A Very Vintage Weekend

Goodness me, I really love the Vintage Jumble! I had a stall there on Saturday, and it was lovely to meet up with all the other 'vintage ladies' and basically swap stuff! There are so many bargains to be found - most of the stuff I bought was 50p a go. How good is that? Quite unintentionally, I seem to have bought quite a lot of pink plastic things. I suppose it's inevitable, given my kitsch leanings.

I also got old cards and children's books, all of them very sweet and charming. I was especially pleased with this Little Indians book, as the pictures are photos of puppets, which I really like.

Then on Sunday, we popped in to visit a Craft and Vintage Fair at M Shed in Bristol.  It was a combination of a Blind Lemon Vintage Fair (which is a  fashion fair) and Magpies and I Vintage & Craft Market. It was a rare treat for me to go to the fashion fair. I don't normally bother, as they charge a few quid to get in, but this weekend it was free. Yay! I really don't like paying to go to fairs (unless they're charity events, of course). I'll pay up to £1, as I know it can be difficult to cover costs. But above that, I resent paying for the privilege of going to see if I want to buy anything. It's like making customers pay to go into a shop. And although Mr Kitsch will put up with following me around while I look at lovely old dresses (for a short while at least), he certainly doesn't want to pay to do it!

The other reason I don't often go to fashion fairs is that I can never find anything nice that fits me. Being big, I usually find the only thing on the rail in my size is a 1960s nylon housecoat or some kind of rough hessian kaftan. Neither of which will do me any favours, believe me. Oh, how I sigh, when I remember my young, slim days, when I used to find so many 1960s dresses at jumble sales. But hey, guess what? Yesterday, I found a nice dress that fitted me! I was a bit doubtful about the yellow at first, but with the white background, it seems to work. I was chuffed to bits! That's it in the photo below, along with a gorgeous little dish I also bought.

I have written before about the healing power of shopping, and how shallow that makes me, but buying this dress lifted my mood no end. Do you ever get like that? The sunshine helps too, of course. For no real reason, I feel like things are getting better. Spring is springing everywhere and I have a happy frock! 

Various Textile Doings

My first textile doing to share with you is a cardigan I knitted for our friends' new little person. I'll be honest - it was a bit of struggle to finish. I've mentioned before why I prefer crochet to knitting, and completing this little article was a forceful reminder of that fact. I am not a natural-born knitter.

I actually started this about 6 months ago, while he was still just a bump. At first, it was great - don't little baby clothes knit up quickly? But then it all started to go wrong. The pattern I'd got off the internet didn't give the required quantities of yarn. Like a fool, I cheerfully assumed I'd be able to get some more if I needed it. Nope, it was discontinued. I ran out of the mauve and blue yarns, but just managed to scrape together enough for the body. The pattern was for a hooded cardi, so I thought that I could do the hood in plain green. The green ran out just short of the end, and I had to undo it all and improvise a collar instead. The final straw was when I managed to break one of my knitting needles in two!

But I got there in the end! (In case you're wondering, the different coloured buttons was a deliberate design decision, and not just another cock-up.) Despite my mishaps, I am very proud that I managed to get the stripes to meet up on the raglan seam, and also that I managed to get it finished before his twenty-first birthday!

Moving from the ridiculous to the sublime, I have been meaning (for a little while) to show you this lovely handmade purse I received from Jenny of The Custards. Isn't it wonderful? She printed an image of a wartime envelope (from her family) directly onto fabric, and then sewed it into a purse, with some vintage patterned fabric on the back (which you can just catch a glimpse of in the photo). She is so ingeniously creative and has the most enviable vintage fabric stash I have ever seen. Her blog is well worth a visit for all the vintage loveliness!

And on the subject of enviable amounts of vintage fabric, I went to the Vintage Rag and Remnant Rummage in Trull, last Saturday. It's a great new event organised by Lizzie of The Washerwoman blog. Trull is close to Taunton, where Mr Kitsch's family live, so we were able to combine it with a lovely family visit, on a gorgeous sunny day. Hooray for Spring!

A bag of vintage buttons for £1 from the fair. Result!