ANOTHER YEAR OLDER AND A THRIFTING I WILL GO...

Well we are only two weeks into the New Year already and I just can't beat some of my old habits....

It was my birthday earlier this week and I treated myself to a day off work and a lovely coffee and piece of cake from my favourite local bakers, Petite Patisserie, who provide all the refreshments and scrumptious cake for our Vintage Vogue Tea Room. It was definitely a treat and it took me ages to eat that cake, as you can imagine! It knocked spots off the disappointing visit last weekend to a new bakers not that far away, also based locally, I was absolutely horrified to be served coffee and cake in plastic - ugh, I will not be going back there again and it was more expensive as well!!!

The best thing about my local high street are the Charity Shops. Besides the usual necessities like bakers, post office, dry cleaners, shoe menders, chemist and grocery shops these stand out the most and there are more of them on every high street these days but they are my favourite shops and i love a bargain and of course donating my unwanted clothes and giving to charity by buying something back from them in the process is the best feeling in these hard times!

Today I was really excited when the lady in one of the shops said she had some more knitting patterns out the back. She came back with a carrier bag full and it was great to find so may old patterns in one place and at 50p each I just got carried away.

My scarf drawer also needed a good tidy up this weekend as I always get it in a mess as it's hard to find the scarf i want as I have so many. Today I decided to organise it a little better and you must agree this method makes it so much easier to find the scarf i want. There are more pictures of my scarves but i don't want to bore you too much, maybe another time.

Out with the old, in with the New

Happy New Year to everyone!

I hope all my followers have had a great Christmas, full of rest, good cheer, fun and frivolity.

I have really been enjoying this well-earned rest from my day job. I have watched some great films on video and tv, favourite tv programme was Downton Abbey for obvious reasons, it's British Drama at its best and I don't think there has been anything else to attract my attention other than Miss Marple and Poirot.

Whilst watching the TV I sit and knit my sweaters. I have finally completed the double breasted tweed sweater as pictured in my previous post in a lovely wine tweed coloured wool, I wore it last Thursday when we visited the V&A post-modernism exhibition and we also hit the busiest shopping street in London - Oxford Street but that was only because we had to shop at John Lewis which has always been my favourite department store. Once upon a time I used to buy all my yarn and ribbon there but over the years the department has shrunk in size and choice but never mind, yesterday we were buying household items not haberdashery. We survived the trip and I was so glad to get home again.

The other morning I went shopping locally and popped into a couple of the charity shops. I managed to find a few knitting patterns as well as a couple of dressmaking patterns. One of the knitting patterns was a crossover cardigan, designed by the Royal Society of Arts for ballerinas. I only ever had a faded photocopy so now i have the original. I will share pictures another time.

Also featured is the fair isle sweater I started months ago but didn't quite finish off until New Years Eve. It came out a little smaller than I would have liked but it still fits me so my efforts were not in vain and at least I know for next time to knit it on larger needles. I hope you like it.

Well must go now. I will blog again soon, I promise!

A Weekend of Knitting and Stitching

I was really glad I visited the Knitting and Stitching Show in Ally Pally on Saturday. As I was expecting, it was packed solid with ladies of all ages buying wool and all sorts of goodies relating to knitting and sewing. The only moan of the day was that there wasn't much room to move and the food was a bit lacking in choice and there were hardly enough seats to accommodate the thousands that visited.

Anyway, I came away with nice wool to knit a sweater or two. I just love tweed wool which will knit up into a lovely sweater like the 1950s style one pictured. I also found some really lovely fabric as pictured. I am not very good at dressmaking but I am one to have a go at anything so I will buy a nice 1940s blouse pattern and either have a go myself or ask someone to do make them for me (I guess it will be the latter).

It was great to see such enthusiasm for the Campaign - "Love Fashion Hate Sweatshops", I just had to buy one of their clothbags which I will carry with me wherever I go to spread the word..... I felt inspired by the creativity they were sharing with everyone, it's amazing what you can make out of old unwanted cloth and in fact anything that gets thrown away. There were also some great exhibitors showing off their creations one of which just caught my eye as shown in the picture above.

There were a few Magazine stands including one for Women's Weekly so I felt inspired to dig out some of my original 1950s knitting patterns as a homage to them celebrating 150 years since the start of their publication.

I am really looking forward to next year's show.

Vintage Vogue 2nd October was HOT HOT HOT!!!

If you were lucky enough to visit Vintage Vogue yesterday, whether you are a trader or a shopper you would have had a fabulous time just like we all did.

Despite the hot weather there were some relentless women that had waited a long time to buy some of my sweaters, maybe it's because the weather forecast for this month is heavy snow. As I sold so many I will need to be busy knitting for the next Fair in April 2012.

Anyway, here's an amateur video of the Vogue Tea Room as a taster. More pictures and videos of the fair will be posted again soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z3J4wmXOqA

I am very excited to be visiting the Knitting & Stitching Show at Ally Pally next weekend and no doubt I will be leaving there with some wool and other knitting treats! I will let you know what

Wool Glorious Wool

From no blogging to lot of blogging, I have been busy behind the scenes, working hard to produce some wonderful sweaters in time for Vintage Vogue on 2nd October.

