a curious rubber dog and his friend, the soviet devil

So you've seen a little teaser of the colourful lot I hauled in the last time I went thrifting. Let me show you the most interesting pieces in a bit more detail.

 My absolute favourite (although hard to pick such a one from this particular lot) has got to be this curious looking rubber pooch. You might have guessed that he is a squeaky toy, suitable for brave babies and loopy collectors like moi... Some of you might love it and some of you might, khm.... ask why I bought the darned thing?
Seeing its kooky grimace I thought to myself that it looked awfully 50s - or if it was later, then superbly 70s soviet. Either way it had to land in my shopping basket, for it was also priced at a meager fifty cents. After a  little research back home I managed to find out that it is an Edward Mobley toy cast in the Arrow rubber & plastic factory in Germany. There's even a faint stamp on my dog which told me that it was cast in 1958. I'm happy about that but still happier about his fab orange colour!

From grimacing dogs to a bird biscuit cutter. And a heart one also. Simple but sweet. Besides, I've been thinking about starting a cookie cutter collection for a long time. These looked like ones I wouldn't mind starting with.

Next, a bit of vintage mink fur. I am very aware that fur items, even vintage ones are quite controversial but because I appreciate vintage design, and because they are practically old unwanted items, I sometimes buy real fur secondhand. (Never new, because I don't support the contemporary fur industry.)

This little piece of chocolate mink fur adorns a 1950s brooch, decorated with faux pearls and plastic beads. I am tempted to wear it with my dress-down grey t-shirt even though it probably should be worn accompanying a coat, a wool jacket or a cashmere cardi. Oh, the brooch was priced twenty cents.

 Okay, now look at this fellow... what do you think of him? I thought he looked super-weird and very nicely hand-crafted too! He is a wooden nutcracker in the shape of a Krampus-type devil. Nicely carved, wood-peg jointed, painted and varnished. He cost about an euro and had to join the furry beaded rubber dog crew in my shopping basket. I wonder what the cashier thought...

After a quick research at home, I was delighted to discover that my devil is from around the 70's and was made in soviet Bulgaria. In my research it also became obvious that he is definitely hand-crafted, because all the other examples looked recognizably similar to each other but not exactly the same.

By the way, I love how this thrifty lot has such bright, clashing colours - almost each find has some red in it! And thinking that I nearly didn't go to hunt that day because I felt the fleashop would be still in its picked-through post-Christmas state...

I came upon this great little 1960's Danish Rosti melamine ashtray too. It was a must for fifty cents. Out of the lot, my boyfriend's favourite.

Then last but not least, some sewing-related items: the wonderful trio of turquoise 60s craft books that I've photographed all the other things on, and some big spools of cotton thread in brilliant retro colours.

The books have a great cover design and are really nice inside too; I'm posting about them in detail in a separate post.

More vintage finds same time next week!

hari-kuyo: the last job for tired needles

Have you heard of this sweet Japanese tradition before?

Hari-kuyo is the Festival of Broken Needles, held on the 8th of February on which day women lay their spent needles and pins to rest at a temple in a little ceremony of gratitude.

The tired needles are given the last job of piercing into something soft like tofu or jelly, in a recognition of their hard work throughout their usable life. This way they are relieved of their duty and honoured for their faithful service.

I've been collecting some of my bent pins and blunted machine needles for a while not really caring to dispose of them... For this blogpost I've stuck them into a piece of Pihlaja, my favourite Finnish sweet which is like a turkish delight originally made of rowan berries; perfectly soft and sweetly scented for this occasion. I wonder still what to do with them - seems very undignified just to dump the whole thing in the kitchen bin... I read somewhere that they are eventually meant to be thrown into the sea. I'm undecided about it, but maybe I'll take them along on one of our spring beach combings, yet to come...

I first heard of this festival years ago in art college, when we were given a project on Japan and a classmate crafted a very interesting wall hanging based on this hari-kuyo tradition. (Elizabeth, if you are reading and have a picture of it that I can link to, let me know!)

There's another notion to this festival which appeals to me. While being used for stitching, the needles and pins take on the quiet sorrows of women who work with them, so during the ceremony the needles are relieved of any emotional burden that has been transferred to them. I like that.

I've been following the artist/crafter Susan Clarke on her halfandhalf blog for a good while now - currently she's working on a piece connected to this hari-kuyo tradition. Pay her blog a visit, and find her post on the festival here.

