Thrifty haul

Once or twice a year my favourite local thrift store, Charity Begins at Home, has a sale if you can believe it. Their prices are always incredibly reasonable, something you can't always say about an increasing number of thrift stores. Anyway, their sale involves knocking 50% off everything in the shop and I thought I'd share some of my finds. For only £20 I came away with some super haberdashery supplies, as well as fabric and the ever essential doily. The ladies who run the shop do a great job and were the well-deserving winners of the Queens Award for Voluntary Service this year.

Four yards of lovely soft fabric

Lace and doilies galore

Trims, zips and a rainbow of fabric

A quick messenger bag

Hello fellow bissums,

sorry for the radio silence. What with it being a glorious Scottish summer and all I've been out in the garden watching nature do it's thing. I've also been sunning myself in Venice for a week and nourished my creative soul and satisfied my desire to eat gelato for seven days on the run.

Anyway while I was in the Veneto, it struck me that the tea towel is surely one of the most ubiquitous of holiday souvenirs. It's a daily reminder of cheery times spent with people you love in (hopefully) unforgettable destinations. But eventually, the poor wee thing gets washed out and stained with lord knows what in the quest to keep your kitchen tidy. What if there was a way to combine everything that is functional and practical about the humble tea towel, with a stylish reminder of good times had on holidays I pondered?

I've had a little habit going for a while now of sorting through piles of tea towels in thrift shops and choosing the best ones to take home to add to my fabric family. I like to take a moment and imagine who purchased each one and how they felt about being in their chosen destination. Or perhaps it was an unwanted gift for someone who wasn't lucky enough to be at said destination. In any case my collection has grown steadily. I was most thrilled to find one of the old school calendar tea towels from the year I was born and some from the part of Scotland in which I now reside. I chose however, for this remake, to use a gorgeous tea towel from New Zealand, my home country which had a pretty collection of stamp images and a map of NZ. I should have taken a snap of her in her original glory before snipping her up.

Handy outside pocket on the back of the bag

Another handy little inside pocket

Anyway, after a little googling I came across a fab tutorial for a simple messenger bag and thought it was the very thing for my project. I used an old pillow case for the lining and a salvaged piece of navy corduroy for the main fabric. It was quick and simple to stitch up, no fastenings or zippers here. Next time you're thinking about ditching a pile of old tea towels think again and get thee to thy sewing machine pronto (like the way I casually dropped in some Italian lingo there?)!

xx

A lovely thrifty find

I remember when I was a little lass playing around with my mothers powder compacts. I remember the smell of the powder and the smooth shiny feel of the case. I think I also remember being lucky enough to add an old, empty compact to my dressing up supplies and feeling pretty damn flash when I whipped it out for checks on my non-existent makeup.

Even though these compacts are largely redundant now because it's seemingly impossible to find powder cakes to fit them, they have a lasting charm. Imagine my delight then when I found not one but two English Stratton compacts in one of my local thrifty haunts for the bargain basement price of 99p each! The interiors are in perfect nick, which is unusual because so many have damaged mirrors.

So as the weekend approaches I wish you happy rummaging in a thrift store near you!

Lamp makeover

I've always really admired the style of Dottie Angel and Ted & Agnes. They're the author's of 'Granny Chic: Crafty recipes & inspiration for the handmade home from Dottie Angel and Ted & Agnes'. One of the cool ideas in the book involves tarting up an old wire lampshade with scraps of your favourite fabrics and I decided to try my hand at it.

I picked up a scalloped wire shade in a thrift shop for £1 and cut the old cover off and used scraps and doilies from my collection for recovering. It can be a wee bit fiddly but once you get the first few scraps on, it's much easier. The trick is keeping the fabric taut and pinning and stitching as you go makes that easier.

I heartily recommend the book if you're serious about cultivating a love of all things granny chic. The photography is fantastic and the can-do spirit of the authors is inspiring.

Crafty holiday goodness

For the past week I've been in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales staying with the fella and the pooch in a wee cottage in lovely Sedbergh. If you're ever in the area I can highly recommend Farfield Mill if you want to get a sense of what the local crafters are all about. They actually still use the 80 year old looms in the mill to make all sorts of beauties such as rugs and textiles.

Anyway, as you would expect I did my own tour of the surrounding thrift stores and on the very first day of the holiday I had what can only be described as the shoe find of the century! Normally I only give the shoes in thrift stores the most cursory of glances before moving on to more interesting territory. After all, feet are very personal parts of the body and shoes are rarely given away in good condition. I nearly had a conniption in the Oxfam store in Penrith when I came across the glorious clogs you see below.

