More Curtain Couture

Other than a love of The Smiths, Vietnam war films and travel my brother and I don't have a great deal in common. He's 6' 4", shaven-headed and somewhat reserved with a love of sport and high-end clothing.

He's camera-shy, too. You'll have to make do with this picture of him and Mum in 1969.

When we were clearing Dad's house he wanted to chuck these curtains, which had hung in his bedroom since the 1960s, into the skip but I had other ideas.

Crazy fool! Those bewhiskered soldiers were just waiting to be transformed into a maxi waistcoat. 

Feather pendant from the lovely Lucy @ Lucy's Lounge via darling Annie

I cut the pieces out almost a month ago and bought a length of emerald green sari fabric from the market for lining but with vintage fairs, gardening, house-clearing and life in general I hadn't had the time to finish it off until yesterday.

Waistcoat was made using a 1971 Butterick pattern (£1, Vicky's antique & collectors fair), vintage frog fastenings (courtesy of the gorgeous Tamera), lined with sari fabric (£4, Walsall market), sewn together with thread bought as part of a job lot from a car boot sale (approx. 10p) - Total cost £5.10  

I'm glad I waited, sitting in the sunshine with Jon blasting out some tunes from Gilbert's in-car stereo, hand-sewing the hem with a pair of lazy cats at my feet made for a pretty much perfect afternoon.

Followed by Jon's home-made pizza and a few ice-cold beers I'm starting to love our mixed-up weekday weekends.

After a two day respite it's back to work this morning, starting with a trip to the Wednesday morning car boot sale and sorting Gilbert out in readiness for Glasto and then compiling a festival shopping list of cider, pretzels, cider and yet more cider.

See you soon!

Canal Knowledge

Get the beers in, lads, the entertainment's arrived!  The owner of the barge opposite shouted when the four of us rolled up to erect our marquee in a ten force gale on Friday night.

 Poor bloke, what a let down, at his age he should have learnt never to be fooled by appearances. 

 Despite our impractical attire, little did he know he was looking at a former sea scout, ex-girl guide and a pair of seasoned campers so our pitch was up and anchored down without a tantrum, swear word or You've Been Framed type mishap.

Photo courtesy of old school mate, Kate

 This weekend marked the biennial Canal Festival and as Liz and Al's former toll-keeper's cottage is slap bang in the middle of the event it would have been madness not to have a stall despite us knowing bugger all about barges.

Here's our combined pitch up and ready for business.

Kinky Melon's half of the marquee.

The bargain box is always a draw.

We managed to shift all that we took of Mum's hoard of books, only another three-quarters to go.

Liz's bespoke bags got lots of love.

The contents of Liz's mum's garage.

 Scenes from Saturday (aka Day one).

The waterways were filled with over 150 boats from all over the country.

Saturday's weather was positively schizophrenic - from glorious sunshine and mild temperatures one minute to gale force winds and rain of biblical proportions the next . At one point five of us held on to the marquee to prevent it being swept away. 

  

As festivals go it wasn't exactly up there with Glastonbury but good fun anyway.

Some people did make a real effort to dress up. How cool do this couple look?

Lots of mates popped by for a chat which made a pleasant diversion from to listening to monologues on dredging, Lister diesel engines and rising water levels by some of the weirder visitors to our stand. 

A sneaky snap courtesy of Brownhills Bob. Montego Bay maxi dress found by my friend, Vicky.

After 11 hours we packed away our stock in the van and chilled in the pub for a couple of hours gearing up for another 8am start.

Lagos-made 1960s maxi (darling Curtise), Frida pendant (fabulous Tamera)

And so to Day 2.
9am, set up and fuelled by Jon's magical flask of coffee and a bag of reduced-to-clear Co-Op doughnuts. 

The boys having a moment. That sky looks a tad ominous.

Doggie madness! There were 6 of these cute Poms aboard this boat.

