£1 ALL.

See that?! £1 ALLLLLLLLL !!!!!!!!!!

£1 for nine balls of vintage Patons Beehive 3-ply yarn!

In a popping red that isn't too popping in real life, but has just enough pop to make me happy.

We went to a village fete on Sunday, and I started by taking photos.

There was a lot to look at, colourful inflatable fair attractions (for children to slide down or jump on), stalls selling candyfloss, lots of colour and busyness! I planned to continue clicking away with my camera.

That was until we reached the car boot sale and I found the £1 All bag of wool.

My hound like bargain sniffer, (it's an official part of my brain, I doubt I'm the only one afflicted with this), went into over-drive after that, I think I was practically salivating.

Maybe I should have been on a leash.

I did notice out of the corner of my eye, that Hugo was standing back looking slightly bemused, and knew better than to say anything like "haven't you got enough yarn?"

I went on to buy two cones of yarn for £1, three embroidered tablecloths for £5, and a nice necklace for £3.

I left feeling like I'd had a very big meal, and was all bloated up with bags full of bargain goodies.

Another thing I did this weekend just gone, was visit the market stall of someone I know called Hannah. She's in the process of starting up a shop that she intends to grow, from a market stall, to a shop in bricks and mortar, and she's called it "Sew Pretty". She's not yet selling her wares on-line.

Saturday morning dawned lovely and sunny, and I felt very excited at sauntering down to Hannah's stall.

I bought the fabric, threads, elastic and button from Hannah's stall a couple of weeks ago to make the turquoise Miz Mozelle Dress. Everything to make the dresss came to £12, so you can see her prices are affordable. And the selection of fabrics is wonderful. Shall we have a little look?

Hannah is full of energy and ideas, and so talking sewing with her is like watching a sponge soak up water, with me as the sponge.

Hannah's son has set up a company called Crow and Dunnage, printing t-shirts, and soon to expand to bags. You can design your own t-shirts and they will screenprint them. It would be great if they started printing fabrics for garment making, maybe that will be in their plans for the future. The link to their site is here.

And yes (!) I did buy some fabric from Hannah! This 2.3 metres screenprinted fabric was in her bargain box for £12, and I've got a pattern in mind for it......... will reveal that when I come to use the fabric.

The yellow polka dot fabric above is from Hannah too, £8 for three metres, and I plan to make another Miz Mozelle dress with it.

The stripy blue and white fabric above is a metre of curtain fabric, the plan is to make another Starboard Skirt with it.

The red gingham dress I last reported on in this post, has now acquired a waistband.

I've got some sort of mental block concerning this dress, you could call it "attitude". I'm like a sulky teenager reluctantly finishing a job I have started. I worked on it for a few hours on Saturday afternoon. The skirt section is ready to be attached. I should just get on with it.

The reason I'm not doing that, is that I've been concentrating on my sculptures.

You might enjoy this little anecdote.  I was making butterflies that are to be part of a commission I'm working on, and couldn't understand where one of the pieces had gone. It seemed to have just vanished, and I put it down to that mystical vanishing thing that happens to things like needles and pins, and other little bits and pieces. Well, the whole evening, during supper and afterwards, I was slightly perplexed as to the missing piece. It was only as I was washing my hands in the bathroom, and glanced at the mirror, that I noticed a butterfly tangled up in my hair.

I had been around Hugo all evening, had supper with him and spoken to him, and I presume he looked at me when he spoke to me. At no point had he observed the butterfly in my hair, (I'm not in the habit of wearing decorative things in my hair, so it wasn't a case of him thinking it was normal, and so not necessary to remark on).

What's this called? "Invisible Wife Syndrome"?

And my knitted dress? I'm starting to sew the side seams up. I'm praying it fits. Maybe my Friday post will have good news, or bad news, about that.

