Antique malls and Ironstone haul

     This Saturday was spent driving through the country side in York, Pennsylvania.  I love this time of year with the changes in the color of the landscape and the farm animals leisurely grazing in the pastures.  It makes me long for a farm of my own, and a simpler more self reliant kind of life. We had an opportunity come up to visit a couple of small farms, and of course we jumped on it.

     The first house we went to visit was built in 1750, it is a stone farmhouse located on 22 acres of beautiful green pastures, complete with a creek and a large red barn.  It was like stepping back in time as we toured the house, the barn, and some other out buildings.  I wish I would have snapped more pictures, but I was so in awe with everything that surrounded me, as well as, watching my 3 kids run about chasing after the barn kittens. Sounds dreamy right?

 

    This was actually a separate farm that had 3 horses and goats for the kids to pet.

     We stopped for some lunch at a local restaurant and then hit up an Antique Mall nearby.  If you are ever in the area, you should check out the Shrewsbury Antique Mall, located in Shrewsbury, PA.  This was just one vendor that left me drooling.  I should have grabbed at that moment all these ironstone pieces as I had intended, but 5 minutes later when I went back, almost all of these items were snatched up. Lesson learned.

    I love ironstone pitchers as well as coffee pots.  These pieces were relatively pricey, and I was looking more for platters and soup tureens.

I'm a sucker for almost anything Eastlake, and this piece had been restored beautifully.

My heart skipped a shopping beat when I ran across this compote.  I don't usually run into these and when I do there is a steep price tag attached.  This one wasn't exactly on the high or the low end of pricing, but there was no way I was letting it go.  I left behind the artificial Fall arrangement.  It's incredibly heavy.

   Here was my actual haul from that trip.  The compote, 2 soup tureens and 1 wheat platter.

                              I love how the sun is shining off of this.  

Here's a glimpse of the handle.

                           The smaller of the 2 soup tureens.

     I know I should invest in a quality camera instead of taking snap  shots with my iphone.

Here's the wheat platter.  It's super heavy and I got it for a steal of $20.  It has a crack and some crazing and for some people that would be a turn off but in Ironstone it just adds to the character and charm of the piece.  

Here's the pattern down below.

                               I will definitely be visiting the countryside again.