So even if you are not in an entirely animistic mood, but have some tiny, worse for wear sewing implements in your pincushions and needle cases, maybe it's a good time to purge your craft space of such spent supplies. And while you gather them up and remember how they got damaged, and what sort of troubles they may have stitched into cloths and craft projects, maybe find a scrap piece of soft felt to stick them into before letting them go whatever way you see fit.

liebster

Evdokia from have a ko(o)kie gave me the Liebster Award, which is a little like a cross between a bloghop and an interview.

So here we go, as a first for me, it should be fun... I'm pleased to present my lists of 11's:

Eleven random facts about me:
I am the daughter of a librarian and a fireman.
My surname - which is either Polish or Russian in origin - means 'little hedgehog'.
I can't drive - never learnt and probably never will.
When I was six years old I got bitten on the arm by a sausage dog.
As a child I wanted to be a geologist so I could collect rare minerals and rocks.
I have a green thumb and love gardening!
I wrote my diploma thesis on the wedding dress.
I am a perfectionist, a recovering one :)
Names and numbers are not my forte.
When I was eighteen I canoed down the Hungarian stretch of the Tisza river from top to bottom, in a two-week tour.
My dream 'me' is something like a fully vegan version of a cross between Björk and Mildred Pierce.

Eleven questions from Evdokia:
I am a natural born night owl, so night it is!
The song that makes me feel good is currently Cirrus from Bonobo!
I used to live in a big city, now I live in a small town.
I'm quite happy with my name, but if I changed it I'd pick something silly like....Karotta.
My favourite animal...It's a tie between a doggie and a goldfish.
I think you can fit both a square and a triangle into a circle so I'll have all three ;)
The last movie I saw was Cloud Atlas - loved it!
My favourite scent is fig.
A cup of tea or a cup of coffee?...Both!
First thing to do in the morning?...I drink a big glass of water!
First thought that comes to my head...Uhm, right now I'm wishing that weekends would be 5 days long.

Eleven blogs I'm passing the Liebster-award to:
Participation is totally optional - I'll be still friends if you prefer to ignore...
Weird Amiga
Hibiscuschica
The Sheer Stories
Mini Matriarchin
Cocalores
The Owl Club
A Living Space
Second Time Around Finds
This is Wiss
Introverted Art
KokoroTe
Sjoe's Blog


Eleven questions from me:
1. favourite era? (in design, film, clothes, etc - you pick)
2. favourite vegetable?
3. holiday in a campervan or a logcabin?
4. would you ever eat reindeer (like the finns)?
5. the hardest thing you've ever had to do?
6. shower or bath?
7. the perfect Sunday morning tune according to you?
8. your most memorable trip?
9. what do you collect?
10. your foolproof way to unwind?
11. a good book you've read recently?

If you feel like answering the questions without being on the Liebster list - or if you are on the list but don't feel like doing the whole shebang - just answer them in comments! I'm curious!

firebrickred february

February is 'firebrick red' in the Colour Me Happy series.

I show you this rose that is the most velvety shade of the fiery-est brick red, and it came together with my Finnish language Certificate - I have completed my beginners' course and now am ready to start on the advanced level. No stopping here!

a trip and a teaser

I have been out of town for a few days on a little journey that came at a short notice and I couldn't refuse going. It was very refreshing and a much needed break from the sleepy little town I live in at the moment. However, I have not prepped any posts in advance so now I am running a bit behind with the blogging schedule...no regrets though, I love travelling!

While I was waiting at the airport for the connecting flight, I tried to at least reply to the comments the yoga post received, but it proved a bit hicuppy so I'm yet to respond to most of you. I'd like to say thank you here for your kind words, I was very surprised how much you guys liked that post!

Before the trip I visited my usual thrifty stomping grounds a couple of times and been quite lucky with finds, so let me tease you with a little image below, and I will make a proper post on the individual items for the next flea Friday.

Excited?

I've also received the first Craft It Forward package from Suki, and the Liebster Award from Evdokia so there's plenty to catch up on!

