Further Adventures of a Textiles Enthusiast

I had such fun on Friday...I popped into Catherine Shinn Decorative Textiles in search of fabrics and trimmings and spent a very happy hour or so finding textile treasure.

Catherine has so many gorgeous vintage fabrics in her shop, it made the task of choosing which ones to add to my stash rather difficult! After rummaging through several boxes of fabric, these were the ones I finally decided on.

I also found some sumptuous braids (including a vintage metallic one) to use in various projects I'm working on at the moment.

Phoebe always likes to see what's going on in my work room!

Another find in Catherine's shop. Apparently, this is part of a blotter. It's made from scraps of vintage fabric, with a shimmering metallic motif in the centre. The background is a lovely red velvet that's worn in places, which I think adds to the character of it. The photo really doesn't do it justice!

I couldn't resist bringing home this nursery rhyme fabric. I'm not sure how old it is, but it's definitely not a modern piece.

It was Little Red Riding Hood that caught my eye in amongst the piles of fabric I was looking through. I love her rich red cape. I was always scared of wolves when I was little (on account of watching 'The Box of Delights' on tv), but this one doesn't appear to be too terrifying!

I went to see an exhibition of Jann Haworth's work at Wolverhampton Art Gallery yesterday. Jann is one of the few women associated with the Pop Art Movement in the 1960s and is still creating work today. She uses soft sculpture to create all sorts of amazingly life-like characters and objects.

This is Frank (1963), who sits beside, amongst other things, a vase of flowers where the flowers are made entirely of gloves!

Jann often uses doughnuts in her work. In the exhibition catalogue she says, "Doughnuts are subversive to me - a way of apparently saying one thing and meaning another. And this makes me laugh, always".

I thought the teacups were just brilliant! The exhibition's not very big, but there's a good selection of Jann's work on display and it's well worth a visit if you like something a bit quirky and different.

Back in February, I blogged about the Australian magaZINE, Mixtape and the piece I'd written for it all about buttons. I'm thrilled to report that it's now been published (in glorious technicolour, on page 27)! I've ended up with some extra copies as the post was rather slow and Justine (Mixtape's fabulous Editor) sent me some more as we thought they'd been lost somewhere en route. Needless to say, the first batch eventually turned up, closely followed by the second! As a result, Justine has very kindly said that I can share them out amongst fellow appreciators of all things crafty. I have two copies that are looking for a new home, so do let me know if you'd like one. If there's more than two people interested, I'll pick names out of a hat.

As the Mixtape ethos is all about making time for the small things, I think we should all indulge in setting aside a little bit of time this week to do something we really enjoy. Take the phone off the hook, ignore the washing pile and have a bit of 'me time'!