Vintage Goodness, Inspiration and Lots of Free Stuff!

Ok, so we haven't blogged for a loooong time! The stress of remodelling my house took its toll and I have been in a bit of a creative slump for a couple of months. Today I have had such a fabulous day I just can't keep it in so it seemed like a good time to come back! Today I went to a vintage bazaar in Ilkley to see the lovely Emma of Cakewalk, drop off some work for her shop and have a browse around.

I met lots of stallholders that I had seen at the last vintage event organised by The House of Rose and Brown and lots of pieces on their stalls I had coveted on that occasion and didn't buy. However, on that day I did buy some cute J&G Meakin cups and a jug to match a teapot I have. I saw the same stall today and the lovely lady running it was delighted to tell me that she had found some saucers to match the cups at a carboot and had saved two for me as a gift! This is my very pleasing little tea-for-two set all united!

Acts of random kindness always set you up for the day but it just kept getting better. On the same stall I found a thing, a curious thing that I was fairly sure that I recognised as a homemade device for making Tenerife lace. It is basically a cardboard or wooden circle covered in cloth and with evenly spaced pins all around it's edge. I recognised it because in my long absence from doing anything really constructive I have been investigating using flowers made on vintage flower looms in my corsages. knittingand on flickr is an avid collector of these things and has a fantastic collection of photos of them and all her other sewing and knitting gadgets.

Tenerife lace, or calado canario in Spanish is needlewoven lace made by inserting the pins into wood in various patterns (sometimes using a paper template) - especially circular ones, winding threads around them to make the spokes of a wheel and then weaving various designs into the spokes with a needle. I have a bag of vintage silk threads that Lesley bought me from Birmingham's market a while ago that I can't wait to try out on it. For now though, this is the piece of work that is on the thing right now along with a finished one that came with it - all for 50p!

My brilliant day still not over, I spent a gorgeous hour picking bilberries in the sun on Ilkley Moor on the way home (which I fully intend to tranform into muffins for breakfast tomorrow!) and then got home and acquired a bag of free fabric pieces from a freecycler.

So I end my day not entirely suprised that it is Lou Reed and NOT Simon Le Bon singing 'Perfect Day' in my head tonight - may there be many more like it!

Paula x