My favorite things 28

For many years my husband was a prolific gardener, tending huge swaths of flowers in every part of our heaven's-half-acre, and I was the happy recipient of armloads of blooms throughout growing season.  I always had flowers to take to work, and several vases going in the house.  Which meant I needed lots of vases.  And many of the vases took on specialized functions: this one perfect for daffodils, this one for tulips, that one for the single bloom with a two-inch stem.

Our flower production is nowhere what it used to be, thanks to the inexorable growth of the deer population and my husband's desire to spend less time weeding, but we do have gladiolas in the summer, and when there are a whole lot of them, we use this pitcher as a vase.  Tall enough to support tall stems, wide enough at the bottom to provide stability even when the flowers are cantilevered out in space, with a convenient handle for carrying.

It was a wedding present to my grandmother, more than a century ago, Sèvres porcelain, with a dainty design of berries.  As most of our glads these days are in shades of pink, it's color-coordinated as well as beautiful in its own right.

When I first acquired this pitcher, from my mother's downsized collection, it was dedicated to lemonade; a big can of frozen lemonade just about filled the pitcher when I doctored it up with more water and more lemon juice.  But somewhere along the line it transmogrified from pitcher to vase, and changed its allegiance from lemonade to glads.  I think it's happier this way.  I know I am.