Vintage goodies I have bought ... a show & tell!

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”
Confucius

Having been to a few vintage fairs recently I thought I would do a little show and tell for you.  I will do one this week and one next.

I have bought some beautiful things and like the quote above says not everyone sees the beauty in everything or at least beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Some of the things that I buy I show my lovely mum... now she will look at some things and say 'gosh my grandma had one of those!' or 'I prefer the ones they make now' which distresses me personally, but of course she has lived through it. I find all these things wonderful because most of the fabrics I pick up are before even my mum was born.....  She is often amazed, when I show her what I have done with something and being MY mum she thinks I am clever to have thought of it to bring new meaning and life to something. ( it is a mothers duty to be a little proud! don't you think?)

In no particular order let me show you some of my goodies that I love....

Firstly look at these vintage ribbons that I spotted at the Somerset vintage fair.  I love all the different colours and I am very happy with them.  They are 50's ribbons and have great colour to them.  It is always good to be able to choose some ribbon to add

to a wall hanging and with this little range of them I should find something for almost everything I stitch.  There is a vintage embroidery thread thrown in as well and that is older... That will go in my ever growing box of them for me to stitch something with.  I am loving the greens at the moment, I am guessing as it is Spring/Summer and with what I am stitching.....

I have recently picked up some china bits for me personally.  I found these gorgeous soup bowls and plates at The Dairy House Antiques fair.  These were from a stall inside and I found them to be irresistible to me.  I have been looking for sometime for some.  I did not care if they were all odd as long as there was some sort of blend of colours.  These caught my eye.  Three have tiny chips on the soup bowls but it takes nothing away from their beauty or usefulness.  I may however take them to be repaired at a ceramic repairs that I have found, with tiny chips they sort of  sandpaper them down so that its not sharp.  If they are only tiny nicks then this works beautifully.. I now have a set of six beautiful soup bowls to fill with chunky hearty soups next Winter and also its nice to fill them with a good stew and chunks of home made breads as well.

At the Blandford vintage fair I went to last Monday I found some amazing fabrics on The Washerwoman stall ..

as always.  Now I could not get anywhere near this stall when I arrived so I came back later.  I was so surprised that these fabrics had not been snapped up.  It was truly my lucky day.  As you all know by now I love paisleys and eiderdown fabrics with their faded beauty and tiny designs and these were not exception.

The photo at the top on the left is 1930's eiderdown paisley fabric and the photo on the top right close up is the 1920's eiderdown fabric.  I was over the moon with both little bundles.  I have an idea for the 1920 one with those colours.  It is a rare colour way and fabric and I am so pleased it came home with me!

Also at the Blandford fair I picked up a beautiful antique French box.  It is lined inside and really is

very beautiful and different.  I purchased this lovely from Emma of Little Wren vintage.  I have an idea to make this into something more that just a box to look at.  It has such a pretty design on it and I am not sure originally what it would have been for.  Maybe it had a piece of jewellery inside it at one time or a silk hankie .. I really do not know.  I forgot to ask Emma as she was very busy and so it just came home with me to be made into something useful but retaining all its own original beauty as well..

I think you will agree it really is a thing of beauty! not many would disagree me thinks!!

At the Somerset fair I also found some beautiful lace and trimmings and these

are so useful to me in my stitchery designs.  If they are white on white cotton then you can always get some vintage embroidery threads and add some little rosebuds or daisy's if you wish too.  They are great to stitch onto baby or wedding samplers as well as wall hangings.  I liked these two an awful lot so they came home with me.  I am going to put some embroidery on the the white one as I think it will be really lovely and not take anything away from its original state.  I am going with some daisies in a group....


To finish off this show and tell blog I would like to show you all the three little coffee cups I purchased from the Somerset vintage fair.  They are so beautiful and although they are  Art Deco

design and I believe end of the thirties or early 40's ..... Two will stay as they are for my ever growing personal china collection on the dresser and the other one I am going to do something with.  I love to play around with bits and bobs and make them for another purpose occasionally.

They really are very pretty and if there had of been even four I would have kept them as a set.




So these are my treasures that I have purchased recently and now that I have taken photos of them this morning I will sort them out and pop them in their appropriate living quarters.  I have a little list today of what I would like to achieve by the end of the day and may have been a tad over ambitious... we will see.  I hope you have enjoyed a little look and hope that you all have a great day.

Happy Stitching!