Quilts, eiderdowns & blankets

I added some more vintage quilts & blankets & an eiderdown to the site today.

This type of quilt appears to have been made primarily between the 1930s-50s. They were made by a few companies, & the most frequently seen brands are 'Comfy' or 'Cozee'. They were marketed as 'washable & hygienic'. Often the design uses a patterned & a plain fabric in co-ordinating colours, with a border around the edge & a diamond in the centre. The two sides have the different fabrics in reversed positions. There are also some that have just a simple patterned & a plain side too. They do wash well & are generally lovely & soft, & nice to use. You'll sometimes see them described as 'Durham' quilts which they are not. These quilts are machine quilted & were made commercially whereas true Durham quilts were quilted by hand, either in the home, in quilting groups or sometimes by very skilled professional quilters.

Vintage eiderdowns were also made mostly c1920s -1950s, although I know that you could still buy them & have them re-covered right into the 1970s. Sometimes they have labels on & they appear to have been made by various companies. They come in a range of sizes from single, though 3/4, to the larger size which fits the top part of a double bed without hanging down the sides or covering the pillows. They were not made in today's king-size. I've found from experience that the earlier ones do tend to be slightly smaller & not so full. I don't think this is just because the feathers have leaked out, I think that as time went on, they were made bigger & plumper. It would appear that some companies filled theirs fuller than others too.

They can be washed in a normal washing machine, which is what we usually do. You do have to make sure that the condition is up to it, with no holes or weak spots. Then they must be tumble-dried straight away.

They were made in florals, plain satins, sometimes in prints to match a bedroom scheme (eg: old Sanderson prints) & I've even had the odd one in pure silk. You could buy them in shops, have them made up, or purchase them from mail-order companies. I believe that they were quite an expensive article to buy, which explains why they would often be re-covered when the original fabric became worn. When we bought our last home, the previous owner, an old lady, had lagged the hot-water tank by wrapping it in eiderdowns!

Smallholder & Garden Festival

At the weekend we had a day out to the Smallholder & Garden Festival in Builth Wells.
There was plenty there & we particularly enjoyed seeing the various animals. The section on eco-housing & 'green' issues was very interesting & we came away with lots of information & ideas.

This was one of the display gardens & my personal favourite. It was based around the idea of a wartime garden with things being recycled in the make-do & mend vein (see the old tin sheeting used to make raised beds), plus flowers & veg grown in together. I love the tiny tin shed & the improvised rope handle is a nice little detail.

We met Llamas, Guanacos & Alpacas.

Some lovely Angora goats who looked freshly shampooed for the show ring.

Rescued owls.

Birds of prey from a falconry centre, including this awe-inspiring golden eagle.

We sampled the best apple juice I've ever tasted, freshly pressed there in front of us, plus gorgeous organic ice-cream. Then we brought home delicious bread, cheeses & cake for tea too, so after 7+ hours on our feet, there was no cooking to do!

I love May!

May is definitely my favourite month! The plants & trees are not just growing but bursting forth & suddenly everything is green & lush again. There's still the exciting promise of things to come in the vegetable garden too.
This Wisteria on the back wall of the garden is smothered in blooms & I just wish I could share the fragrance with you.



It doesn't get much better than looking up at a blue sky through blossom-laden branches...



And in the woods are swathes of bluebells.


We've been making the most of the nice weather to get some gardening in. A couple of weeks ago I made lots of supports for the climbing plants I'll be growing from hazel sticks that we cut in the winter. The thicker parts were made into wigwams for beans & sweet peas etc.

I used off-cuts to make curved dividers in the beds.

Some shorter ones were used to make some funny little fences at the entrance to the rhubarb & pumpkin patch.

And any thin bits from the ends of the branches were cut into lengths to make an edging for the herb bed.

The long bed at the back of the garden, below the top wall, was laid down to grass when we moved in last year. Since it seemed a shame not to make use of this prime spot, we're in the process of digging it over & planting it. This was always going to be a mamoth task since this bed on its own is actually bigger than our previous garden! In the autumn we used old carpet to kill off the grass & weeds on half of the bed (we ran out of old carpet!). We've now dug the first part over & the job was much easier after the carpet treatment. The carpet pieces have moved onto the other half of the bed so that we can tackle that part later in the year. I'm just going to use annual plants in the border for the first season, so that it can all be dug over again in the autumn to remove any bits of grass & weed that escaped.

We've planted some grape vines on the back wall too.

In the top corner we've created a little habitat for the resident slow worm population, using logs & bits of old drain pipe & leaving the grass & plantlife long. These little creatures are really enchanting. We've even found one sunbathing on the hedge! Although they are called worms & they look like tiny snakes, they are in fact more closely related to lizards. Read more about them here.

Also flowering now are the almost black tulips that my mum bought for us to plant on the grave of our old cat, Oberon. He moved here with us last summer but died in the autumn, aged 18.

The tulips are called 'Black Hero'.

And now, for those of you who have been following the progress of our 'chicks'...