I'm going through a love affair with wooden shoes at the moment. The trick is to wear them in slowly over time I think and for the more fashion forward amongst us, you might brave wearing a cute ankle sock with a sandal like the one above.
Also in the weeks thrifty haul was the best part of Cumbria's supply of doilies and linens (apologies if anyone else wanted some!). Now although it's lovely just to look at these treasures and wonder what you'll do with 50 vintage tea towels and tray mats, it's also nice to use them in a crafty creation.

Recently I felt it was time to put some of my materials to use so I decided to make a skirt. With all the right tools, like a sewing machine, you can make this skirt in under an hour.

Materials:
I used a double sized flat bed sheet for this and I think the pattern is really delightful.
A length of elastic
Doily or any embellishment you have to hand.
 

How to do it:

•  Fold the sheet in half lengthways, right sides together. If you have the part of the sheet which was already hemmed at the bottom, you can cheat and use this as your skirt hem.
• The next step is to decide how long you want the skirt to be and then add approximately one inch to that for a waistband. Mark and cut across the sheet at that line.
• Now sew a line of straight stitching down the long side of your fabric so you have a tube. If you're a skinny minnie or want to have a less-full look to your skirt, you can simply cut a strip off the side before you start sewing.
• Now you've got your tube, still with right sides together, fold a half inch of fabric down and press all the way around the top of the skirt. Fold down another half inch and press again. This will provide the casing for your elastic.
• Sew a line of straight stitching all the way around the bottom of your casing leaving a small gap to thread your elastic through.
• Cut your elastic to fit around your waist (or wherever you want the skirt to sit) and add a couple of inches to that measurement.
• Thread your elastic through and had stitch the ends together. Close the gap you left in the casing either by hand or with your machine.
• Add any embellishment you fancy! I added a linen doily to this skirt so it had a pocket but anything goes. Enjoy!

Restyling junk

Ever wondered what to do with some of the junk and ornaments you have lying around the house, or find in your local thrift shop? Well today I came across this guy, Chad Wys, who has taken upcycling to a whole new level. Check it out...

 

Weekend schenanigans

On Saturday I went trawling through some more local thrift shops and to my amazement I rocked up outside one just in time to see a tub full of old 1970's annuals being deposited out the front with a sign saying each book was only £1! This was a truly fortuitous find as these are becoming quite the collectors item. I snapped up six of the best, not wanting to be greedy and hoped someone else would be as thrilled as I was to find these treasurers.

Filled with enthusiasm I knew what I wanted to do with some of the pages from these nifty books immediately. I had a terracotta plant pot that was crying out for a makeover so off I went.

Sad pot before makeover

Happy pot after makeover

It's only been a couple of weeks since I got my new sewing machine so I am still in the honeymoon phase and wanting to spend every spare minute with her. I decided to have a go at making an envelope purse which is super simple. I drew a pattern onto some thick paper and then cut out on two different bits of fabric and away I went.

Pattern shaped something like a house

Lining made from an old sun dress

 Lastly I did make time to take the pooch for a clamber through our nearest local castle. She jumped straight on the battlements and I think she looks like she belongs there.

Thrifty haul

After a very productive morning at work today I was lucky enough to have the afternoon off. Pondering how best to use to this new found freedom I decided I would pay a visit to my local thrift shops. I had some bits and bobs I had been hauling around in the boot of my car for the last week which needed to be dropped off to a charity shop so off I went.

Upon entering my favourite local store, aptly named 'Charity Begins at Home', I was filled with a sense of purpose and was more than a little bit excited. I wasn't disappointed. This shop seems to receive regular donations of crafty haberdashery so I was in heaven. Elbowing others out of the way (kidding!...or am I) I picked up an awesome old curtain firstly with the pleasing price of only £3. Curtains are the forgotten heroes of thrifting. They come in some fantastic designs and are terrific value for money because of the amount of fabric you get.

Not to be deterred I moved over to the shelves holding all the sewing oddments. I picked up some great buttons on their original cards, along with new spools of coloured thread. All of these items were only 50p a shout- result! I'm not averse to buying new sewing paraphernalia when the need arises but if you pick the basic staple items for next to nothing, why not!
Other things I'm always on the look out for a buckles (for making belts) and handles (for making awesome bags). These both formed part of my plunder today.

All these items are on top of the curtain I picked up. Can you spot the wee buckle at the top?

Lastly but by no means least, I made my way to the ubiquitous doily box. Every self respecting thrift store has one. It pays to have a quick look at each item before throwing it into your basket with wild abandon because due to the very nature of these items, they can often be stained. Don't let the odd mark put you off though, you can applique over them when transforming them into something else wonderful.
I managed to walk out with 12 linen place settings, a clutch of lace edged hankies and a few other beauties.

All in all it was a very fruitful half hour and £20 well spent and will provide plenty of entertainment for the long weekend.  Oh, did I mention the super cute vintage Marks & Spencer blouse I picked up for £1 complete with peter pan collar!

Happy crafting fellow bissums.
xx