A merry vintage Christmas!

Merry Christmas from a very behind Ticking Stripes!

Please choose your own card

1. Naff decoration made from what was described as "old baking thingy" and vintage film canister



or 2. the festive scene on my latest vintage Christmas tin!



Comfort and joy to all

Love Wend

My luck is in!

I've finally got a new role with the same employer so should be safe for another year. (As far as anyone can be). I've moved into the job and am getting used to a new routine. Outside of work I seem to be in mega organisation mode and getting nowhere as something always comes up which takes precedence over what I actually want to do.



A few months ago I spotted these drawers in a landscape designer's office and asked for first refusal if he decided to sell them. I was amazed to get a call last week offering them to me for a very reasonable price. I've wanted some haberdashery drawers for years but knew I could never afford them so decided to go for it!



The drawers have a little divider about 6 cm in so you can fill the front bit with lovely bits and hide all sorts of stuff behind. I have a list of things to put in all the drawers but haven't had chance to fill them all yet. Can't wait!



I have started with a couple though - wooden cotton reel and doilies



I might have to save one for scarves. I've always worn scarves and tend to hang on to them. On my charity shop run last week I found a shop where somebody had clearly disposed of a collection which covered from 50s onwards.



As you can see I bought quite a few although I won't keep all of them. They cost the same whether they were polyester, acetate or silk!



Sorry about all the pictures - I loved them all!



Not sure I can wear this seventies one - but I am tempted!



Hope your Christmas preparations are going better than mine!

Love Wend

Recent finds

Thought I'd just share some pictures of my latest find in the vain hope that one of you may also think that I found something beautiful... Often I find that my nearest and dearest do not appreciate the things I find and love. Indeed some regard me as a bit of an oddity...so I had to smile when I saw this in a shop window! Obviously I wouldn't dream of spending the £180 it cost on such an item (unlike a customer in the shop who was proudly saying she had the same up at home. However I did find a pack of the Lexicon cards in a charity shop last week for a couple of pounds. Just wondering what little bit of advice I should assemble - maybe "to thine own self be true". What is your mantra?



I digress. When I saw this raggy piece of cloth in Lincoln I was hooked. I touched it and felt its soft texture - worn thin by years and years of use and love.



I pulled it out and marvelled at the subtle shades of patchwork pieces. Parts of it had worn so thin the top layer had disintegrated...



to reveal another layer of lovely patchwork underneath. I hesitated to ask the price and when I did had to wait for the assistant to ring the manageress. I was saddened when I heard eighty and thought I would have to return it to the shelves of despair but decided to just check.



"Not eighty but eighteen! It's Victorian you see." I do indeed. Oh decisions - what on earth can I do with it. Useful or beautiful? It won't register as useful - its days of providing any useful function are long behind it. Beautiful? Well it was to me.

Reader I bought it. (You knew I was going to say that didn't you?)



It has some unspoilt parts so I've folded it and put it on the back of a chair and I stroke it as I walk past and think of the comfort it has no doubt provided in years gone by. Unfortunately our cat has rather taken to it (she's no respecter of my stuff!) so she's going to have to spend the rest of her life outdoors!



I also found these lovely little hand painted tea plates, jug and bowl. I don't even "do" tea but they also spoke to me.



As did the young lady in this picture. I'm easily pleased (especially at £2 for the china and £2 for the picture - and I rarely haggle.) I hate to think what might happen to these things if I didn't take them home and love them...

Love Wend

In praise of tablecloths and tea towels

Now Niobe is settling at Exeter I'm hoping to find some time to indulge in some admiration of my vintage bits and pieces! Today with all the glorious sunshine I've had the day off work and taken advantage of the great drying weather to wash some of my new tablecloths.



Although these are probably 50 years old I think they still work well today. Love the colours on this and the fine stitches...



edged with cotton lace



Suspect this was stitched by a Scot - or is that too much of a cliche? Either way great thistles!



These four photos look as if they are from different cloths



but they are in fact four corners



of the same cloth.



Found in a charity shop this week. Unfortunately not charity shop prices but I couldn't leave this one behind! Charity shops around here certainly seem to have increased their prices and given their best stuff seems to go on e-bay these days not sure that they can justify some of the prices they are asking for!



Onto a couple of tea towels I've been sent by the lovely people at http://www.all-tea-towels.co.uk. I was asked to choose a couple from their range and in honour of one of our guilty pleasure I chose this unbleached cotton image of the iconic Tunnocks Teacake. (Can you have an iconic teacake? I think so!)