Meet Zorro!

They are 13 weeks old this week & doing great, out free-ranging with the other hens. Bizarrely (& luckily), out of 16 birds, we appear to only have 4 cockerals. So far the boys are getting along together OK but obviously we'll have to keep an eye on the situation in that regard.

The big one here, with the large comb, is Elvis, so called because he has a quite impressive voice!

Ruby the hen, looking for bugs.

Two of the Marans hens having a break.

Under the hedge. The mottled one is Kermit who has partridge-type colouring & five toes on each feathered leg. Those legs also happen to be green, hence the name!

Latest vintage additions...

I've been busy adding some more vintage goodies to the web site this week.
There's a good selection of the sort of pretty things I really love.


These c1920s-30s doll faces would be great for making up into things, either dolls or the type of boudoir item that was made in that era, such as nightdress cases etc... I've had ones before where a doll face was used as the centre, surrounded by lots of pleats, frills or lace.



I love these vintage rag books. This is quite an early one & has lovely, soft colours.

One of my favourite things this time is this beautiful old picture frame which is decorated with tiny ribbon forget-me-nots.

More ribbon embroidery on a lovely WW1 era panel.

And this just made me laugh... I love the label which reads 'Sausage Traffic - Urgent'. I'll have to try that when I post things & see if they get there any faster!

Speaking of funny words, I've often thought it'd be a great thing to 'collect' these amusing old brand names where they say what the particular item is supposed to do. Like this kitchen timer by 'Wendone'!

I'm looking forward to spending some time in the garden this bank holiday. Fingers crossed for some sunshine...!

Vintage fabric cushions etc

I'm working on the next upload of vintage stock right now. I've bought quite a lot of lovely stuff recently (good) but now there seems to be so much to work my way through (daunting) so, to try & break it down into manageable chunks, I've done the vintage fabric cushions & the quilts seperately today.


There are some pretty vintage eiderdowns & a lovely antique rosey quilt.



The sun came out today which makes it harder to make myself work indoors. The auriculas are flowering just now.

My mum & gran came for a visit last week. I had just bought a couple of hundred lavender plug plants to make a lavender hedge &, along with all the seeds I've been growing, was having a panic about getting enough little pots together. I must admit that I'm the kind of person who has to pot up every last little seedling, even if I've got far more than I need! Anyway, my mum set to & potted up hundreds of tiny plants. My gran meanwhile, was busy making little pots from old newspaper, using the paper potter that my mum had bought me as a gift (genius!). We spent a very enjoyable couple of days pottering about the greenhouse & garden. Now the lavender can grow on a bit, before being planted out in position later in the year. The plug plants were defininitely a cost-effective way of getting lots of plants at once as they worked out at only a few pence each.

Here are some tiny tomato plants which can be potted up, 'pot' & all, once they've grown a bit more.

So, back to the latest upload of vintage stock.... I'll be working on it over the next week & will send out an email when it's complete. There are some really lovely things so do keep checking back...

Hammersmith vintage fashion & textile fair 13th April

I'll be selling at the vintage fashion & textile fair this Sunday, at Hammersmith Town Hall in London. Among lots of other stuff, there'll be these 2 beautiful 1920s flapper dresses...




Also this interesting piece of costume history from an earlier era; a chatelaine made from cut steel. It hooked onto a Victorian lady's waistband or belt so that these useful little articles could be kept close at hand. This one has a pair of folding scissors, a thimble holder, tape-measure, pencil, pin-wheel & a tiny 'book' for taking notes. They became pieces of fashionable dress as well as utilitarian things & were made in all manner of fancy styles, some even in gold.



SPRING has SPRUNG!
Spring is definitely here now. Having been in our home for less than a year, we're still finding new surprises in the garden as plants come up & flower. We're lucky enough to have drifts of primroses growing wild in the grass.



This snake's head fritillary is hidden in a clump of daffodils & is even more remarkable because it's in a spot which the chickens use as a dust-bath in the summer!

The pots we planted up with grape hyacinths & pink tulips in the autumn are flowering now & add a splash of colour next to the front door.

Chicks week 7

The chicks moved outside this week. We decided to make a new chicken shed with a large, secure run. They're not big enough to free range yet but this way they can get plenty of excercise & fresh air. When they are a bit bigger, the older hens will move in there with them. Then we can leave them in the run on the days we know we won't be back by dusk & they can all free range the rest of the time. It seems like our lives have revolved around getting back in time to shut the chickens in since we moved, which I don't begrudge but it's not always practical!


Mike made the chicken house from a standard shed which he converted by adding a pop-hole & perches etc. It was much cheaper to do this than buy a ready-made, large chicken house. The run is made from recycled timer & steel mesh.

At first they weren't at all sure about going outside & all clustered together just inside the pop-hole.

But once they got their courage up there was no stopping them!

The floor is covered in chipped bark mulch & dry leaves which they are really enjoying scratching in.

The big hens & the guineas keep coming up to look at them through the wire so they are getting used to each other.