Making Good Use

Madras Check or Bay City Roller - You Decide!

 
An, allegedly, easy-sew pair of elasticated waist trousers for my nephew have just been finished.  Mum and I chose the material thinking it would be a nice lightweight cotton for him for the summer and would be a bit different from the usual run-of-the-mill boys' trousers without being too outlandish.  Yesterday I thought they might be a bit pyjama-like (which would be fine with my nephew as he's never happier than staying in his pyjamas all day on a Sunday).  Today, however, I fear there may be more than a touch of the Bay City Rollers about them!!  Not such a good look.  Although in the mid-1970's I would have given anything for a pair of tartan trews and a chance to see the Rollers in concert - neither of which I ever achieved.

The trousers were sewn on Mum's 40-year old brute of a sewing machine which I haven't had a close acquaintance with for many many years - leading to much confusion and a soupcon of swearing on my part.  The damn thing nearly gave me a hernia just getting it downstairs it weighs so much.  I must say though it is a lovely smooth machine to sew with.

 
All the time I was sewing I was ably helped by my lovely assistant Lily who kept a beady eye on the proceedings.

Have just realised that today is my third blogiversary - blimey, time most certainly does fly!  Once I'm back home next week I think I'll have a small giveaway to mark the occasion.

An Embarrasment of Riches

So, the out-of-this-world Scout jumble sale last Saturday was as utterly fabulously wonderful as the last couple of times I've been.  Mum and I were there nice and early but there were still approx. 20 - 25 people ahead of us in the queue.  We waited 40 minutes or so before they let us in and by that time the queue was pretty much at the end of the road (perhaps 75 - 100 people.)   Mum and I came home with an embarrasment of riches - almost, but not quite, too much for the pair of us to carry.  Amongst many other wonderful finds there were:

Two huge pieces of GP & J Baker fabric.  I'd never heard of this maker but a quick Google shows they are fabric makers to the Queen - and darn good sellers on ebay too.  So these pieces will be being put on ebay pretty soon.

A couple of rather nice embroidered pillowcases - and one candy-stripe one.  Love candy-stripe pillowcases.

A lovely folk-art style small tablecloth - destined to be made into something else eventually.

A selection of extremely pretty lace / embroidered ladies hankies.

Childrens' vintage hankies

And the prettiest floral hankie I think I've ever come across

I succumbed to the lure of some lovely china - although I really should have resisted as I have absolutely nowhere to put them at home.

And also this 'Brillo Pad' pot to go next to my sink.  I was very pleased to find this as I had one before but managed to smash the lid on it, so this will be an excellent replacement.

It was fill a bag for £1.00 on the book stall and I picked out quite a few books I hoped would be good for re-sale on Amazon, sadly only one was eventually listed.  However, I did find this compost book for myself and

a few very vintage sewing patterns were in a box under the book table and so also went in the £1.00 bag.  The baby pattern at the top has never even been opened.  They are destined for ebay.

Also picked up were - two wool blankets - I'd been on the lookout for one of those to use as the batten in a patchwork quilt I'm thinking of making, a gorgeous crochet blanket which turned out to have a few holes in (Mum's going to try and mend it for herself), a fabulous Next hand towel (snaflled up by Mum - the lucky devil) a couple of tops for my nephew, half a dozen bits of clothing for my Mum and some vintage clothing I'm going to list on ebay once I've washed and ironed them.  I don't suppose we spent £5.00 between the two of us and we came back with bags and bags of things. All in all, it was awesome and we both had a wonderful time.

Crochet Lesson

Sorry for not posting the promised photos of Saturday's jumble sale bargains today, but Mum's friend phoned this morning to see if I'd be interested in a crochet lesson this afternoon.   As Mum's friend is an expert crocheter (and all round hugely talented crafter) I jumped at the chance.

This is as far as I got with crocheting a granny square - not very far!  And this took me over two hours to achieve!!  Yes, I still have an awful lot to learn but at least I can hold the hook in a less cack-handed fashion now.

