News From The Sale Room

Whether its an auction, a charity shop, a car boot or jumble sale, I can't resist a poke about for anything that takes my interest. Needless to say, I am always hopeful I might find some long lost treasure that no one else has noticed but for me treasure comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes. With a few auction houses locally, most weeks I am either viewing, bidding or collecting something or other.

This week I have had mixed fortunes in the sale rooms. I left a number of bids at one general sale, mainly on textiles and managed to have the highest bid on one box of textiles. I was quite pleased as it included an old patchwork quilt which I thought would be good for cutting up and using for some bags. When I went to collect the lot, the auction house were slightly embarrassed to admit that the lot had gone missing. Someone had obviously taken it with lots they had purchased and who knew who that had been. Very annoying to say the least!

Thankfully at a local fine art and antiques auction, I viewed and left 8 bids and managed to win 3 of them. And what an eclectic mix of items I have ended up with! The first lot was an Art Nouveau beaded handbag with a faux tortoiseshell Bakelite frame. The frame is marked made in France and the bag probably dates from around 1900-1910. It is in remarkable good condition for its age with only a small amount of bead loss for the fringe. The other item with it is also beaded and was described as an offertory pouch, presumably from a church.

The next lot I liked because it also included a vintage petit point handbag as well as a small petit point coin purse with an expanding metal top. The lot also included a petit point card case, petit point powder compact, a powder compact in a leather case and about 10 pairs of vintage gloves, mainly leather. Slightly more oddly, the lot also came with various old envelopes containing foreign stamps. Not quite sure how stamps fit in with handbags, gloves and powder compacts but that's auctions for you.

The third lot I was actually after a large box of vintage buttons. I have an absolute weakness for an old button tin. The sound the buttons make as you run your hands through them reminds me of the sea rushing over pebbles on a beach. Fabulous! I can spend hours sorting through a button tin I have just purchased finding all the ones I like and cleaning them up for use on sewing projects such as my peg bags.

As well as the hundreds of buttons in a box, the lot also came with some old jigsaw puzzles, dominoes, chess pieces, a building block set, some of which was in an old chocolate box and the most random item of all. The final item was described in the catalogue as an old electrical item. A bit of googling revealed that it is a Victorian electric shock treatment machine! Just the sort of thing you would expect to find with lots of old toys really. And that is precisely why I love auctions, until you walk through the door of the sale room, you never know what you are going to find. No two auctions are ever the same, something will always catch your eye and surprise you. Who can resist taking a look?

Magazine Bliss

A couple of years ago if you perused the shelves for craft magazines, all you could find were magazines on knitting, crochet, cross stitch, card making or beading. They all seemed to stick rigidly to their particular corner of the craft market and every other area was ignored. It was to be honest quite frustrating.

I was quite surprised recently to find a whole of craft magazines brimming from the shelves in the newsagent. Before you could blink, I have bought three I had never heard of before.

The first, Craftseller was only on issue 7, so is obviously a relative newcomer. The tag line is "Make and sell your handmade crafts". Perfect for the likes of me then. As well as being packet with four pages of readers letters it has sewing, knitting, chocolate making, crochet, cross stitch, beading and much more. There really is just about something for everyone in it for the beginner to the more experienced crafter. It is also a good source of information for suppliers.

Mollie Makes was also only on issue 10, so must be another recent comer to the magazine market. The overall vibe of this one is definitely more vintage, shabby chic. The matt cover rather than glossy and softly coloured photos inside give it a more upmarket feel and vintage feel.

The final choice was Making - beautiful crafts for you home. The cover offered 25 original projects for stylish living and included paper roses, a crochet throw, classic bean bag, pillow mat for sleepovers and doll's house bookcase. What more could you honestly ask for in a magazine? The whole of the content is well laid out and easy to follow with good illustrations.

Needless to say, since buying them all I really haven't had much time to read them but they are magazines you can just dip in and out of. They are all definitely worth keeping for future reference. I will also buy them all again in the future, though probably not at the same time. At about £5 each, to buy all three every month would soon stack up. I guess you have to skim them and make a choice every month. I'm not sure I could choose between them though as they all have so much to offer. Maybe I will have to take out some subscriptions offers instead.

