What a boot full of booty!!

Unbelievably, we’ve just acquired approximately 40 bolts of vintage fabric.

It all dates from the 1950s & 60s.

Most of them are unused – some still have their original labels & packaging.

It’s so rare to discover original vintage textiles like this – especially in this quantity.

A friend of ours works in the textiles. He has a friend, also in the trade, who was clearing one of his storage areas. Lurking at the back was all this fabric – bought by his father, which had lain there untouched for 50 or 60 years.

A real fabric collectors dream!!

Each bolt measures between 30 & 60 yards in length.

There are some fantastic patterns.

…period designs featuring flowers & fruit, geometric shapes and even space galaxies.

Some bold & bright, some monochrome.

We’ve only had the fabric for a few days and haven’t started identifying designers as yet – having said that there are lots still with original David Whitehead labels…

…a prominent textile manufacturer from this period.

We’re pretty sure that a good number of the ones without labels intact are by them too.

Here’s a quartet of David Whitehead adverts – we often come across them in vintage magazines from the 50s & 60s.

We’ll be putting the fabric up for sale in the coming weeks. Some we’ll sell as long fabric lengths in our antiques centre pitch – some we’ll sell by the metre in our webshop and Etsy & Folksy and eBay outlets.

A once in a lifetime find… many thanks to Shaun!!!

We spent Friday evening at the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair in Spinningfields, Manchester city centre…

…and a very pleasant evening it was too.

The fair expanded into two pavilions for its second year.

A great mix of ceramics, glass, metal, paper and textiles… from both new exhibitors and favourites from last year.

There were so many great stalls – we’ve just selected a few that caught our eye.

We’ll start with Jane Blease Design.

She uses plywood and threaded cotton to produce artworks, light shades and jewellery.

It’s striking from a distance, then fascinating in the detail.

A piece of Jane’s work was temptation number one and we’d only been in the marquee for a few seconds!

Moving along to &made,

Andrea Lord produces lovely hand-sewn pieces…

…her items simply & beautifully displayed.

Cushions, wall hangings and rows of gorgeous cacti pin cushions in their little terracotta pots!

We mentioned Derek Wilson Ceramics in our post from last year’s fair.

His stand, filled with his beautiful and delicate porcelain, stopped us in our tracks again…

….elegant, understated simplicity.

Ruth Green Design has proved another favourite with our blog readers – and a shot of her prints always rides high in our Flickr photo viewings.

We lingered at her stall for a good while.

Her prints, sold in limited edition runs, look fabulous hanging all together.

The Pear Tree, one of her  new designs, was another strong temptation!

You can always guarantee a striking display from Hannah Nunn’s Radiance Lighting…

…the warm cosy glow of her beautiful, nature-inspired shades…

…the designs hand cut from paper and then laminated.

Phew… time for a pit stop… a sit down with a glass of wine!!

First-time exhibitor Ken Eardley made the long drive up from Brighton where he has his studio.

His range of striking pottery with stylised trees, flowers & leaves was a real show stopper.

Functional and beautiful – always a winning combination.

No doubt his work will be starring in lots of interiors magazines in the future!

The natural landscape strongly inspires & influences the work of enameller Janine Partington.

Trees, flowers, seed heads, birds and animals.

She produces enamel panels, small sculptures and jewellery.

We’d love to stroll through a magical forest of her making.

Kent-based Maxine Sutton plays with imagery of familiar everyday domestic objects and the natural world.

Incorporating them into embroidered and printed textiles to produce a range of interior products.

There were lots of eye-catching items on her stand.

We’ve got a standard lamp that would happily accommodate one of her large shades… and we just loved the coffee pot/cafetiere cosies with their Scandinavian feel.

The work of Sarra Kate is bright and effervescent – just like Sarra Kate herself!

Her stand called out to us from a long way away.

She starts her pieces by making colourful collages which are then laser printed onto textiles and paper…

…which go into making wall hangings, cushions and cards.

Last, but certainly not least, we have Hannah McAndrew, another of our favourites from last year.

This is where we finally gave into temptation.

We admired her stand last year, filled with its mediæval-inspired slipware pottery.

This year we just had to take a few of her pieces home!

We’ve concentrated on featuring homes and interiors products, but there was also lots & lots of fantastic fashion & jewellery – and if we featured any more this post would turn into a novel!

