We were sorting boxes of future stock today. It’s amazing how many part sets and oddments we came across… cutlery, tea & coffee sets and lots of drinking glasses.

They’re mainly transfer printed tumblers for water, fruit juice, milk etc.

They date from the 1950s to the 1970s…

….and there are some fantastic designs amongst them – atomic influence, stylised figures, geometric patterns and flower power.

We’ll have to be patient to complete sets of the same design – although we also like the idea of putting some ‘mix & match’ sets together. The various shapes, colours & patterns look great together on a shelf.

Here are a few of the sets that have passed through the shop…

…and some that are currently for sale.

We’ve been concentrating on tumblers in this post – but as we’re talking glasses, we’ll just show you this beauty!

Having had a spate of broken wine glasses of late, we were very pleased to come across a few of these fantastic, futuristic 60s glasses recently – with a lovely bubble detail in the stem. They’re very fragile, but we’ll try to be more careful in future!!

We’re taking a look at the vintage and hand-crafted scene in Manchester, concentrating on the Northern Quarter area situated in the city centre.

The area has a nice collection of shops & stalls to tempt the vintage and hand-crafted enthusiast.

Let’s start with Manchester Craft & Design Centre. It’s a wonderful old building – a Victorian former fish & poultry market.

Spread over 2 floors, it houses a number of fabulous designer/makers, each with their own workspace cum retail outlet.

There are lots of gorgeous jewellery, clothing, home furnishings and accessories on sale.

Special mention must go to Calico Angel at Holm, owned by Susan Kane & Clinton Pilkington.

Not only are their products beautiful but the display was really imaginative – it’s an inspiring space.

There’s also a lovely little coffee shop, Café Aromat, on the premises. On a recent trip we had the best homemade muffins we’ve ever tasted!

Sticking with the hand-crafted theme, we move to Manchester Fashion Market

It’s held on Saturdays at the Piccadilly end of Tib Street.

It’s a group of about 10 outdoor stalls which sell clothing, bags, accessories and homewares – many using recycled fabric and materials.

Continuing on with vintage…

…there’s a great selection of vintage and retro shops in the area.

We love Pop Boutique on Oldham Street.

It always has a few tempting things in the window.

Once inside, you’ll find retro fashion upstairs and vintage homewares downstairs – along with a bustling café.

Across the road is Den Furniture…

…which has a mixture of contemporary & period vintage furniture including reupholstered pieces given a new lease of life.

Next door is Ryan Vintage – a real rummager’s paradise – both mens’ & womens’ fashion and very popular with Manchester’s student population.

Also on Oldham Street is Oxfam Originals…

… a great selection of clothes, bags, shoes and ties… and of course, the money goes to charity!

A short walk around the corner – back on Tib Street – is Rags to Bitches…

…it stocks a discerning selection of vintage clothes & accessories.

They also run lots of fashion-related talks & events in their shop.

Then there’s Cup on Thomas Street – homemade cakes & vintage crockery – what could be better?

Close by on Church Street, is Affleck’s Palace, something of a Manchester institution.

Three floors of fashion, vintage and alternative culture.

Also in the area and worth a visit are American Graffitti, Bluerinse Vintage and Retro Rehab – and some good art & craft supply shops like Fred Auldous and Abakan Fabrics, Hobby & Home.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our little tour and get the chance to visit!

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We’re excited to announce that we’ve just added an Amazon a-store to the H is for Home website.

It’s full of books & magazines that we find inspirational, informative or both. We’ve divided them into sections such as Guides to vintage collecting, 1950s design, Pottery & ceramics and Interior & style magazines.

Link to H is for Home bookshop (UK)

Link to H is for Home bookshop (US)

Come & have a browse!

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To mark the end of one year & the start of another, here’s a collection of some of our most popular photos we posted on Flickr in 2008.

Click on the links below to see them in more detail.

Happy 2009!

