I bought them from Carluccio’s a few weeks ago and hid them away from my scavenging children 🙂
I put them in the green bowl I got from the charity shop last week and then got a bit carried away making bluebell hats.
I put the bits of spare flowers in my little blue spotty enamel cup.
And then put the eggs on on the Victoria sponge I made for pudding yesterday. I’m obsessed with those eggs. Xxx
Filed under Easter
I’ve been making pin cushions out of damaged, vintage embroidered tablecloths.
The embroidery was done in the Forties and Fifties and I only recently realised the pattern was already printed onto the linen so in that sense it was easy as they had a pattern to sew on.
You can tell how good the person was at embroidery partly because sometimes they didn’t cover the lines properly so you can see bits of the printing which should have been covered.
The real art though is in the colours. I’ve been collecting vintage table cloths for 20 years and so often I’ll see one which has been expertly made yet the colours aren’t very inspiring and I always think what a shame to have worked so hard and spent so many hours making it yet the result isn’t too enchanting. That’s unfortunately the case with most of them which is why when I find ones like these it’s like finding gold dust.
I wonder about the ladies who made them. Were they young, middle aged, elderly ? How did they even have time to embroider tablecloths when they had so much else to do, cooking from scratch, hand washing, looking after their families etc without all the mod cons we have.
Saying that though, they didn’t have televisions and if I didn’t watch so much TV I could probably embroider at least a couple of large table cloths every week 🙂 I’m glad they did it though so I don’t have to.
So here they are all together. I’ve also added some vintage fabric flowers to make them even more colourful and scrumptious.
And here they are all dressed for Easter.
I think a pin cushion should be beautiful because it’ll be next to you while you sew  year after year. Mine is one of the very first things I made and I still love it.
Filed under Vintage Fabric
Vintage fabric mini garland in my shop. I love making these so much as every piece is different and beautiful. There is old embroidery of hyacinths and patchwork in this one and I’ve cut out some flowers too.
Patchwork vintage fabric cushion covers with old Disney characters, embroidery and florals.
One of my cut flower collages which I make using vintage floral fabric.
Vintage fabric patchwork throw. Lovely over a settee or bed.
Flowers from my garden a couple of weeks ago. Tulips, wall flowers, bluebells and forget me nots in a tiny little glass.
One of my vintage fabric lavender hearts. This floral fabric was made in the thirties.
A small selection from my little on line shop.
Little patchwork pin cushion. The blue fabric is from 1940’s America and is so precious. I  treasure every tiny piece 🙂
The bluebells in my garden were extra blue and lasted a long time this year due to the cool damp May/June.
Flowers from the garden. Lilac, bluebells, wall flowers. I LOVE this picture………
Lilac, borage, ceanothus, forget me nots, fairy washing up liquid, my lovely pigeon card and cut out vintage fabric flowers.
More lovely blue and purple flowers. xxx
Filed under Miscellaneous, My Old Victorian Garden, Vintage Fabric
This lovely market is on the second Saturday of every month in “The Village” pub 258, Â Muswell Hill Broadway N10 3SH. It’s large, and airy and free to enter, 12-5pm.
These are some of the stalls which caught my eye last Saturday.
Above is the most amazing cross stitch by Emma Congdon  http://etsy.me/194kKdp  This photo doesn’t do it justice at all. Emma sells the kits for people to do themselves and this Muswell Hill one is brilliant.
Marcia Knight makes the most beautiful children’s clothes and sells wool too in scrumptious colours.
Look at these beautiful dresses !!! Â https://twitter.com/Yarnsulike
There was a stall run by a mother and daughter from Margate who sell postcards and little mirrors etc of photos they’ve taken. I bought some of the ice cream and flake cards which are absolutely adorable. Â http://www.curlabouttown.com/
Frances Cronin makes these sweet and lovely little rabbits !! There were lots of them but I like the ones in dresses best. I love taking pictures of people’s things for my blog because I like chatting to the lovely people who make things. It’s something they do because they (and me) love  making things. It’s for love, not money. https://twitter.com/franwen
Annemarie Fearley had a stall outside and makes bright colourful owls and other animals with vintage fabric. Lovely for a child’s room or anywhere in the house. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Shes-Got-it-Made/158449937537923
On the way out I bought a box of mixed cakes to take home. I’ve bought from this stall before so I knew they’d be good.