Have a great weekend everyone, I will see you next week with detailed posts on all of the above!

bending backwards

yoga art by Gosia Janik via Tudo de OM

Unlike bad habits, good habits are easy to abandon. I used to do yoga daily when I was a late teen, inspired by my mum, her sporty youth and her yoga books. I learned most of the poses from the books, and practiced them in my room. Mum helped me with the harder ones, and showed me how to breathe into the stomach and extend the breath into the very top of the lungs. It took me about 2 years to do a decent headstand but I did it. Then I abandoned it as a practice, probably not seeing it as something I wanted to pursue. And also there were a lot of parties to go to suddenly...

Doing simple stretching and some form of a backward bend should be part of daily life, to balance out all that hunching, slouching and slumping we do. It'd solve a lot of my problems (ie. forever tight shoulders and sore neck) if I did just the one proper backward bend every day. So I decided I'll do yoga in my room again, like when I was a teenager.

There's a helpful site I found with full descriptions of the poses that will help refresh my yoga memory but will help beginners too - there's also a handy sequence builder.

a puzzling wooden puzzle and some special chipped china

Chipped china? Whoever wants chipped china? Very rarely though, but I do. If it ticks certain boxes.

This rectangular Arabia dish ticked a lot of boxes and came home with me. I adore 60's era illustration, and vintage Arabia is very coveted - to be honest if this little dish was without its faults I couldn't afford to buy it. In the home country of Arabia their designs and their value is widely known so it's unlikely that I might find one in perfect condition for my budget.

And for my budget, I payed top money for chipped china - four whole euros...! Glad I did, because I love looking at this Pohjanmaa design by Raija Uosikkinen from the early sixties. What do you think, would you have bought it, chipped corners and all?

When stuff I buy shows signs of use by its previous owner, I can't help but try to guess about the details of that history.

I keep wondering about this one too... how come the top corners got chipped so badly? My theory is that maybe an old pipe smoking gentleman used it as an ashtray, to knock his pipe out in...I guess we'll never know.

As to the design, Pohjanmaa is the western part of Finland where people wear pointy boots like these ones and wonderful linens and knitted sweaters in their folk attire.

In the little background scenery there are town houses and traditional old log houses. Those particular ones without any window look like the storage barns for grain they used to build everywhere in Finland. We have some around here too; I took this photo last spring.

Now, what's odd about this old wooden jigsaw puzzle here?

When I saw it in the junk shop, I noted to myself that it looked odd, then I walked on. Later I went back for it and bought it, so I could keep guessing about it at home.

The scene it depicts looked strange and unlikely to me. I thought, in what earthly circumstance or land would a giraffe and a small family of forest deer be seen together, grazing happily?

My theory was that the stag is there only for scale to show how big a giraffe is, an animal not many Europeans would have seen for real in olden times... My boyfriend thought that this could easily be in Africa as deer live there too.

After a bit of research I found that he was right as spotty fallow deer do indeed live in Southern parts of Africa. So does the majestic red deer whose antlers in this puzzle are pointing towards snowy white peaks which are much in the likeness of Mount Kilimanjaro. Who'd have thought that holes in my knowledge of geographical zoology will be filled in by an old pictorial jigsaw puzzle?

a table lamp, a stapler and a strange tray

The festivities are way behind our backs and the new beginnings have begun - with new old thrifty finds. Well some, anyway...my favourite stomping grounds still seem a little picked through. But there are treasures to show, as always.

Who likes 70's decor? I do, you might have noticed by now. I think this little table lamp with its lingering inspiration of a candlestick holder, its bakelite switch and its glowing orange glass is a cracker - boyfriend found it.

I found this yellow plastic tray a little while ago. It has no makers name, but all the more little dimple-like impressions which gives it a leather-like look and feel. (Well, on uploading the image, it appears to me a little cellulite-like... Hm, funny what photography can do to your point of view...) Still. I love the actual object. The marbles are an old find, but I pulled them out for the shot - it's nice to look at them again.

The 50s-60s Viking stapler was a Xmas present from me to boyfriend. It goes well with his retro work-play-station. It's a good sturdy thing, it works like a dream - and luckily it's lovely to look at, especially that he doesn't have a lot of stapling to do.

craft it forward 2013

So, how is everyone's first couple of weeks of the new year going?

Over here, it seems to be all about stepping outside one's comfort zone, and by that I don't just mean leaving home in the morning for the -10 outside...but more about that later.

First, let me Craft It Forward:

I will send a handmade mystery item to the first five people to comment on this post. Anyone at all can join in. If you are one of the first five, please email your full mailing address to me (you'll find my contact email in the top bar). 
If you like, after you comment you can post this on your own blog and create something for others!

