Friday 22 May 2015

Deans Court textile fair ... My show and tell purchases...







 The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it ....
 I can resist everything but temptation!
Oscar Wilde 

( I would have got on so well with this clever man!)



As you know I attended Deans Court annual vintage textile fair on Wednesday and you had a look yesterday at the photos of who was exhibiting.  Today I am going to show you what I bought.  Actually I was very restrained (honestly, I could have bought lots more especially one of those beautiful dresses and the sampler - but I did resist the temptation and did not yield to it!!)

So my first purchase of the day was from the lovely Liz (wow that skirt!) of The Washerwoman fame.  Liz often goes to France to find beautiful items to bring back to Blighty to tempt us all with and she had the most beautiful pieces of French fabrics but there  was a large piece of eiderdown fabric and you know I really can not resist that!.  There was a much smaller piece of the same one but I went for the larger.  Two reasons there is such a nice amount you could even make a few cushions with it if you so desired but also I can use what I need and then the rest can go into my inspiration fabric packs that will be on sale at the Vintage Bazaar in October ..... The fluid motion of vintage, I love it!


Right next door to Liz was Sue who owns Vintage to Victorian and as I have said before Sue has
such  eclectic displays that you can honestly be there ages.  I love it.  She has little drawer there partly open so just peeking at you, you can spy vintage monograms, hankies, threads, buttons and all sorts of my kind of treasures.  Sue had vintage Welsh blankets, beautiful eiderdowns, little rolls of vintage pieces of blankets, quilt pieces and so much more.  Well imagine my delight when she had a vintage H monogram, so this quickly stayed in my hand along with some more really beautiful pre 1960 embroidery threads ( I think in a past life, I must have run out and had felt like the mice in Beatrix Potters The Taylor of Gloucester .. no more twist!)
 To be honest although there has been a fare bit of this around at the moment, It is going fast so when you see this sort of thing, simply you buy it or loose it ....









And as if by magic right next to Sue was Donna Flower and her lovely mum who was helping.  Donna had very kindly asked me if there was anything I had been looking for and she
would check her stock and bring what she thought might fit the bill,  I had said about ribbons because I have some new designs in my book which require some and I actually did not have much at all.  Well there were a nice bundle to choose from and I picked up four.  Then there was this kilner jar and it was full of dear little vintage embroidery threads in all the colours that you could possibly need .... Yes it came home with me too.  Then this was the laugh and the coo of the day for me.  I saw a beautiful vintage French curtain pelmet ( not ones that need curtains as well, but the sort of little one that you have at the top of a window or lower down and look over it)  It has beautiful little flowers on it and a hand crochet little frill detail on the bottom
PLUS the original plastic rings to hang it. ... That is the coo part as it came home with me.  The laugh? well as you know we are hoping to move to pastures new soon and I bought this pelmet for a window in a pantry/utility room that I don't actually have yet!!!!  I like to call it forward planning! My husband would call it madness.   I have a box going on with bits for our new home (included in this is that roll of vintage wallpaper I showed you earlier this week) and a few more items......I call it it my moving trousseaux!!

You can see in this picture the fabric of this dear little pelmet ( actually it is quiet large so it will fit
most windows) and the pink crochet detail plus the original plastic rings for hanging it.( bottom pictures on the right)  I just fell in love with it.  My imaginary pantry/utility room is going to be so beautiful ( designed in my head already I may add)

You can imagine can't you when looking around houses and saying to my husband " yes that was a lovely house but it will never do, there is no window in the pantry/utility room" or variations along that theme!!

I had a laugh with Donna and her mum over this but they totally got it....

So after feeling very satisfied with my decorating purchase and haberdashery plunder I found Sarah of Blue Zinnia Vintage and she had lots of haberdashery as well.... Now there were a few embroidery threads but my
appetite for them had been quenched but my ribbon ration had not been fulfilled and she had some beautiful lingerie ribbon still in its original packaging and a lovely light blue ribbon again in its packaging....plus a beautiful vintage piece of cotton all hand embroidered and it was white on white.  I love this sort of find you can add this to so much of your work for added detail and beauty so yes it was paid for and put in my very large tote bag that I bought from Emma of Little Wren Vintage.....




Finally as I said yesterday I met Martin of Slow Loris who I had a long and interesting chat with about the Zhen Xian Bao stitchery rolls from China.  I bought the book from him about it and I am going to do a blog about that subject next week... It really is fascinating and I have started reading the book already.  The book really is worth a read and I think I might give making one of those twist and fold pockets myself and paint and lacquer them into a small roll for a personal project....  You can also cover it all in fabric but the original basis is paper so I might give it a whirl...


I hope you have enjoyed this little show and tell brought to you from Devon today... Have a great Bank Holiday weekend and do not forget it is Stitch of the Week tomorrow and this is a real beauty and not to be missed, brought to you by the ever lovely Mary Corbet...


Happy Stitching!





Thank you Deans Court ..... See you next year! x


PS>  I made a mistake about what I described to you all as wall paper samples ( bought from Donna Flower at The Decorative Living fair)  They actually are hand painted textile designs.  They were painted first before before being made into rollers to print up fabric.  These are very special indeed and I got it wrong completely.  I have one which is framed and in my workroom  already ( I bought last year from Donna) and the one I bought from her at the weekend that needs to be framed and put next to the other one in pride of place in my workroom!!  .....  So I am a very very lucky lady!  Thank you Donna xxx









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