Photos of the jumble finds tomorrow - scouts honour!!

Vintage Heals Fabric - £3.00 a metre

My nephew needs a couple of pairs of elasticated-waist summer trousers made for him so Mum and I took a trip to The Nylon Shop this morning.  This is such a gem of a shop - packed to the rafters with wonderfully diverse rolls of fabric, from nasty nail-catching polyester knit to the most gorgeous bejewelled silks, with every other type of fabric you can imagine inbetween.   We found some nice fine cotton plaid to make one pair of trousers and one pair of shorts for DN - nothing too loud or Bertie Woosterish, but a little bit different from the usual boring run-of-the-mill material for little boys' trousers.

 
Whilst we were perusing and choosing my eyes alighted on a really lovely looking roll of upholstery fabric which was nochalantly leaning against the wall. 

 
I picked it up and read the selvedge and couldn't believe it was made for Heals.  I had no idea how much it would cost per metre and was delighted to find it was only £3.00.  I bought everything that was left on the roll - which came to £8.25.

A quick Google when I got home informed me that this particular fabric was manufactured in 1968!  No wonder it's a tad marked in places on the selvedge!!  I'm so pleased I bought it as I love the design, the colours and the fabulous quality of the fabric.  As usual, no idea what I'll do with it but I'm sure it will come in useful eventually.

PS The jumble sale on Saturday was out-of-this-world fantastic.  More details, and lots of photos of the finds, tomorrow.

Ship Shape for the Next Ten Days

I'm off to Bristol tomorrow for ten days.  Highlights of the trip (apart from seeing my family, of course) will, hopefully, include a mega Scout Jumble Sale on Saturday afternoon - I can't wait as the weather forecast looks set fair and it was a wonderful jumble sale last year.  Mum is really looking forward to it as well as she was just out of hospital this time last year and so was not well enough to go with me. 

Then the following Saturday, Mum and I will be taking ourselves off to Chipping Sodbury for the Spring 2010 Vintage and Handmade Fair which if it's anything like it was last May will be a fabulous day out.  And then on the following day it's my Mum's birthday.  So lots and lots of good things to look forward to.  

Growth

There are definite signs of a lot of Spring growth in the garden now.

These plucky little salad leaves must have lain dormant all through our harsh winter weather and are now looking very chipper in the sunlight.  I planted up another container full of salad leaves last week but as yet there is no sign of life from them at all.  Not sure if the seeds are now kaput or if the cold nights have stalled germination.  I'm also seeing definite signs of growth from the dried peas experiment which is pretty good progress in five days.  

The two rhubarb crowns I planted at the end of last October seem to be thriving in the old filled-in pond, although oddly one is about ten times bigger than the other.  This area would be a wonderful growing space - almost a raised bed - if it wasn't for the fact that the whole area is totally shaded all summer but the plants growing over the pergola above it.  Rhubarb seemed a good use of what would otherwise be totally wasted space.  I'm assured by my Mum - who knows those sorts of useful things - that we could probably dig up the rhubarb crowns and take them with us if we move - which would be useful. 

Of course, it's not only the useful stuff that is putting on a growth spurt at the moment, pesky weeds, dandelions, ivy, brambles and all sorts of other unwelcome visitors in the garden are also growing for England.  I've just spent a very relaxing half hour hacking away at various untamed bits of undergrowth (and all-over-the-shed-growth) and have pretty much filled the green wheelie bin again.  There's something very satisfying about hacking things back with a pair of secateurs - or is that just me?!

The Right Tools for the Job

Along with many other useful things, my Dad often used to say 'you need the right tools for the job.'  How right he was.  This morning my card blanks arrived from ebay and I've been happily cutting and sticking images from a couple of very ancient and tatty Ladybird 'How To' books for the last couple of hours.

The cards were so much easier to do with a bit of extra room to play with.

Including postage the card blanks cost me £3.08 for 10.

Which means each card has cost me just over 30p to make.