I've already planned for crafting this month, yet when I saw this on Suki's blog I thought I shall have even more crafting! I also like sending and receiving nice surprises in the post, so just couldn't resist... Plus, after this challenging out-of-my-comfort-zone week, crafting will be very soothing.

So, about that. I am doing my 5-day work placement, and even though I didn't get the place I really wanted, it still feels like an invaluable experience. I'm in a cosy department store for six hours a day among beautiful home furnishings... Which would be totally dreamy, just like the buttersoft frottee towels or the kaleidoscope of Scandinavian bedlinens if it wasn't for my language-learning related growing pains. Now that keeps me on my toes all day long - and keeps those toes well outside my comfort zone.

It's a great experience throughout and I feel very privileged  but have to admit that being thrown into the deep end of retail in a busy foreign language environment, while being the foreigner can feel a tad bit overwhelming too. Well, patience, perseverance and positive thinking will see me through... with a good dose of quiet crafting to restore the balance!

white january

So here we go with the slate wiped clean again - first of Jan, the first day of the new beginnings...

A bit like a blank page to fill in with jots and scribbles of plans, hopes and resolutions.
Here are my four entries to match each little mark in the snow.

January will see me do much hard work in the crafting department. Finally those scraps and lengths in the fabric stash will become embodiments of ideas drawn out on paper.

January will see me do a 5-day work placement as part of my language course. On one hand, I'm dreading it, because my language skills are not really workplace level yet, but on the other hand I much hope I will get the placement at the place I applied to! I hope, I wish, I cross all my fingers!

January will see me getting my zen back - mentally, physically and emotionally. 2012 was spent preparing for, carrying out and then coping with a huge change. The change of scenery along with its exciting goodnesses also brought stresses, facing of fears and uncertainty. I feel it's now time to be de-stressed, detoxed and purged of negativity. I'm hoping for a re-orienting, purifying, focusing and re-balancing second half of the month.

January will see the blog carry on with its staple topics including thrifty finds and crafty musings, of course. Plus, as a new addition, I'll be taking part in the Colour Me Happy challenge each month, of which the first part is this post, simple white for January. See the other participants over here.

Have a Happy start to the New Year, everyone!

sepia stories

I have no memories of my great-grandfather, but he does look a lot like my dad in this picture.

My dad's aunt gave me this photo.  I love that she did, not just because now I can look after this piece of my family history, but because I also like it as an object. In the age of instagram and cellphone photography - however corny that may sound - I like holding images like this and look back to where it all began and what it used to be...

Photos like this are beautiful objects really, with their pretty, decorated reverse sides, all art nouveau and now foxed with age. To me the sepia colour makes these images and people appear ancient; it's the tan and brown world of old.

These other two are not family. My sister saved a couple of old photographs for me when they cleared out the garage space in their new home. She asked around and managed to find out only that the house belonged to an old cobbler who came from a long line of shoemakers.

I like them, even though their condition is less than perfect. The muse on the reverse with her out-stretched arms is still beautiful, even in her faded condition.

Then there's the cobbler family photo; funny how it is a similar feeling to gaze into these old unfamiliar faces of strangers who I've never met and my great-grandfather's who I've never met either.
There was something very odd about that wonky matted brown cardboard frame. It is of course home-made, it's makeshift and a bit clumsy but that wasn't what made it look so odd for me.
It looks almost leather-like, and I thought, a little creepy therefore... Well, it held a pleasant little surprise as I turned it around: it'd been fashioned out of a lid from a box of Christmas chocolates.

Then I noticed that little brass eyelet hit into the top of it - isn't it just like the ones you thread your shoelaces through..? And then I realized the brown paint on the front must be leather paint that cobblers use on shoes! It's not creepy after all, it's just been made by a resourceful shoemaker who was in need of a non-costly frame for a costly and precious family photo.

It warms the cockles of my heart when I find little details like that, and with a bit of luck - like my clever sister's single piece of information - the puzzle pieces fall into place and the object's history unfolds. Or at least part of it does.

The End (of old projector slides)

The End, Konec Filma or Vége - you can read it after the closing scene at the end of old slide projector tales, like the ones I've been admiring for a while now. Well in the case of these they all say Vége, which means The End in Hungarian.

With 21st of December drawing near, and with all that murmur about whether it will be the end or not, I thought it'd be only fitting to share these.