To get me really organised I had a wool shelf built at home, as I had bags of wool stacked against the wool in the bedroom, it really wasn't very pretty and I could not remember what wool I had. As you can see, my wool looks so much nicer out in the open, on show in all it's glorious colour.

I have just finished knitting a sweater for a nice lady in New York which is a pretty little 1950s sweater, one of my favourite designs and such a pleasure to knit. I love the vintage buckle and the turret pattern around the neckline and bottom.

On a 1950s theme, I have also been knitting some 1950s windcheaters, the pattern I have featured previously, I will have three of these to sell, all in different colourways. My favourite is a red and grey one as above. I am also knitting one for me to wear at the Fair.

I am looking forward to this weekend as we are going to Ramsey on Sunday which should be a really nice day out and a day for catching up with friends and traders that we know.

Well, must go now , off to work shortly.

The 12.35 train from Paddington

Hi everyone

Well, I haven't been blogging just lately but it doesn't mean that i haven't been doing anything in my life, it just means I spend most of my time doing stuff.

Last month Stephen and I took a short break to Paris on the Eurostar from Paddington, I must admit it was quite exciting and just as much fun as flying but a lot less stressful and comfortable.

We stayed close to the Financial District behind Printemps the Department Store. Our hotel was Hotel Opera D'Antin which was part of the Best Western chain but it was a small independently owned boutique hotel with a definite art deco feel, in so far as our toilet had an art deco cabinet in the room, a little odd but quirky I suppose.

Now considering I haven't been to Paris for about 25 years it was like being there for the first time. As it was July it was full of tourists, just like us, so we tried to do as little touristy things as possible just to keep away from the masses, which is a little bit difficult if you want to see the Eiffel Tower and visit The Louvre. We found a great place to eat Macaroons without having to queue up for them and it was so relaxing, we recommend you visit.

If any of you are thinking of visiting soon, do make sure you check out a great Vintage Fair that we came across just by accident surfing the net before we left the UK. We met some really nice people there and I think most of them go to Rhythm Riot every November, including Batman, the DJ. It was so nice to go to a French Fair just to see how they do it in France, very similar to us over here actually but more laid-back.

We met a lovely lady and visited her shop Retro Chic. It was such a lovely sunny day when we went to visit her so we sat outside the Cafe next door.

Now my only shopping extravagance was a pair of navy/white shoes which look a little like golfing shoes, they we made in Italy but a French design. I might post a picture of them in another blog post soon, with me wearing them.

We also were very impressed by some buskers playing gypsy jazz in Montmartre , this simply made our trip more enjoyable.

I took enough change of clothing with me as I wanted to look Tres Chic whilst I was there but was most surprised at the glances we were receiving because we were dressed in Vintage/Retro clothing as I don't think it's quite caught on yet in Paris, very surprising considering back in the 1950s Paris was THE fashion centre of the World.

Well Paris is just a distant memory now but one day we may return.....never say never!

Au Revoir mon amee!

Spring and Weddings are back in fashion just like Vintage Knitwear

Well I have certainly been busy these past few weeks....

I have all but knitted my fair isle 1940s sweater in maroon and grey and it just about fits me - wishing it was slightly longer in the body and that I hadn't followed the pattern truly as I went smaller on my needles where the fair isle is and wish i hadn't - oh well, a lesson learnt for next time. Pictures of the finished sweater will follow in a later post.

Today I had my hair cut and spent most of my morning scouring charity shops only to find an old P&B knitting booklet and a bio book about Garbo.

Now I am knitting another 50s cardigan two-toned in navy and grey which will form part of my collection at our October Fair. I also bought a nice late 30s/early 40s knitting pattern from Etsy, it's only a pdf but for £1.36 it's a bargain. I am not sure if I would knit it with the big bow as it detracts from the button detail and buckle but it's certainly interesting so I will knit it at some point in the near future. I am also planning to knit my first mens sweater which will be on sale in October if Stephen doesn't get his way..... As you can see from the pattern above, it's very 50s but oh so stylish.

As the weather is warming up quite nicely I have been undertaking some 1950s dirndl skirt alterations so I can wear them this summer they were a bit on the large size for me but I manage to alter them so they fit me. I might also finish an old old project to make some 40s style trousers in dark brown gaberdine, they are really wide and the fabric is very heavy so they will hand well. You wouldn't believe that I actually started the project some 2 years ago, if not more. Yes I know, it's been a while but the knitting does take priority and the sewing I just fit in when I am in the mood to get my sewing machine out of it's box.

Well the theme most recently has been Weddings and we were guests at Stephen's niece's wedding on the Sunday. I wore my "Jonathan Logan" dress again (as seen above with my very "chap" looking husband) as i thought it was appropriate wedding attire. It's quite a tight dress but as it's truly upholstered and being vintage, very well-made, it really held up for the day. The bride looked gorgeous and the bride's mum was looking very smart in her hand-made "50s" style dress and jacket.

That's it now, back to the knitting and planning my summer wardrobe and looking forward to the next Vintage Vogue Fair on 2 October. Our April event was a big success with over 750 people visiting as you can see me above with Rayna. I managed to do some shopping and I bought a lovely 50s evening dress with a full skirt and an interesting jacket and dress for a bargain price.

I will blog again soon with more knitting news.