All the makers will be packing up and making their way home as we write this… so be sure to put the fair in your diary for next year!

In our last post we talked about a pleasant little surprise we had when we opened an old tin… well it’s just happened again. We saw this lovely, vintage Christmas biscuit tin in our local Picture House Antiques today.

We’d already decided to snap it up for the tin alone. However, the price tag said that contents were included.

What a lovely surprise to find all this inside…

…everything you might need for a bit of darning…

…including tools and lovely old yarns.

Almost looking forward to getting holes in our socks!!!

We spent a very pleasant, sunny Sunday afternoon in Hebden Bridge today…

…including a visit to Snug Gallery on Market Street.

We were invited to their “Cupcakes & Cordial” open day.

It was a chance to say hello to owners, Ed & Yvonne Chadwick…

…and have a mooch around their recently-opened gallery shop.

The gallery features photographs by Ed himself…

…and some lovely, handcrafted objects by a variety of artists & designer makers.

Including &made, Calico Angel, Rebecca Callis, Kathryn Edwards, Ruth Green, Ikuko Iwamoto, Linzi Ramsden, Louisa Taylor and Sarah Thirwell.

As well as the delicious cupcakes made by Yvonne’s fair hand, there were lots of other tempting things on offer!!

We left with a couple of small purchases – a hanging porcelain bird by Rebecca Callis – a perfect present for someone special…

…and a bit of self-indulgence in the form of a very cute strawberry brooch by &made.

Hebden Bridge is famous for its wealth of interesting indepedent shops & galleries…

…and this gallery is a very welcome addition.

Here’s wishing Snug a bright future!

It’s funny how things happen…

…we were looking at these vintage doll patterns for Oxfam on the internet last night… then we walked into a local antiques centre today and found one!

This one’s called Nada and features a young Algerian girl in traditional dress. Here’s another similar one of her patterns that we found featured recently on the Pass the Pattern blog.

They were designed by illustrator, Belinda Lyon. There isn’t a great deal of information about her on the internet. We know she was working in the 1960s/70s – designing fab stuff – including textiles, books etc  She illustrated a number of books by Janet Barber.

In addition to the sewing patterns, she also produced a series of tea towels for Oxfam – this is her psychedelic camel!

We’ve just set up a Flickr group to share images of her work, so if you have any, please share!

There’s a new woman in Justin’s life!

She’s an alpine flower girl – and resides on this fabulous vintage pinny.

She came home with him on Wednesday – and he definitely took longer photographing this apron than he does photographing a cruet set – dreaming of life in the alpine meadows!

We love period kitchen textiles – tea towels, aprons, oven gloves, pan grabs, curtains etc.

Have a look at all the vintage pinnys currently available in the H is for Home shop

We spent a splendid few hours at the launch of the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair. This year, it’s being held in Manchester city centre at Spinningfields.

There are almost 150 stands featuring the work of top class designer-makers from as far afield as Cornwall, Bristol, Argyll, London… with a strong representation from Greater Manchester and the North West. There was a huge turnout of visitors – many bagging themselves some fabulous early Christmas presents (for friends, family & themselves!).

We couldn’t blog about absolutely all the craftspeople there, so here’s a bit about some of the ones who especially caught our eye…

We were both really taken by these delicate and tactile hand-thrown porcelain vessels from Belfast-based Derek Wilson Ceramics. His display was the epitome of pared back, understated loveliness!

Adelle has a soft spot for colourful & playful jewellery like these felt pieces from Lynsey Walters…

…and a well-known penchant for vintage and vintage inspired handbags & purses!

These ones above are from Monica Boxley who, as well as using original vintage fabrics, makes beautiful handmade leather handbags inspired by a 1950s one belonging to her mother. It’s named the Marianne in homage.

As we’re on the subject of bags & purses, here are some lovely natural linen examples below from Teresa Green who makes an array of goods using textiles that she designs & hand prints.

If you’re a regular reader of our blog posts, you’ll know that we love pottery. The timeless slipware made by Hannah McAndrew is just the kind of thing that gets us excited.

Her pieces would sit equally comfortably in both an ultra modern pad as well as well as an antique furnished country cottage.

There’s another Hannah exhibiting who’s work we’ve known & loved for a very long time. She’s Hannah Nunn, a lighting designer based a 10-minute drive away from us in Hebden Bridge.