You can enjoy them for their nice old hand-drawn fonts, or their aged illuminated colours, or for the scratches and scuffs the slides collected through their working years.

All images below are borrowed from the Hungarian Virtual Slide Museum's site, and most are from the 1950's, 60's and 70's.

Disney's White Wilderness

I'm starting a series of posts called Book Love where I'm going to write about vintage books I collected, or happened to come across in some way.

First in the series is the Finnish edition of Walt Disney's White Wilderness (1961)

I rescued this book from the fate of being taken to the recycling centre, because I liked the full page  technicolour photos of snow- and icescapes and beautiful cold-climate animals.

I did my research and found out that it's a book version of the same title film made by Disney in 1958, which has become a little infamous due to the way they handled filming lemmings... you can read about it here if you want to. A little controversy won't put me off keeping hold of this book, even though I definitely don't agree with staging lemming suicides.

Besides, my improving Finnish allows me to enjoy the text too!

You can view the lemmings footage from the 1958 feature here - which is English-speaking of course.

red & whites

Some finds in pretty red & white from recent junk store visits. 

Lately, finding nice retro stuff for thrifty prices has been quite hard - I think a lot of people are shopping for Christmas second-hand so the good stuff gets picked up pretty fast.

But still managing to be the first to spot a few fun pieces every now and then, so can't complain!

I don't think I have ever found anything Hungarian before, so this is a first, and a very likable example too methinks.

It's a lidded butter pot - well that's what it seems to be in this part of the world - late 60-70's era.

I like the apple motives, but I'm yet to figure out what to keep in it. Definitely not butter...

I couldn't find much factual stuff on Granit and their wares in English, not even that much in Hungarian, but basically in their heyday, they are said to have rivaled the famous Arabia of Finland factory as one of the most modernly equipped and highly productive ceramics factory in Europe at the time. 

Now that's being said, this butter dish looks quite reminiscent of this style of Arabia design from the late 60's and obviously was made for the same market. I guess that's how it ended up here.

Next, the first and only Christmas-themed thing I bought this year; a little table runner with snowflakes, candles and elves. I liked the nice old cotton, the simple resist printed design and needless to say, love that wonky white hand stitching on each side.

Now, this next find is rather random and it'd be more relevant if it was the barbecue season... A pair of red plastic tongs which have a bottle opener incorporated in the top. Inventive? I guess so.

how I wrap with fabric for Christmas

I first thought of wrapping presents in fabric a few years ago, after reading Björk's account of meeting with a Japanese delegate when she was making her film. She mentioned that the delegate brought her simple but beautiful gifts all artfully wrapped in textiles.

At that time I was learning dressmaking and had a heap of fabrics in my stash that didn't work out or I changed my mind about. I thought - great, I use them up for gift wrapping...! And without much research or learning techniques, I bundled all sorts of things into them when I had an occasion for it. And I still do it that way.

I really enjoy the freedom and malleability of fabrics, and the way they lend themselves just as easily to both bubbly shapes and neat little parcels which can look effortless, pleasing and exciting.

You don't need to worry much about symmetry, crisp angles or creasing down corners . You can hype up a DVD or a book into unguessable shapes, or make a lovely parcel out of one of those items that doesn't come in a box and is a nightmare to wrap traditionally. There's also no dilemma about which hand should be holding down the fold of paper while trying to cut that very sticky tape with your scissors. Because there's no need for tape or scissors.

A piece of cloth and a length of ribbon can be a very creative combo in anyone's hand, so I won't even make a proper step-by-step tutorial about how to wrap with fabrics... it's so easy. But for good measure here's how, the basic steps along with a few tips:

You will need:
- lenghts or bigger pieces of fabric
- ribbons or string
- tissue paper (optional)

• consider the size and the weight of your object when choosing your fabric for wrapping
• you might want to wrap your present up in tissue paper first, to protect it, or to even out an uneven shape

To make a pouchy parcel: 

Plonk your object into the middle of the fabric and pick up the corners around it then pull to the top centre, where tie it tightly with ribbon. Style the top bit as you like; you can tuck parts of the loose fabric back into the ribbon for example. You could also use two different fabrics to create a two-toned parcel.

To make a square-ish parcel:

Plonk your object in the middle of the fabric and fold the fabric up, then around, until it's neat and square-ish. Employ tucks and tugs, then tie with ribbon when happy. I used thrifted fabric swatches (blogged about before here) which have nice pinked edges and also wrapped a contrasting second fabric around my parcel before securing the ribbon, but you could do many other variations.