1. Recent purchases, 2. Vintage enamel teapot, 3. Vintage purple 1970s twin bell Westclox alarm clock, 4. 1950s biscuit tin (detail), 5. Vintage coffee pot collection, 6. Figgjo Flint ‘Daisy’ cup & saucer, 7. Vintage storage tins, 8. Vintage ‘Dolly Days’ coffee set, 9. Vintage painted serving tray, 10. Coffee for 2, 11. Still life in orange, 12. Vintage Denby Arabesque collection, 13. Hornsea mug collection, 14. Vintage Lundtofte stainless steel & rosewood coffee set, 15. Orange Felt Elephant, 16. Home Sweet Home, 17. Vintage dominoes, 18. Vintage pottery spoon rest, 19. This week’s haul, 20. Collection of vintage Staffordshire Pottery & Kiln Craft mugs, 21. On the line, 22. Cathrineholm ‘Lotus’ salt & pepper pots, 23. Collection of ‘cosy coaster’ mug cosies, 24. Vintage Cathrineholm enamel kettle, 25. Vintage hand crocheted bedspread, 26. vintage original silk screen print, 27. This weekend’s haul, 28. vintage pottery plate, 29. Glass Menagerie, 30. hand knitted ‘cosy coaster’, 31. Recent finds, 32. Vintage kitchen utensils, 33. Our vintage garden lounger, 34. Vintage Denby Pottery ‘Trees’ lidded soup bowl, 35. Collection of West German vases, 36. Picked up this week

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It’s been a bit quiet on the H is for Home blog front recently. We’ve been keeping very busy with a new little venture.

We were offered a space in our local antiques centre, which we’ve already mentioned in our Todmorden blog, and thought it would be nice to have a physical presence in our home town.

It’s a large cabinet in Picture House Antiques which we’ve given the H is for Home treatment.

We’ve painted its backboard a lovely, vibrant green…

…mounted some glossy photos and press cuttings…

…and have begun to fill it with a mixture of antiques, vintage and retro pieces… a taste of things that can be found on the website.

It’s taken a bit longer than anticipated to get to this stage as the whole project started with a bit of a disaster!

We’d arranged about 25 gorgeous glass vases on the top shelf… you know what’s coming next… yes, the shelf collapsed, and the vases came crashing down smashing themselves and other items beneath. There’s no photographic evidence – in the turmoil, taking photos didn’t cross our minds.

It took a few hours before we could face it again… but we eventually returned and have it looking quite nice again. We’ll no doubt be adding & rearranging aplenty over the coming days!

If you’re ever in the area pop in & have a look!

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Viners is renowned for its high quality stainless steel products.

The company was founded in 1901 by Adolf Viener.

Sheffield is the home of British steel manufacturing and Viners grew into the biggest cutlery factory in the city.

Ruben Viner, one of the founder’s sons, became the firms driving force, and it really prospered in the 1960s.

This period saw our favourite range of products with wonderful shapes & textures – by designers such as Gerald Benney and Stuart Devlin. Even the packaging looked great!!

Their cutlery ranges from this era such as Mosaic, Shape and Sable are now much sought after.

Mosaic

Shape

Sable

The stainless steel was sometimes combined with woods such as rosewood and teak…

…as in this fabulous ice bucket…

…or these Polynesian teaspoons.

The company invested in a modern factory in Sheffield with subsidiaries in Ireland, France and Australia. Unfortunately, this major investment was to be the firm’s undoing. Crippling loan repayments at a time of stiff competition from cheaper, Far Eastern imports saw the family-run business close in 1982.

The brand is now owned by US-based Oneida, the world’s largest cutlery company.

There are some great vintage pieces out there – have a look at H is for Home’s current Viners pieces.

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We’re taking a look at utensils this week – those useful, kitchen tools from the humble wooden spoon to the wonderfully named kitchemajig.

No kitchen should be without a wooden spoon  – preferably a few.

They come in a wide variety of sizes, have multiple uses, they don’t scratch pots & pans… and also develop a lovely character over years of use.

We keep ours in this lovely, old wooden rack…

… another potful next to the stove…

…and still more hanging from this ancient iron well hook.

It’s useful having them close at hand wherever we happen to be working in the kitchen. There’s always the perfect spoon for a particular job.

This one has such a wonderful patina that it’s now been retired from general use and sits happily on a shelf enjoying its life of leisure… with a pair of child’s antique wooden clogs for company!

Of course kitchen tools don’t stop with the wooden spoon… there are palette knives, ladles, forks, fish slices, whisks etc, etc, etc.

Some utensils are multi-functional like the aforementioned kitchemajig…

…others have very specific uses such as the tomato slicer, butter curler and pastry blender.

Do rolling pins count as utensils?

We think they probably do – made from wood, pottery, marble, or in the case of this Pyrex example, glass.

The heyday for utensils – well our favourite era at least – was the 1950s & 60s. Names such as Skyline, Prestige & Tala.

Chrome & stainless steel tools mounted on lovely painted wooden handles available in a rainbow of colours.