They were all made freshly that morning and the little cheese cakes were out of this world.
There were lots more stalls and it’s a lovely atmosphere but it’s never as busy as it should/could be.  It’s quite a new market so hopefully word will soon spread http://muswellhillmarket.com/
Filed under Muswell Hill, London, UK
It’s a beautiful magazine and the front page and the styling was done by Selina Lake. The floral heart (top left) and the moustache cushion  are by Thimble & Bobbin, the Aunty card is by Abigail Warner, the little floral note books are by Emma Wilson, the LOVE postcard is by Cassia Beck, the lavender card and vintage lavender pillows are by Sesame and Lilly  and the vintage embroidered hoop, lavender bag and yellow floral lavender heart are by me !!
Blimey that took ages, I’m not a natural at all this copy/paste/link business but I wanted to acknowledge all the other artists on the front cover with me.
Amongst all the beautiful pages is a six page spread about stylist/maker Torie Jayne who’s well known for her amazing blog.
Birdhouse Key rack
Torie’s workroom. I love that pink chair !!
Some of her lovely things
Her business card.
I met Torie at Selina’s book launch a few weeks ago when she came to my stand and introduced herself. I was quite taken aback because I didn’t know she’d be there. She gave me her card and I’ve kept it safely because it’s SO lovely. One of the nicest business cards I’ve ever seen.
Filed under Magazine Features, Vintage Fabric
Poor mummy chick forgot to change the clocks forward and she overslept so she’s an hour behind and no time to do her hair.
My kids think I’ve totally lost the plot ! Do I care ? No I don’t 🙂
In fact one of my boys is sitting in the front room with his football shirt on watching a game shouting at the top of his lungs every time the ball goes near the net. God knows what the neighbours think.
The other son has just this second phoned me to say he’s on the train and can I fetch him in ten minutes…. errr no I can’t. He seems to think that I sit here with my car keys in my hand all day and night happily waiting for his call. I don’t. He’s 21 !!!!!!!!!!!!
I was having a happy little Easter blog,
and now I feel like this   Ahhhhhhhh. Happy Easter everyone. Off I go to the station.
Filed under Easter, My Etsy Shop, Vintage Fabric
I’ve always loved flowers but I remember being a small child and thinking that anemones Â
were fuddy duddy, musty, Â dusty old lady flowers. I’ve sort of grown into them now. Oh dear.
They are amazing actually aren’t they.
There’s an article about me in Prima magazine, the April edition which came out about 3 weeks ago. Mags are always weeks ahead of themselves it seems.
It’s quite odd seeing what you’ve said written in print. A bit surreal. It was an article with three women, me being one of them, who had shops in their houses.
Gosh it’s tidy. I wish it was always like that. I’m a very untidy person.
Here’s a stork on the pond in the park where I take the dog. I think it’s a stork. I know that  to people who live in the countryside it’s no big deal but for me it really is something special. It was absolutely freezing on that day last week and it just stood there completely still. I see it quite often.
Lets have cake…….lemon drizzle anyone ?
Prima Magazine (March) came out a couple of days ago and I thumbed manically through the pages as the stylist Selina Lake  had borrowed a vintage fabric patchwork throw and three cushions from me.
Page 81-83 they’re on  !! I was quite exited standing in the magazine section of Tesco at 9pm, my new shopping time which is quite relaxing as it’s not busy and the crying  babies and fed up toddlers are all at home. I think that after about 9pm they should put out a few comfy chairs so that those so inclined could read the mags in comfort instead of leaning heavily on our trolley.
