Archive for September, 2009

On Saturday we did the Vintage and Contemporary Market at Woodbridge in Suffolk.  We missed the first one as we were selling elsewhere but friends had given us glowing reports….so we just had to do this one!  It was quite a challenge to get everything into our tiny stall but somehow we managaged it.  I was going to take a lot of photos but as soon as started to display stock…people started buying and we were soon mobbed as were the stall around us, so I didnt get a chance to roam with my camera.   The day was perfect, weather good and surrounded by friends new and old who all seemed to have a very healthy sales day.  I must also thank all our customers who were full of praise and nice comments, this really helps to make a long working day an enjoyable one.  Looking forward to the next one!!!

Before the rush!  I really would have loved to have got a photo with our stall all set up…

Update

Teena was kind enough to send us these:

This knitting pattern book usually sells for over £20 on the rare occasions it is for sale on Ebay.  I have ‘upped’ this pattern as bonus, so I will also still post the regular free knitting pattern tomorrow.  To get this pattern it can be downloaded from here… however before the download will start you will need to fill in a small, very quick survey, competition or offer. 

Vintage Terrier Knitting Pattern

Vintage Teddy Bear Knitting Pattern

Vintage Elephant Knitting Pattern

Vintage Hippo? Knitting Pattern

Vintage Lamb Knitting Pattern

Vintage Penguin and Rabbit Knitting Pattern

To download this pattern book for free please click here

Today we spent a pleasant afternoon at the Norwich Costume and Textile Associations annual fair at Wolterton Hall in Norfolk… Although the setting for the fair is just perfect with the stands set up in the house itself, personally I’m not over keen on this event.  Its probably the ‘vintage’ snob in us but there just seemed to be too many stalls selling stuff that didn’t really relate to textiles… new/secondhand costume jewellery etc and a lot of the stalls that were doing textiles weren’t really our thing.   Still we managed to buy some items for members of out non vintage family and it was fun to look around the beautiful house and grounds.  The theme of this years event was childhood and some of the displays and stalls really were beautiful (see its not all negative)…   I managed to take a few snaps inside the house before being asked to stop….I wasn’t using a flash so I guess it must have been for security reasons..

This room setting was just stunning, beautifully put together with love and attention to detail..

Susie from Forget Me Nots in Holt had a room to herself with loads of beautiful items….

This Vintage Britans greenhouse is great fun….

If you peep through the door, someone is hard at work!

The greenhouse fits in perfectly…with Woltertons walled garden….

Its not some foreign tounge! Just pure Norfolk!

Just loved the picture for this jumper from a 1941 Stitchcraft magazine.

The free download for this pattern is below….please help us by telling your friends…click here for more details

The pattern is available to download here

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Tracey has this weird thing for applying for almost any offer available, only last night I caught her applying for this from a 1902 magazine.   The funny thing is I never knew she had a problem, even so I’m looking forward to when she is reclaimed!

I also noticed from the same magazine she has shown a great deal of interest in Winifred Grace Hartlands advert..  I told her not to be silly….probably best to concentrate on one cure at a time!

UPDATE

ITS A SCAM!!

Can’t believe we nearly fell for it turns out there isn’t any Winifred Grace Hartland………….   George Orwell wrote this in 1944:

Many years ago I answered an advertisement from Winifred Grace Hartland (the advertisement used to carry a photograph of her—a radiant woman with a sylph-like figure), who undertook to cure obesity. In replying to my letter she assumed that I was a woman—this surprised me at the time, though I realize now that the dupes of these advertisements are almost all female. She urged me to come and see her at once. ‘Do come,’ she wrote, ‘before ordering your summer frocks, as after taking my course your figure will have altered out of recognition.’ She was particularly insistent that I should make a personal visit, and gave an address somewhere in the London Docks. This went on for a long time, during which the fee gradually sank from two guineas to half a crown, and then I brought the matter to an end by writing to say that I had been cured of my obesity by a rival agency.

Years later I came across a copy of the cautionary list which Truth used to issue from time to time in order to warn the public against swindlers. It revealed that there was no such person as Winifred Grace Hardand, this swindle being run by two American crooks named Harry Sweet and Dave Little. It is curious that they should have been so anxious for a personal visit, and indeed I have since wondered whether Harry Sweet and Dave Little were actually engaged in shipping consignments of fat women to the harems of Istanbul.

Whilst browsing a secondhand bookshop in Norwich recently, I came across this beautiful book on The Art of Draping from 1936.

The shop window displays of the time are quite stunning, as are the mannequins..  The pictures in the book are quite small so I have blown them up and enhanced as best I could.

The mannequins were made by British Display Figures Ltd.

This pattern comes from a magazine dated 1947.

It can be downloaded from here in pdf format

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