I'm off to get on with things that have to be got on with. Have a good week! Vanessa xxx

 

Comments

[Heather]

oh perfect! It's fingering weight too, that means you can make the vintage jumper you wanted to. At least, I think you wanted to make a vintage jumper? It was blue and used very fine yarn and you wanted to make one ... I think it was you!
xxxx

[Alice and Raymond!!!]

what a great bargain! all that yarn for one pound yay! I think I would have fizzed over with excitement! And loving all these fabrics, you have so much creative potential sitting in your home, exciting :OD
Have a lovely week XXXXX

[Hen]

Goodness me, you are keeping busy, Vanessa! Like the look of that stall, I had that yellow polka dot (or one v similar) once and very useful it was too. Those balls of yarn look fabby, I wonder what you will make with those...
Hen x

[Sharon]

Wow fantistic bargains, I absolutely loved the 'Sew Pretty' stall and reasonable too. I thought the green print fabric was especially fab. Annaliese and I loved your little anecdote! Look forward to your next blog entry. Love Sharon

[bakeandsewblog]

Gosh Vanessa. You really are good at sniffing out bargains. And the fabric - wow! Your friends really has a lovely eye for fabrics. Let us know when she gets an online shop, I would love to take a look x

[Planet Penny]

What a lovely stall, I could spend a fortune there! Especially all the gingham, and stripes, and flowers!!!I frequently suffer from invisible wife syndrome, sometimes Tim loses me in shop because he can't remember what I'm wearing!!! Penny and Higgins xxx

[Magic Cochin]

Woooo! Bargain!
And the market stall is fab too, lovely lovely fabric (I'm getting all excited!)

Just a little thought about your gingham dress - if I was making it I'd put a little band of bias ribbon along the seam top and bottom of the waistband. I'd use plain red, or a grey-blue. It would set it off in a really smart way.

Hope you don't mind me meddling with your sewing - which is just splendid :-)

Celia
x

[Helen Cowans]

>visit the market stall of someone I know called Hannah<

Where is Hannah's stall? Looks wonderful! Good to have someone local

[greenrabbitdesigns]

Wow, what bargainous yarn. :)
Hannah's stall is lovely, I really, really love that green and white fabric!
Vivienne x

[Alison]

Your butterfly story made me laugh! I wish we lived so close to a market that had stalls with nice stuff - the fabrics look lovely.

[Lynne]

Hi Vanessa, thanks for stopping by.
I wish I had a stall like that near to us. The fabric choices and the prices are great, Hannah is a bonus.
Talking about fabric printing, have you come across a website called Spoonflower? You can design your own fabrics and they will print them. They have competitions as well. It's a fun place. It's spoonflower.com
I'm always losing things and put it down to a black hole that follows me around. Much nicer to have pretty things turn up in your hair though.

[Steph]

What a bargain!

I'm coming shopping with you! x

[barbara]

My daughter did a car boot sale a couple of months ago.I gave her some wool packs I had bought and didn't like the colour.She sold them both to people who hadn't knitted for ages and didn't want to pay shop prices to have another"go".Let's hope they are back into knitting!!

[harmony and rosie]

Well, how satisfying is all this, you are like a whirlwind with your sewing at the moment and have one mammoth ta-dah in the making too. As for invisible wife syndrome, yes I do believe that's a bona fide condition and Hugo will need some therapy. Lots of yarn shopping should do the trick!

[Annie]

I read all the way through your post, but my mind didn't really get past all that lovely yarn for a £1 !!!! The bargain sniffer part of my brain clearly needs work ... I never find things like that ... lucky, lucky, you :D

[D A Nelson]

I have a couple of places I go to to buy secondhand wool that's cheap...it's one of my guilty pleasures. It's a fab feeling so am with you ref the red wool (which is lovely by the way).
Ref butterfly going missing...it's obvious: you have Borrowers. They borrowed the butterfly to decorate their home for a party and returned it (via your hair) later. Ref hubby not noticing...it's an affliction of men I think. I went from brunette to blond at the age of 14 and my father never noticed.

Dawn x

[frances]

What fun it's been to see this post, Vanessa. That Paton's yarn is a fabulous find...how could anyone have walked away from it? I love those fabrics you chose, particularly the green and white.

And, as for the errant butterfly, that is very amusing. What color was that invisible butterfly?

xo

[Maaike]

What an amazing blog you have, superpretty things you sew and crochet... I am in Love now!

Have a wonderful weekend sweet Vanessa,

love Maaike

[bohomumma]

what a bargain!! Lovely colourful pics as ever - so good to get a nice bright pop of colour when I come by - sorry, I've not been around much, am trying to stay off the computer and be with the children more over the summer, but am looking forward to the chance to catch up with your posts soon. Certainly seems that you have been busy. (and know what you mean about the Invisible Wife Syndrome - I wore what was a daringly-short (for me)short skirt today, it took til tea-time for me to remark, vaguely that something was different, and had I got my legs out for a reason?!)