If you’re ever in the area, her shop Radiance is in Hebden town centre. If not, she also sells online.

Ruth Green Design had a lovely display of eye-catching silk screen prints.

In addition to screen prints she has a lovely selection of linocuts and oil on paper works available on her website.

Tricia Needham is another screen printer whose work caught our attention. She makes these tea cosies as well as cushions, bags, scarves and ties (seen adorning the neck of Jon Snow no less!).

One stand that was getting a lot of attention from visitors on the night was Ingrid Wagner‘s…

Ingrid was encouraging people to try their hand at knitting with her giant needles and huge balls of wool & fabric. Ingrid in fact broke the world record last year for ‘extreme knitting’ – using needles three and a half metres long!

The Fair’s on until Sunday 25th October so get down there, it’s well worth a visit!

No, H is for Home hasn’t actually thrown in the towel – we’re just doing a short blog about the humble but sometimes wonderful, everyday object… the tea towel.

It was the acquisition of this example last week which brought it to mind. This vintage Irish linen tea towel was manufactured by ‘Old Bleach’ in the 1960s.

We already had a very similar one by the same maker – we love the period designs with their stylised birds and foliage.

They’re both in pristine, unused condition – we think we might get them framed.

Tea towels are always popular on the website. We’re always on the lookout for vintage aprons, cloths etc… They’re quite hard to find in excellent condition.

Here are a few favourites that have passed through the shop…

…and no blog post about teatowels would be complete without mentioning Skinny laMinx!

Her designs are fabulous!

Here are the tea towels we have in store at the moment!

We’re taking a look at the vintage and hand-crafted scene in Manchester, concentrating on the Northern Quarter area situated in the city centre.

The area has a nice collection of shops & stalls to tempt the vintage and hand-crafted enthusiast.

Let’s start with Manchester Craft & Design Centre. It’s a wonderful old building – a Victorian former fish & poultry market.

Spread over 2 floors, it houses a number of fabulous designer/makers, each with their own workspace cum retail outlet.

There are lots of gorgeous jewellery, clothing, home furnishings and accessories on sale.

Special mention must go to Calico Angel at Holm, owned by Susan Kane & Clinton Pilkington.

Not only are their products beautiful but the display was really imaginative – it’s an inspiring space.

There’s also a lovely little coffee shop, Café Aromat, on the premises. On a recent trip we had the best homemade muffins we’ve ever tasted!

Sticking with the hand-crafted theme, we move to Manchester Fashion Market

It’s held on Saturdays at the Piccadilly end of Tib Street.

It’s a group of about 10 outdoor stalls which sell clothing, bags, accessories and homewares – many using recycled fabric and materials.

Continuing on with vintage…

…there’s a great selection of vintage and retro shops in the area.

We love Pop Boutique on Oldham Street.

It always has a few tempting things in the window.

Once inside, you’ll find retro fashion upstairs and vintage homewares downstairs – along with a bustling café.

Across the road is Den Furniture…

…which has a mixture of contemporary & period vintage furniture including reupholstered pieces given a new lease of life.

Next door is Ryan Vintage – a real rummager’s paradise – both mens’ & womens’ fashion and very popular with Manchester’s student population.

Also on Oldham Street is Oxfam Originals…

… a great selection of clothes, bags, shoes and ties… and of course, the money goes to charity!

A short walk around the corner – back on Tib Street – is Rags to Bitches…

…it stocks a discerning selection of vintage clothes & accessories.

They also run lots of fashion-related talks & events in their shop.

Then there’s Cup on Thomas Street – homemade cakes & vintage crockery – what could be better?

Close by on Church Street, is Affleck’s Palace, something of a Manchester institution.

Three floors of fashion, vintage and alternative culture.

Also in the area and worth a visit are American Graffitti, Bluerinse Vintage and Retro Rehab – and some good art & craft supply shops like Fred Auldous and Abakan Fabrics, Hobby & Home.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our little tour and get the chance to visit!

We recently picked up some lovely vintage teak dining chairs from a local auction. They’re from the Moselle range produced by A. Younger Ltd in the 1950s. The seat covers were looking very tired, generally letting the chairs down. We’ve set about re-covering them. We bought the fabric a few years ago and have been waiting for just the right project to use it on. Here are the early reupholstery results.

They’ll soon make a wonderful set. They come with a matching extendable dining table.