Show & Tell .... Treasures!

Collecting, Blending, Design & Stitching

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I enjoy every part of making something bespoke from vintage fabrics and notions.  From paper and pencil on a page of design with ideas and variations in the margins to finding and collecting the materials needed to start a project and the cutting out and stitchery ... all of this is fun to me and most of the time does not seem like work!

Well as you know I went to The Larmer Tree Vintage Brocante on Bank Holiday Monday and I came home with some wonderful things.  Some for my work and some for my personal enjoyment and a little something for my sewing room.

I bought a lovely lot of things from Mercer & Rose.  It was such a beautiful stall and I got the most

wonderful small drawer unit that had been chalk painted, distressed & waxed so that I can put my vintage cotton reels in there.  I also bought three cotton reels in greens, two little bundles of fabrics, two vintage mother of peal knives and two cushions along with a reel with some vintage

French laundry monograms as well .. The knives are for us and so are the cushions.  The drawer unit is for the sewing room and the fabrics and cottons are of course for a design.  The drawer unit has amber glass (not plastic) handles and is beautiful in its own right but functional too.

You can see there are some little vintage buttons in the bundles of fabrics and the B ribbon is for baby! Yes lots of orders for nursery pictures so there is a 2016 baby boom going on out there I believe.....

I am beyond happy with my purchases and have started to sort the drawers out and where they may fit in ..... Not as easy as you may think.

The antique mother of pearl handle knives are just stunning and I have two already but they are

different to these so now there is two more for my collection on the dresser.  They all live in one of the jugs on there so I know where they are and they are not caught up in a cutlery drawer but are used and displayed equally.  They are carved too and look perfect with the others ......










Then I bought five more cotton reels from Sarah's Victoriously Vintage and they are now living happily in one of the drawers with other reels.  I love JP Coates and Silko's but my favourite will always be Coates because of my dear neighbour who I miss greatly ... he would have loved to see all this and the Trade Cards too.

As you can see I had a bit of a green colour day on Monday .....









Then my last purchase from the two hours I had there was a piece of quilt that I want to use for a photo shoot coming up to line a vintage dolls cradle ... it was perfect and I purchased this from my lovely friend Jenny of Tilly-D fame.  I was very pleased with it and how different it was.  I have two very different pieces for the shoot now so that is a tick..


As you can see I bought quality rather than quantity and the drawer unit and cushions were my big personal buy of the day.  I also will be going to two fairs next week so I did pace myself some what ... One of them is a textile fair and that is were I can look for some bits for my designs.  I will be looking for extremely pretty bits of quilts and some more fabrics and ribbons.  If there is paisley well all the better I say.

The weekend is upon us and it makes a huge difference being a four day week.  The weather man says it is going to be very warm so lets see and fingers crossed.  I would love to go for a walk through the New Forest at some point over the weekend and take my camera for snapping away at nature ...

Come back here tomorrow as there is going to be something a little different.  Not a little film but something that I have bought on the internet .. Ebay actually and I am thrilled with it.

Have a wonderful day and as always Happy Stitching!