Plus a little extra for the books I bought (probably 20p each) and the double sided tape (a couple of huge rolls bought for £1.50 the two at a car boot sale last year.)

All in all say 35p per card.  Considering how much cards cost to buy I reckon that is a pretty good price.

If I could have, I'd have used colour photocopies so that I could have made more cards with the same images but, sadly, colour photocopying facilites are totally non-existent in Wickford.

Thanks for your inspiring suggestions for the vintage hankies yesterday - they're brilliant and have given me lots of food for thought.

Another Sunny Sunday

It was another gloriously sunny Sunday morning so, of course, that meant another trip to the car boot sale.  There were masses and masses of both sellers and buyers this week and I managed to find a few nice bargains.

Some much needed Body Shop Body Butter for my skin, which is extra dry at the moment (I think it's the result of being in a centrally-heated atmosphere for so long) - 30p.  Some rather posh face wash - Dr Nick Lowe (never heard of him but seems he's some hot-shot dermatologist) - this was also 30p and appears to retail for £9.74.  And a bottle of Elvive shampoo - 20p.  All very useful and much needed to add to my now-much-depleted stocks of toiletries.

A few plus size clothes - all £1.00 each.  I bought four items but two of them are not really me so they're destined for ebay and one of them should be nice for my Mum.  However, this lovely silky black cardigan from Spirito di Artigiano is definitely a keeper as their stuff is mega expensive to buy new.

Then there was the whole huge boxful of vintage ladies hankies.  There must be 50 plus hankies in here - printed, embroidered, lace, all sorts.  I paid £3.00 for the whole box.  No idea what I'll do with them but I'm sure I'll think of something.  (Mum, if you need any more hankies let me know and I'll bring some down with me.)

Experimenting

Following a tip on last week's Edible Garden programme, I'm going to see if planting up some of these

in this small wooden trough will indeed result in tasty pea shoots to add to salads.  (First sewing of salad leave seeds already done and signs of growth being eagerly awaited.)

Chopping up an incredibly tatty copy of a Ladybird 'How to Knit' book to make a few greetings cards.

And finding that using double-sided tape took a lot longer but made a lot neater finished product than plain old paper glue.

The corresponding instructions for making the items are on the back of the cards.

I didn't have card blanks that were really big enough for the illustrations so there was a lot of trimming (and subsequent swearing and cussing) going on.  As I've got grand plans for chopping up another old Ladybird book too, I've now ordered much better size card blanks from ebay.  What did we do before ebay was invented??

It's Oh So Quiet

I never realised quite how many aircraft flew directly overhead - and how much noise they made - until today.  With the whole of UK airspace being closed due to another eruption in the Eyjafjallajoekull area of Iceland and the resulting ash cloud heading our way on northerly winds, all flights into and out of the country are grounded until further notice.  BBC News link is here.

This has resulted in glorious plane-free skies above Essex (and everywhere else too.)  Normally you can count up to a dozen aircraft in the sky at any one time - some very high and obviously en-route from the continent, some much lower and obviously in a holding pattern for Heathrow, or about to land at Stanstead. 

The worst offenders for noise and disturbance are the early-morning flights about to land at Heathrow from the Far East.  Those blighters seem to fly directly over the house, putting their landing gear down whilst they go and making a terrible din while they're at it, at 4.30 am every morning - and most mornings they manage to disturb my slumbers.  I do feel terribly sorry for all those poor devils who've had their travel plans disrupted but it is so lovely not to have planes droning overhead constantly, and I am really looking forward to not being disturbed in the wee-small hours tomorrow morning.

My Mum is also enjoying the plane-free skies as she is directly in the flightpath for Bristol Airport.  The planes fly so low over her house that you can practically see the pilot!!  Honestly.  They are flying scarily low at times.

On the same subject, I came across this brilliant tweet on the BBC news site

"1310 Littlesapling tweets:

Dear Iceland, we said 'send Cash'."

Some people are very droll.