I could quite happily  spend a whole day in Tescos. I usually spend about half an hour in the magazine section anyway and sometimes meet a friend upstairs at Costa for a nice uninterrupted hour or two of quality catch up time.
Then back downstairs to meander round shopping leisurely, reading labels, peering at calorie contents, noticing how it’s all so expensive these days and wondering if my kids will notice that I’ve bought Tescos own brand of Special K. (They did and declared it inedible so I gave it to the birds)
Then I’d go and buy a couple of news papers, go back up in the lift to Costa and  have a nice cake or two which I didn’t have with my friend as we’re fiendishly slimming (not)….
Then I’d go back down and maybe browse through the ‘colds and flue’ isle wondering if it’s actually worth buying vitamins and then maybe saunter (wearilly, after those two cakes) around the electronic isle looking at phones and ipads.
By this time I would hope that at least one of my children would have bothered  to phone me to enquire as to my whereabouts….but probably not.
If my local Tesco had a bed and breakfast area for tired shoppers, like a little rest stop with own brand sheets, cheap slippers and mini tubes of toothpaste for those of us who couldn’t face the inevitable job ahead of unpacking the shopping and putting it away then I’d book ahead. As long as I got tipple club card points.
My throw featured here was £140 but to celebrate it being in Prima it’s now the amazingly good value of £95. The cushion was £45 and is now £38.
Stylist Selina Lake  is launching her lovely new book ‘Pretty Pastel Style’ with a wonderful fair with fantastic designer maker stall holders. I went to her last one nearly a year ago and it was so beautiful and quite exiting. It’s in Kingston West London on Friday the 22nd March 2013 and everyone is welcome. There will I’m sure be lots of cake.
The photo here are by Sussie Bell
I’ve been making some flower collages which I absolutely love doing. 
I was a florist for about 10 years during the eighties  in our family business which was a Dutch/continental flower shop in London so I’m no stranger to flower arranging.
I’ve always loved hot, strong clashing colours and where as most of our customers preferred the safety of  elegant white bouquets  and arrangements, when they saw the wonderful, vibrant clashes of carefully selected orange, pink and red flowers flown in straight from the growers in Holland, they  gradually loved  those colour combinations too.
This fabric is from the thirties and forties and I cut out the flowers by hand. It’s much warmer than working in a busy flower shop and I don’t get rose thorns in my hands.
These pictures can be found in my on line shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/NickyGrace
Filed under Vintage Fabric
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Encouraging comments on Face Book
I’m just realizing that the amount of people that see my posts on Face Book
directly correlates to the amount of people who leave a comment.
I’m a culprit myself. I’ll see something nice on someone’s page and press the ‘like’ button but not often comment because I can’t think what to say and whatever I do say sounds phoney or cheesy and it’s a bit cringe….. I don’t always want to comment anyway, I just want to ‘like’ and go. But now I realize that it’s the comments that make the Face Book world go round I shall make much more effort to do so.
I’ve also noticed and been told by  social media expert Lindsay that if you don’t comment on people’s posts or they don’t comment on yours that Face Book now don’t show you those posts any more and not only is that a real shame but when you have a business (fan) page it’s  also detrimental. FB now want people to pay for posts  to reach more people which does work as I’ve tried it but I’d much rather deal in comments than £££.
To encourage such comments I’ll do little competitions sometimes on my page which is what I made these cards for. That was all a bit long winded wasn’t it. Never been good at explaining myself, sorry xx Press this !
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Filed under My Etsy Shop, Vintage Fabric
Tagged as Etsy, Face Book, Face Book comments, Face Book fan page, floral, flower cards, Flowers, Good Luck, Gorgeous Things, Handmade, handmade cards, Happy Birthday, Happy Mother's Day, London, Muswell Hill, Nicky Grace Vintage Fabric & Goregous Things, UK, Vintage Fabric, vintage fabric cards, Vintage fabric cut flowers, Vintage Gifts