At 5pm we packed away, parked up, went to the pub and got sloshed. I've a billion blog posts and emails to catch up on and a van on the drive waiting to be unpacked (fortunately a lot lighter than it was on Friday) so I'd better get cracking. 

See you soon!

Although I don't think I'm fit to be seen today I'm linking to Visible Monday anyway.

Bollywood Mash Up

It's Wednesday morning, I'm just off to the corner shop in vintage denim and gold lamé.

 I do love a good mash-up, stuff that really shouldn't go together but somehow work brilliantly, like curry sauce and chips, fizzy white wine with Flying Saucers or Bollywood Carmen - Bhangra meets Bizet performed on the streets of Bradford and broadcast live by the Beeb - it had me whirling round the lounge last night like a woman demented.

When the curtains opened to reveal drab & drizzly skies this morning I knew I needed to don my latest maxi dress and unleash a bit of Bollywood dazzle.

How cool is the label?

Gold and silver together - gotta be done.

Indian, Pakistani, African, Native American ....

Why just feck around with just one cultural reference when you can pile on the entire bastard lot ?

The Rolling Stones, vintage handicrafts, contemporary footwear.....

Sharing my feet over at Bella's

Clothes are mere frivolities, dress up, wear what you love and stop mithering about what other people think of you. If they don't like you because you wear a cocktail dress to buy a lettuce then they probably weren't worth bothering with in the first place.

Here's a fine mash-up, Snoop Dogg might be a dick but this song (and the film it's from) rock.

1970s Perfect Lady cocktail dress (my friend Vicky), Lewis Barnett denim waistcoat (Second to None, Walsall), Pakistani vintage velvet tote (25p, jumble sale), Original Rolling Stones badges & peace earrings (courtesy of Atomic Mildred AKA Clare), turquoise boots (sword-wielding goddess, Helga), Plaited headband (99p dump bin, Boots)

I'm off to get my stock ready for the Canal Festival this weekend and to add a few more frocks to the shop, too. It's probably just as well the weather's crap, no sneaking off to lie in the garden in my bikini.

See you soon!

The Constant Gardener

I've created urban oases in past homes but despite all good intentions this garden remains a wilderness, choked to death by bindweed, decimated by slugs or, more usually, by the pair of us buggering off to India just when the growing season kicks in.

The glorious weather (and Miss Magpie pointing out the weeds behind me on a previous post) have spurred me into action yet again. There's tomato and cucumber plants already flowering in the window boxes, a thinned-out herb plot and a stash of second-hand pots scrubbed and ready to be planted out with whatever I can find going cheap on the market in the morning.

My 1970s high-waisted denim "Huggers"shorts, tooled leather belt, flowery gardening gloves,1960s Polaroids & broderie Anglaise blouse are all second-hand, the leather sandals were bought NEW from a roadside stand in Tamil Nadu, 2011

I've had great planting advice & ideas from Miss Magpie, Tania, Clare, Emma Kate and Nikki so watch this space. I wouldn't hold out that much hope though, our Glasto tickets arrived on Saturday so there's 6 days of neglect on the cards already.

Here's my favourite find from Chesterfield flea market - a set of snazzy 1960s red nylon pyjamas with deliciously naughty built-in frilly knickers. I loved them on sight and got a generous discount when the gorgeous stall holder, Darcey, and her cool daughter, Hannah, recognised me from my blog. Curtise's fabulous yellow frock came from the same stall.

It's perfect for slipping on after a bath and chilling with a rum and coke in front of Poirot after a hard day on my knees, trowel in hand, laughing along to the millionth passer-by to suggest I come and sort out their garden next.

All this manual labour may do wonders for the sun tan but it doesn't half play havoc with the Barry M.

Have you seen the latest edition of VOGOFF magazine? Forget airbrushed celebrities, style Nazis and pre-pubescent stick insects, this is the real deal. Check out Madame Vix's article right HERE.

I'm off to water my tomatoes.

See you soon!