The possibilities are virtually endless! There are a lot of inspiring ideas online too, if you need more than just my simple guide - look here on this beautiful website for some lovely ideas.

It's also suitable for all genders and ages; the pressies in my picture are for my guy actually. Just choose the colours and patterns of your fabric and ribbon to suit the person you are giving to.

I could weave it on and on about the greatness and ingenuity of wrapping with fabrics, but let me close on a sneaky one. Isn't a fabric wrapped gift the ultimate way to keep curious kids and grownups finding out prematurely what they are getting, in case they 'happen' to come across the hiding place? I would certainly not attempt to undo fabric wrapping in fear that it will not look the same when done up again...enough said.

Happy wrapping!

is it dead or just hibernating...?

Sometimes I feel like something has been switched off in me and it comes back only sometimes, for blinks, like a pilot light, like a short eye movement between two sessions of deep sleep.

And with that switch, it seems, goes my energy, pace, inquisitiveness and the words...

I figure it could be the snow. The way it falls over everything non-selectively and makes noise into quiet with its frequency of white. A keyboard made of soft feather downs... The sound you hear in the cold side of the pillow...

Or it could be the wintry skies. Another blanket-like presence; and the jackdaws are gone from it too. I used to notice how they keep swarming religiously every morning, sometime around mid-November. They kept flying in big gloopy shapes above the market square or over the paper factory, for seemingly no reason at all.
I just noted first, then began to wonder about their strange display. I searched for a while for a good sort of an answer, but found not much satisfaction in swarm theories and the boids simulation.... My interest gave up and moved somewhere else, so did the jackdaws, and they were replaced by flurries of snow.

I feel like sleeping a lot. My mind and body wants sleep so I give it sleep. My diet changed too. I want no meat, no egg, no dairy, no complicated flavours...just rice. Or just green leaves. Or a simple soup. So I comply.

I've been feeling stuck for words. The quietness of sleep feels attractive, or just to be quietly wondering about this or that, about missing words, about movements in nature. About hibernating.

Or about this spider that I'd found in the broom cupboard the other week. I knew it was dead, but still it made me look twice. Not because it was a big one with long spindly legs; I looked because I noticed its curly feet. It struck me how it looked like a scribble, like a doodle of itself.

It also could be this small town. The tiny stretch of illuminated shopping street is like a postcard, it makes me smile inside and feel the warmth of the season's idyll, but rather like a Christmas lullaby. It's nothing like Oxford Street with its festive rush, stresses and overstimulating excesses.
It's sleepy and quiet, just like me.

Pyrex & popping colours

Winter's come early this year - the first snow fell last week and daylight is diminishing fast. It's probably why I'm so drawn to bright popping colours and cheery patterns lately.

Last week we borrowed a car and drove to the recycling depot of the local Red Cross slightly out of town but nearby enough. It happened to be their 'Retro Week' sales going on and they had so many great vintage things for cheap, it was like walking into thrifting heaven!

We picked up a pair of pretty 60s coffee tins for a couple of euros (only one of them featured here, but they are identical), a small unmarked enamel bowl for 70 cents and a little java cup for 20 cents.

 

Also happened upon a couple of very clean Orthex lidded storage boxes in a bright red and bright yellow. I like having vintage plasticware from them, they usually come in great colours and are good Finnish quality and sturdy. We like saving our leftovers in these. 

 

These big kitschy mugs are great to make generous cups of afternoon tea in, which I seem to crave in the winter. Neither has any indication of maker or age, but I really liked the transfer pattern on both.

And finally, a couple of newcomers joining my beginners' collection of Pyrex ware.
These were sold in one lot for 4€. They both show signs of their previous working life but have no chips or real faults. I'm especially fond of the vegetables pattern.

I started looking up on Pyrex and found out that my previous find is the Briarwood pattern from the 70s.
Then in this lot, the small dish on top is a 60s snowflake-type pattern (possibly called Belmont?) and the fifties-look vegetables pattern is called Meran, also released in the 60s.

To find the name of these patterns I looked through lots of images of UK Pyrex on this Flickr group's page and on this pinterest page. Also, the girls at Oh So Lovely Vintage started a series on US Pyrex pattern identification.