Pretty Maids all in a row, a row, Pretty Maids all in a row...tra la

I really, really have to use up my little (cough, cough) supply of fabrics and vintage embroideries.  I was busy sewing until late last night and then worried that in the cold (brrr) light of day they would be all skew whiff.  I only have about another 50 or so to make and then the ladies will be clear I think....
I also used NEW fabric - some Cath Kidston fabric that I had bought to make a bag for Bronte's flute (sounds a bit fancy to have a bag for a flute but it really isn't!).  Don't worry in case you thought I had gone mad buying new and expensive fabric , we live near a CK outlet so it was half price.  Little pieces of fabric go a long way.

I have made these as larger sized make up bag type thingies...some are lined with wipeable nylon (which sounds awful but good for housing toiletries) others with vintage florals

Do you know I only learnt how to put zips in last year (I watched a tutorial on You Tube) and now I am a zip fiend!!  I am thinking of adding some zip charms, made from little bits of vintage embroidery - but thought that this might be gilding the lily - what do you think?

This one I have lined with pretty florals...I am not too fond of making the same thing over and over again, so these will all be slightly different, one way or another

Some have a mitred bottom and some do not (ooeer missus!!)

I did not put a binding on the top of these last two, now wish that I had!

All in a row....

Most of my ladies end up having career in South Korea - who knew!!

Heart warming hand warmers

Very easy to make and much needed on a day like today.  About five years ago I accidentally boil washed a vintage mohair scarf - I was particularly cross about it at the time I recall!!  I have one or two vintage scarves but we won't dwell on that today...cough, cough...

Of course I did not throw the scarf away but hid it waiting for the right moment.  Today that moment came!  Cut out simple heart shapes - mine are a bit bigger than the palm of my hand.

I used pinking shears for the edging - spent a little while dithering about whether to embroider the front or not, decided upon buttons as it is quicker but will do some embroidery ones too. Then use your trusty vintage enamel funnel  (oh come on - I am fed up with the pretending that goes on - you do have one!) to fill your shapes (I used felt for the reverse as the mohair would make them a little thick). I used rice but when that ran out I used some lentils (double handiness because when you run out of food you can use your warmers to turn into dinner!).

Of course I knew that both children would be needing them so made four - one for each Polly Pocket...

Update 18.19 - Had to go to the Co-op to get provisions, very cold (not as cold as some places I know!) so thought that I would test the efficacy of heart warmers.  Warmed them up (30 seconds) and popped two down my top and one in either hand.  They worked a treat and soon I was all aglow - in fact by the time I reached the Co-op I looked a little like Fenella Fielding (Carry on Screaming - where she asks Sargeant Bung if he minds if she smokes...) - I was gently steaming like a wet dog!!  The warmth lasted until I had walked back home - next time I will increase the warmage to Warp Factor 40 (a slight risk of skin damage but what the heck we only live once!) in an effort to lengthen warming time.

Update on the update 18.35:  Following the success of putting two warmers down my top I am now considering fashioning some sort of body wrap.  I hate wind chill so I think that a body wrap would work quite well - it might look as though I have had some prosthetic work but what the heck we only live once...

Breakfast through the last century - the 1970s

Hello again and thank you for all you support re:wallpaper and your excellent ideas - I have managed to distract Dom by saying it was time our living room was redone (it has been 10 years) so swished 50s fabrics around yesterday and got the children on my side.    I am finding (as usual) that formatting is a problem so cannot reply - my revamped blog is a bit vampish!

Anyway here is my take on a 70s breakfast - I realise that I could also do early versus later part of any decade so this is becoming very tricky to do  so let's say 70s'ish

The egg cosies I have had a while (and don't worry they are proper 70s egg cups underneath!) - the large Winkle plate I like with the birds and then blow me down at the car boot yesterday I bought an armful of linen for 50p and the orange bird place mat was amongst it.  The plate in the bottom right was from under the bed - a whole set of that...cough, cough.... made by Woods and called Alpine

The cookery book is one that was written for children and has lovely illustrations

The tea towel at the back must have come from a car boot but cannot remember when!

My vintage wallpaper wall under threat!

Only last year Bronte and I created, what I thought, was a lovely wallpapered wall (well chimney breast) - it is in a spare bedroom so did not think to ask first.....at the time Dom did mutter that he thought he might use that room for 'men's type activities'....I think that means listening to very old rock records.  Anyway that issue has recently resurfaced and this room is again under threat - you may recall that this wallpaper dates from 1956 and  came from an original wallpaper sample book - cost £12 (a very good bargain I thought as I nearly gave in to Cath Kidston wallpaper and £350 a sheet - just joking, that would be against all my thrifty ways!).

The negotiations are currently at a tricky stage - Dom has upped the stakes by suggesting that I move my sewing room into this spare bedroom (he says he will also move all the shelves and he will set up a nice little table for afternoon tea...). By doing so he then converts my sewing room in a room for 'men's type activities' - this is a much smaller room so in theory a better deal.  BUT he then says that my wallpaper in the sewing room would have to go.....I am thinking of having a conservation order put on both...any ideas???

1950s hat for cheering up a not so cheery day!