They’re a great way of adding a vintage touch to an otherwise contemporary kitchen. They look good in sets of the same colour…

…or mixed & matched.

We picked up this wonderful set recently – boxed and with its original hanging rack. One small problem though, someone was obviously in desperate need of the lipped, oval spoon… and removed it.

We’re now on a quest for a 50-year-old lipped spoon, in pristine condition, in the right colours – no easy task!

We’ve got boxes full of coffee services short of one cup, storage jars waiting for matching lids and cutlery sets missing the odd knife or teaspoon. It’s all a matter of keeping your eyes open and being patient.

We’re currently relishing reading through a huge pile of 1950s/60 Ideal Home magazines, they’re full of fantastic ads for furniture, fabrics and housewares, including the odd one for kitchen utensils…

…like these for Tala and Prestige.

By coincidence, just as we were writing this post, we sold this lovely Prestige set with their classic 1950s, diamond-patterned handles.

If you manage to find one that you love, a kitchen utensil is of those wonderful items that can give you a little bit of pleasure every time you use it – have you got a favourite?

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We’re really excited today – one of our saucepans has been featured in today’s Independent. Our first bit of national press coverage!!

By the way, our’s is number 10!

And here we are on their website too…

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Essential for seasoning… they need storing, sprinkling, pinching, grinding and shaking. There are endless possibilities to enable all these things.

Starting with the traditional matching salt & pepper pots… they’re made from pottery, glass, metal, plastic and wood.

As these pots are often left on permanent display, it’s a great opportunity for showing off a bit of good design, striking pattern or flash of colour. These gorgeous Cathrineholm examples manage to combine all three…

We also like pinch pots – they’re great for salt crystals or flakes – and coarse, ground pepper.

We keep these John Clappison-designed Hornsea pinch pots in our kitchen table. They were originally intended as ashtrays, but are the perfect size & shape for this alternative use.

Larger pinch pots & salt pigs are great for keeping beside the stove for everyday cooking use.

These wooden pinch pots are actually antique cheese moulds – again they’re ideal for their new function.

A salt pig is one of the best containers to keep by the cooker as it allows for a good scoop or handful when adding to boiling water for pasta, rice, vegetables etc.

If you prefer your salt in a sealed container there are lots of options here too!

And finally grinders… these make light work of salt crystals & whole peppercorns – releasing aromas and flavours right at the point of serving.

The undoubted master of the grinder is designer Jens Quistgaard, with his numerous examples produced for Dansk Designs. There is, in fact, a book available entirely dedicated to the subject – Danish Pepper: Jens Quistgaard’s Teak Pepper Mills (Amazon USA)

As you can see from the cover, their sculptural forms and beautiful grain makes for a stunning grouping. We’ve just decided that we may have to start a collection of our own!!

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Swedish ceramic production has been dominated by 3 firms – Gustavsberg, Upsala-Ekeby and the subject of today’s blog… Rorstrand.

Pop series teapot by Inger Persson

Rorstrand is, in fact, the 2nd oldest porcelain manufacturer in Europe, having been established in 1726. However, most of its early production was based on successful ranges developed by other factories.

Koka range by Hertha Bengston

The arrival of Alf Wallander as Art Director in 1895 was very significant. The factory began producing original, distinctive and innovative ceramics of its own.

Eden range by Marianne Westman

Rorstrand has attracted some of the most talented artists & designers of the day. Names such as Edward Hald, Louise Adelberg, Carl-Harry Stalhane, Hertha Bengston, Gunnar Nylund, Marianne Westman, Inger Persson and Bertil Vallien.

Stoneware ewers by Gunner Nylund

The mid-twentieth output is our own personal favourite – with its simple stoneware designs & informal tableware ranges such as Picknick and Eden.

Picknick serving tray

Ark plates

There have been various mergers & takeovers within Swedish ceramics – the ‘big three’ firms are today part of a single conglomerate – Designer Oy.

Granada pattern milk jug

Rorstrand is still producing great ceramics – take a look at their current designers & ranges.

Of the recent output we’re fond of the Grade tableware designed by Pia Torwell in 2000 – simple, functional & beautiful.

Grade kitchen/tableware

For more information about Rorstrand & Swedish ceramics in general check out the books listed below. They’re packed full of images!

Additional images courtesy:
Fischler, George & Gould, Barrett: Scandinavian Ceramics and Glass 1940s to 1980s
Fiell, Charlotte and Peter: Scandinavian Design

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