I also chose this one featuring a poster from the 1948 Olympics. This site has a great choice of tea towels should you be in need. They wash well, dry well and for me, more importantly, look good hanging in the kitchen! Have a look at their large range of styles for all tases - not easy to choose!

Hope you're making the most of the glorious weather!

Have you seen this man? Spotted at Snape Maltings while on holiday camping in Suffolk last week. This was a very welcome break after the pressure cooker environment I've been enjoying no enduring for the last few weeks while Niobe has been taking her A levels. I will just say to all similar Mums - "and Breathe"!



These stripes are on the possibly most photographed beach hut in the country in Southwold. Niobe wanted a "last" camping holiday before she goes away to Uni.
My bones are starting to resent this form of self abuse and cried "enough" as I tried to raise myself from the air bed each morning resmebling the actions of a beached whale. Still the weather made up for it!



Southwold's beach huts are notorious - as much for the cost as for their colour with some going for £70000 (yes seventy thousand).



I have to say though I rather like the dark more brooding huts found just across the river at Walberswick and can imagine myself whiling away the hours in a Virginia Woolf "Room of my own" type way.



Especially one like this - equipped right down to the East coast essential item - a hot water bottle for the beach! Why had I never thought of that!



Having some time way gave me the chance to sit down quietly and finally work out how to crochet a ripple - I've been going to a crochet class for several week over the spring but realised that the only way to get it is to PRACTISE. So with the sun blazing out at 5.30 I got in with it and cracked it. The biggest decision I had to make in my jamas was - what colour next?



I managed to track down a great car boot in Kessingland not far away and had some great finds - fabrics, art deco Barribal playing cards, little Kodak Brownie camera and a big old Peak Freans biscuit tin.



Not to mention this fabulous wooden hat box? It still has some battered old labels on it and is a great size. Niobe was a bit taken aback as I referred to it as my bedside cabinet in the tent. It worked a treat for my specs and lamp at night!



I'll let you have a closer look at my fabric finds - loving this grey and pink floral barkcloth



and then I found this piece - as new. Wow. Can't beat it - that feeling you get after a successful car boot! Who needs abseiling, paragliding, for their adrenaline fix? Not me!

Hope you're all enjoying these summery days. Hopefully I'll find some time to get round some of your lovely blogs soon - but that will be after the OFSTED inspection. As chair of governors I'm up before the inspectors this morning. Best go and brace myself!

Button it!

Last week I was contacted by the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Buttons) when they saw that Lesley over at Printed Material was about to take some buttons to THE TIP. Those of us in the society know that TIP and BUTTON shouldn't be used in the same sentence. Aware there was no time to waste I contacted Lesley on a mission to save these souls and she very graciously relented. She'd found a use for the white amongst the pack but let me have the rest. I've never removed my whites so was delighted when the buttons arrived and poured both coffee and buttons. The sorting of buttons is a serious business requiring full attention. The resulting collection of buttons was a joy to sort through - the whites dilute the colour of the rest! (I'm easily pleased!)



I found lots of buttons that I could add to my various categories assisted by my trusty baking tin.



I have collections of 50s and 30s, floral, leather and mother of pearl to name a few.



Buttons on cards can be found in little corners around the house



Also jars of specific colours a particular favourite being green.



Lots of the buttons I find that have been discarded are these very simple but colourful Jasons buttons. I keep these in a jelly mould ready to run my fingers through as I walk past. Again - simple pleasures!




I like the cards the buttons are mounted on just as much with the manufacturere desperate to convince the buyer to by his buttons. Fashionable buttons. Exclusive buttons



and on this one - The EGO brand! Love it.



I spent a happy hour sorting through before going on to examine some of my other recent finds. (Funny isn't it how "Happy hour" means different things to different generations!)



I never tire of looking at old packaging and advertising - be it paper, card or tin. How can I use this binding without damaging the wrapper? I might just have to leave it as is...



Might leave the Water Closet paper package intact too!

I found a scruffy little book in the bottom of a box and was delighted to find it full of colour plates of birds. The book is falling apart with a lot of marking but well worth 20p!





The paper bag below was holding some 60s fabric and I don't think had been opened since then - a 60s dress had been cut out and is ready to stitch up. Far too small for me though! The shop disppeared over 40 years ago to become Debenhams.



Also managed to find some more of the chemist labels I found a couple of years ago.



and some wonderful Weldons Shilling Guides once all bound together (at some point but now just a heap of paper which I needed to sort into some sort of order). These guides are instructions to the hobbyist in a variety of areas. These are just some of the great illustrations...



Crinkled paper shades for your piano candles!!!



Lovely woolly (scratchy) drawers for babies!



And the knitted knee cap. How on earth have we managed without these? Let me know if you need the pattern!