Tillie Tinkham's Bitty Buttons and Fashionable Fascinators!

Tillie Opens Shoppe in New Location!

Tillie's friends clap their hands, pat her on the back and tell her what a good job she did fashioning the marbleized buttons! The buttons are sewn to cards and labeled:
Tillie Tinkham's Bitty Buttons
4 b. Corgyncombe Currency

The "b" on the tags stands for buttons. Tasha Tudor had the children use buttons to buy goods for their dolls and animals. The currency for the dolls at Corgyncombe is buttons, as well.



Tillie has also added a millinery department to Tillie Tinkham's Frocks & Fashions which has brought squeaks of joy from her Mouse friends, as they like to spend their time trying the hats on in front of the mirror.
Tillie Tinkham started Tillie Tinkham's Frocks and Fashions over 4 years ago.
Tillie has opened her shoppe in a new location that she will sometimes share with other businesses at Corgyncombe!


Closing in the late afternoon sun.
Tillie's friends are wearing some of the inventory home.

Tillie Tinkham's Frocks & Fashions has added Fascinators to her inventory, some imported and some she has also made for her own line of Fascinators!

Below, Tillie models some of the Fascinators.

Tillie in an imported Fascinator, to which she has added one of Phidelia Finch's feathers.


Looking in the window, a dress form can be seen.


Yesterday, whilst scurrying about the garden, Tillie came across one of the earliest flowers to appear at Corgyncombe, Cowslip, also called Lady's Keys.

Upon seeing this flower a lady from Britain exclaimed with joy "Oh, it's Lady's Keys!" In Britain Lady's Keys is a favoured flower. Fascinators are also favoured!


The Lady's Keys makes a very stylish Fascinator as it has a natural drape.
In "The Country Diary of An Edwardian Lady" by Edith Holden, she has illustrated the cowslip photographed above.
In the book, Edith Holden included the poem "The May Queen" by Tennyson:
"All the valley, mother, 'ill be fresh and green and still;
And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill.
And the rivulet in the flowery dale 'ill merrily glance and play,
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May."

In "The Country Diary of An Edwardian Lady", on May 1st, Edith Holden speaks of going to Bristol and how lovely it was. She wrote: "The Primroses are still thick on the banks, the hedges are all green, many of the Apple orchards in blossom; and the Oaks showing the first signs of golden, bronze foliage: In Somerset the meadows were yellow with cowslips"
On May 7th, Edith Holden wrote in her diary:
"I was stooping down to gather some cowslips, when a robin fled out over my hand, from under the roots of an Alder tree, growing close beside me."

In John Milton's poem "Song on May Morning" he wrote the following lines:
"The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose."

In Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse", Beatrix wrote the following lines about Mrs. Tittlemouse as she is gathering things for her meal from her storeroom:
"I smell a smell of honey; is it the cowslips outside, in the hedge?"

In Beatrix Potter's "Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes", Cecily Parsley the rabbit is illustrated making cowslip wine.

In Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Mr. Tod", old Mr. Bouncer, father-in-law of Flopsy Bunny, was supposed to be bunny sitting her little Bunns. When purposely distracted in conversation by Tommy Brock the Badger, Mr. Bouncer invited Tommy Brock in to have "a glass of my daughter Flopsy's cowslip wine". He also gave Tommy Brock a cabbage leaf cigar whilst he smoked his pipe. Whilst they were smoking and drinking, Mr. Bouncer fell asleep and Tommy Brock took advantage and stole away Flopsy's sweet baby bunnies!
When Flopsy discovered her babies were missing she slapped Mr. Bouncer whose foolishness had allowed Tommy Brock to steal Flopsy's babies. Foolishness that old Mr. Bouncer would not soon forget!

In the photograph above, Tillie has fashioned a Fascinator featuring a Johnny Jump Up from Corgyncombe Gardens.
Tillie looks forward to fashioning many more Fascinators using flowers, paper flowers, feathers, and whatever doodads strike her fancy. Quackenbush and the Dibble Dabbles are very interested in Tillie's new Millinery department.