Mmmm - see what I have done to this blog?  I cannot get it back to how it was and I have no idea how to add widgets/gadgets and do dahs.  This is all because I do not want to write another essay...
Anyway a strange day yesterday - Dom had to take the day off work as holiday (all trains were cancelled due the copper being stolen again!).  This threw me out completely - we took a stroll down the high street to get something for lunch and walked past a charity shop - just being put in the window were an array of straw hats. I put the brakes on all walking - perhaps I should state here that Dom does not 'do' charity shops/car boots/jumble sales - Dom thought that the hat below was some sort of plate????

I fearfully asked how much the hats were and was told that they would: '..have to be £2 I'm afraid as they are old and from the 1950s'. I have written before how women in charity shops often apologise to me about the outrageous cost of some things....I must look very hard done by.  I thought that this black one was just lovely - though sadly I have one of the biggest heads in the entire kingdom so no chance of ever fitting!

The mimosa is particularly pretty and I was going to embark in trying to find my mimosa plates that would also go very neatly with it - therein madness lies I thought!

A little bit of Frenchness today (some delicious vintage fabric from the 1950s with scenes of gay Paree) and also paired it with an old original drawing that I have - bought a  thousand years ago from a local junk shop - turned out that the artist designed all the clothes for The Avengers!

I possibly have also been a bit grumpy because a woman drove into the back of our 'new to us' car - we had saved 5 years to get a 'new to us' car and our previous one was held together with duct tape.  Because of my thrifty ways we have never had a loan/credit (mortgage aside - two months left to go, whoop, whoop) so we bought the car the old fashioned way - by saving up....only got it just before Christmas....grr
Anyway I did buy another hat - a little straw one, again from the 1950s, it is also lovely and will do something with it for Easter.  I did tiptoe back to the shop and the others had gone of course...

Vintage printed purse

I am currently a bit obsessed by making this type of purse.  I think that my sisters are truly a bit cheesed off with having purses for every single birthday/Christmas and all events in between!! I have to get a few more out of my system then normal service will be resumed!  For a long time now (several years!!) I have been wanting to make bags or purses out of images of my grandparents (strange but true).  I have tried all the techniques that you can find on the internet about printing fabric through your own printer (well all except the one where you have to buy special fabric paper stuff - I am thrifty remember).  I thought that I would have one last go before I throw in the towel and....it worked!  This method is just buying iron-on interfacing (not that expensive sort!) and cut out a piece of fabric - all done!


This has an image of the envelope that you see in the previous posting - grubby marks and all!  I wanted to do a little embroidery in the corner because this is just the sort of thing that my mother would have done.  For the reverse of this purse I used a little scrap of some lovely fabric that my sister Gail had given to me - I love the colours.

So the photo below is of my paternal grandparents at their wedding at the start of the First World War - a poignant image for me.  I have some lovely 1930s French linen that I used for the remainder of the purse and edged with some very old ric rac (from the 1930s I think). 

The 'Make do and Mend' booklet was from my sister Sue for Christmas. As I have written before we set ourselves a financial threshold for Christmas presents - it is usually £1.  Sue did herself proud as this was free - it was mixed up with some magazines that she got from the WI - she wins the 2011 prize for the best bargain. This is an original copy and full of helpful tips and hints (some of which I already employ)! The old Woman's Own magazine was bought from Mr Langford's wonderful shop a year or so ago - I have a few dating from the 40s.  Thank you for reading - I hope/intend to post more here and perhaps less on flickr, in an attempt to cut down on those copying my pictures to pinterest....

Update - two lucky (some may disagree) readers will be receiving one of these purses in the post any day now.  This follows my:  "give away something even though I have no idea how you do that sort of thing" give away!! I do hope that they like them - please let me know if possible.  If not please return to sender...address unknown. Got to go now - I have treacle sponge pudding cooking and toad-in-the-hole in the oven! 

 Bryony - if you manage to find this - and read it - show of some technical skill and leave a message...

Just for you...

Well I have decided just to post these few photos here and see who notices (I may succumb to Flickr later).  I have been enjoying printing things through my trusty printer and made a few purses for my sisters (who may be a little fed up with purses I fear but I do not know what else to do with them).  Anyway I was going through my old envelopes (oh I do wish you would stop pretending that you don't have any - especially you Mary!!) and found one that was written by my grandmother to my mother (that has now been printed and turned into a purse of course) and then another with Dig for Victory as a postmark.  This set me off on a whole tableau thingy and here are the results. I shall call this 'Breakfast in the last century'!

I was trying to go in decade order but that will go to pot now - here is the first decade....

Oh just to say (in case the style police are watching) that this is my stuff and not necessarily exactly the right era - just a flavour of it (shades of Eric Morcambe and Andre!).  All of the things in the art nouveau photo I have had for decades (no, not that long - I am not that old!)

Once again I find myself asking for help re:blogs.  Does anyone know how to turn a photo around? I turned them around on my computer but when they upload here they are all lop sided again!
We shall move on a few years and I shall call this 'Chintzy Breakfast':

I am sorry if you do not eat cake for breakfast...

To end today I shall add in what I shall call: 'Thrifty 40s' breakfast

This picture shows the envelope that started this all off today! There is an egg because we kept chickens!!!

When I got all of this china out of the cupboard I then found that I could not get it all back in - some spare plates have now gone back to the charity shop, whence it came from in the first place!  When I pluck up courage to venture into the china cupboard again we shall have the 50s, 60s and 70s!!