Sunday 17 July 2011

Vintage Goodies and Carnival Fun

I've managed to aquire a large amount of vintage awesomeness around ebay, the internet and charity shops this week.

This fabulous old 1950s needlwork magazine still has the original transfer in the middle. Its for those fabulously retro little poodles shown on a beret near the top left hand side. I don't think I'll be making the girls a beret anytime soon...

but I am definitely finding a way to use those poodles!











This little haul came from a wonderful website called Rag Rescue. A fabulous old drawn thread and Hardanger book, (all in Swedish but since it's mostly pictures and diagrams that doesn't matter too much) and two bundles of vintage fabric scraps. They were both nicely wrapped when they came, but I've opened the bundle of smaller scraps (on the right) already. I couldn't resist playing straight away, and made a little suffolk puff out of a delicious raspberry, clotted cream and duck egg floral print. With a vintage button from my collection and a twist of ribbon, hey presto, a vintage brooch! I even had enough left from the square to cover two small buttons.





And then I found this wonderful jug in a charity shop. All it needs is a big bunch of sunflowers...















In other news it was Carnival yesterday. I was collecting so I didn't take my camera down, but I took these pics at home before we left.
Here we see Naomi (white rabbit) and friends in their Alice in Wonderland costumes - sans Alice as she met us down there












and here is Eloise as The Bad Fairy,  for which she won the trophy for best dressed collector.
Note the papier mache skull on her wand. She has named him and he has taken up residence in her room. I suspect she soliloquises to him.

Sunday 10 July 2011

More Mollie Makes

Issue 3 of Mollie Makes arrived last week, and was as just as gorgeous and inspirational as both the previous two.
Look at those crochet flowers on the front cover! Not sure my crochet skills are up to them, but they're delightful.
There was an intriguing project inside the magazine, to make a fringed scarf/cowl from an discarded t-shirt. I didn't have any old t-shirts of my own to cut up, so I picked one up at the charity shop for 50p and here's the scarf I made from it. Super-funky, cheap and quick. My kind of craft!












And here is Eloise modeling a skirt I made her which was inspired by Issue 1.
If you have seen the film "10 Things I Hate About You", you will recognise her modelling stance:-
"That was swimwear, this is underwear, see what I did there?"
If you haven't seen the film "10 Things I Hate About You", run, don't walk, down to your local DVD rental shop and put that right immediately!
Note the fabric. It's got vampires on it. So her! Note also that I will never attempt to encase lime green bobble trim inside a seam again, or any other colour for that matter. Never I tell you! Her next skirt will have the bobbles applied on top afterwards.

Naomi officially "retired" as Carnival Queen today, and the new Royalty were crowned, The Carnival Committee presented her with a New Look giftcard to thank her for her reign, and she gave me these beautiful flowers

Monday 4 July 2011

St Breward Carnival

Saturday evening was warm and  sunny for St Breward Carnival. 
St Breward is the last carnival of the year for us as our own Carnival is in a fortnight so Naomi officially "retires" as Queen next weekend. (I'm actually quite looking forward to being able to just go along and watch the Carnival this year without having a float to worry about.)
We got a third for Royal group.












We didn't have the float because the new Queen already has it,  but my little car scrubbed up quite well (please ignore the rust spots, she's quite old)