hostel, and although some cups and saucers went with her (I am sure they have never been used to serve tea in her room) - it was partly to ease her from independent living, where she did indeed serve tea, regularly, with precisely followed decades-old rituals. Today's discussion by email on the family grapevine set me thinking - some time in the future will we too get obsessive and fret for loving homes for our coffee mugs? whenever? Heck, DH and I have quite a few in the cupboard I rather dislike. There are heaps of better designed, more interesting ones around; but, well you don't just pitch stuff that still works, was how we grew up, and DH bought them, so they stay and are used daily. Unfortunately they are tough and their natural attrition is very slow! Back to the obsession with cups and saucers - where does this obsession come from - is it just a function of age? Or does it have to do with having lived all your adult life in the one place, as Mum and Aunt did? We have lived in many places, with and without our household gear, the houshold stuff has had spells in storage, and in effect is in storage again, in Australia; and we are living surrounded by other cups and saucers here in Uruguay. I don't feel any approaching obsession yet .....

Oh, and this little antique coffee cup and saucer is Royal Worcester, Regency, from the late C19. Very fine bone china and so delicate to drink from. Until this morning I had sort of forgotten it was at the back of the cupboard....and it is so totally not my style, either. Any family takers? R? I have no idea from whose life this is a souvenir, and there was only one on sale.

Labels: cups and saucers, life, souvenirs

Recently one of my sisters sent me two offcut pieces from a length of batik she'd bought in Cirebon on the northern side of Java, Indonesia, back in around 1977 during a time she was working there. Like many of us who buy fabric, at the time she didn't know what she was going to do with it, only that she loved the colours and the pattern in this totally outstanding piece.

She says not only is the pattern a very special one - but the colours are unusual, too: a little black, some dark chocolate brown, then there's green, turquoise, creamy yellow and white. The sense of depth is incredible. As with all traditional textile crafts anywhere in the world, today's patterns reflect a history of cultural influences responding to new political conditions. So for those who can read this batik, it displays C13 chinese cultural influences from the time of Kublai Kan. The Dutch colonial period and mid C20 movement to independence were factors in the rise of Yogyakarta and the concurrent decline of this region's importance in batik production. No, I don't claim to be able to read it, I am just passing on what my sister told me about this piece, but I have put Cirebon on my list of places I need to visit.

A few months ago, looking for something to cover a panel or screen in her home, she found this forgotten piece in her box. I haven't seen the screen yet, but I also wonder what else is in that box ...

Partly for scale but also to add to the perspective of this beautiful, elegant fabric, I snapped it with a pair of enormous sunglasses from the same era, 1975. I still occasionally wear these, they have always been favs, and they do make some kind of statement, - always did. They live in a bag I whipped up from scraps of fabric I used in the 1981 to make a bedspread. The pondy/murky khaki and turquoise print is a batiked cotton twill I bought in Malaysia, around 1973.

Following the theme of a recent post on Souvenirs with Meaning (Oct 1 2007) this one also evokes a lot of memories. (coincidentally that too, was prompted by batik) My sister now has in her home a daily reminder of several years' living and working in Jakarta. This same fabric prompted memories from my own, totally different, life experiences at around the same time .... what a powerful souvenir a piece of fabric can be.

Labels: batik, Indonesian, souvenirs