Violet is measuring Quackenbush for a new spring vest. Violet complains to Elizabeth that she is having difficulties getting the proper measurements due to the constant movement, paddling about, and quacking. Elizabeth sternly says "Now Ducky, You must hold still for measuring or the finished garment will pinch your underwing feathers and restrict your wing movement!" Elizabeth has been looking at "Mouse Mills Catalogue for Spring" by Tasha Tudor. It is a book of fashions for dolls, bears, and ducks.
Elizabeth especially likes Mouse Mills' motto:
"Good, Better, Best, Never rest, 'Til Good be Better, And Better, Best."

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Corgyncombe Goat Kiddles Lucy and Louisa May

The Flying Lu-Lou's

Sarah and Lucy
The Corgyncombe Goat Kiddles Lucy and Louisa May are such a delight to watch as they jump and run and do side winding wheelies.

They can even fly!


Louisa May


Goat kiddles are so cute but they do require a lot of work, with milking, feeding, mucking their pen, hauling water, hoof trimming, and the gathering and the bringing in of the hay.

We oft' times fondly refer to the goat kiddles as our "goatie puppies" as they will follow along behind as a puppy would.






Diane and Sarah have enjoyed teas and elevenishes with their friend Tasha Tudor and discussed many of their common kindred interests. One can imagine it would be such fun to have a tea over by the garden of herbs whilst watching the goat kids play, with such kindred country ladies as Tasha Tudor, Beatrix Potter, Helen Allingham, Gertrude Jekyll, Louisa May Alcott, and Edith Holden, all together at the same tea.


When impatient for her bottle, Lucy can wail like The Queen of the Night in "The Magic Flute"! We think she learned from us humorously singing it in the barn in the months before she was born! We've never heard anything quite like it before from a goatie puppy!




Lucy and Louisa May are blended in motion as you can see Lucy the reddish brown goat with Louisa's white ears!











The other night as we were walking down to the barn to do the milking it was sprinkling, when all of a sudden the sun came out and a full arc rainbow appeared just as were to go into "The Ark", what we call our barn. It was the latest in the day rainbow I had ever seen. Whilst milking Corgyncombe Dairy Goat Carmella Lucille, I enjoyed the lovely sunset. When the milking and feeding were done and we came outside our barn called "The Ark", the fireflies were flickering out in the meadow and over by the garden of herbs.

Things such as these are a country woman's joy!

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Loveliness Afloat

Corgyncombe Library NotesIn the book "Wall and Water Gardens" by Gertrude Jekyll, she begins the chapter "Water-Lilies" by writing: "It would be impossible to over-estimate the value of the cultivated Nymphaeas to our water-gardens. These grand plants enable us to compose a whole series of new pictures of plant beauty of the very highest order."

The book on the chair at water's edge is "The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady" by Edith Holden. It is open to one of the July pages featuring water lilies and a dragonfly. This is a delightful nature diary from 1906 with many lovely paintings of birds and plants.

Fossils in stone collected from the stones that will be made into a stone wall at Corgyncombe Cottage.

In "The Springs of Joy" by Tasha Tudor, there is a sweet illustration of Tasha as a young girl and her corgi delighting in the water lilies. The cover illustration of Tasha Tudor's "1 is One" contains many small creatures that you would find near or in a pond amongst the cattails, such as a duck, a red-winged blackbird, a dragonfly, a spider, a turtle, and a frog sitting on a lily pad. Water lilies are in the border surrounding the water scene.

If Tasha Tudor were to think of past mistakes or unpleasantness in her life, all that was required for her to regain her cheerfulness was to turn her mind to water lilies. They are lovely indeed!

Tasha also noted that goslings could have the same cheering affect.

This afternoon no goslings could be found but this darling little duckling crossed our path. Here it is swimming at Corgyncombe. He was having the best time swimming and scooting under water and finding food from his natural habitat.

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