A Gift From A Gift

My 11 year old niece was given a sewing kit for Christmas, consisting of threads, precut fabric squares, buttons, needles and other bits and bobs. Apparently she was absolutely thrilled with it all and quite excited about sewing some bits together.

When I saw her at New Year, she very proudly gave me two squares sewn together with a button in the middle. The items had come from her kit and she told me that it was the first piece of sewing by hand she had ever done. I was quite touched that she wanted to give it to me - well, I hope she meant me to keep it, as I didn't give it back! The sewing now sits in my study on a shelf with photos of her and her siblings.

I was slightly surprised that she had not been taught to sew before. I remember learning decorative stitches at school when I was about six and sewed a cushion, soft toys and a sun dress by hand at school when I was nine and ten. I guess it is a sign of the times, school curriculums have changed and old fashioned home making skills have taken a back seat.

I hope my niece continues to sew, being able to sew to such a useful life skill. I heard at the weekend that she hasn't done any more since but hopefully, with some encouragement she will soon.

"Fifty Bags That Changed the World"

Whilst I was out trawling the shops for Christmas presents a few weeks ago, I stumbled by chance across a book that completely intrigued me. "Fifty Bags That Changed the World" is published by the Design Museum and charts the history of bags from 1860 through to 2010. It catalogues 50 bags which it obviously believes have had the most impact on our lives during that time. Some of their choices I would definitely agree with, others have completely passed me by and I am sure most people who aren't fashionistas.

The book starts with the famous budget box that is used each year by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK when the annual budget is announced. I had no idea this iconic briefcase was first used by the politician William Gladstone around 1860. Apparently the case is in such poor condition that it was withdrawn from service following the budget in 2010.

The book moves on covering iconic bags such as carpet bags, saddlebags, doctor's bags, bicycle panniers and gas mask bags, all of which certainly deserve their places in the book. Also mentioned is the introduction of Louis Vuitton's steamer bags which inspired the whole range still available today and the metal mesh handbags of the 1920's. Other noteworthy bags covered are the TWA airline bag, the Hermes Kelly bag and Birkin, as well as the Fendi baguette.

One bag which really captured my interest was the Ferragamo handbag favoured by UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Who knew that a woman well known for her safe, blue suits carried a designer handbag? I too young at the time to pay any attention to the Iron Lady's fashion choices but looking at the photo of her crocodile skin handbag now, I definitely see her in a whole new light.

Out of the 50 bags mentioned in the book, if I had to choose the one that I feel has had the most impact, positive and negative, on the world it would have to be the plastic shopping bag. The concept was the brainchild of Sten Gustaf Thulin, a Swedish engineer, in the early 1960's. Reigning triumphant in the world of bags for well over 40 years, nobody ever really considered the environmental impact of the countless plastic bags all over the planet. Whilst it is now the villain, there is no getting away from the fact that the humble plastic bag definitely changed the world.

Sunday Serendipity

Don't you love it when you make a mental note to buy something and then prompty stumble across it when you aren't looking? Only one word can sum it up - serendipity.

Having ploughed through a pile of sewing yesterday, I had run out of cream thread and was virtually out of white too, so made a mental note to buy some more in the week. I could have popped out to the supermarket today, which needless to say is open Sundays, but it really wasn't worth it. There were far more pressing things to do, such as take our old mattress to the dump.

My husband and I just about managed to fold our king size mattress in half and shoe horn it into the back of my car and popped down to the dump with it. As I have mentioned before in blog posts, the local dump has a "shop" on site where they sell items on to reduce the waste going to landfill. It is always worth a browse, you just never know what you will find.

Guess what? I found a clear plastic bagged full of cotton thread, a needle threader, safety pins, some elastic and some really strong carpet thread (no idea what that's for though, carpets?). Even better, there was a reel of cream and a reel of white cotton. Not to mention the "silver sand" thread which is always useful! And the cost of my find? A very reasonable 50 pence.

So there we are. Some would call it coincidence. Some would argue I cosmically ordered it. I just call it serendipity.

Haberdashery Heaven

It was such a lovely day today, I decided to pop along for a rummage around the local car boot sale. There are a couple near me every Sunday and the larger one is usually 500 plus cars. I love the fact that 90% is absolute rubbish, 9.9999% is reasonable but not what I actually want or need and then if I am really lucky there is the 0.0001% that I will be really pleased I found.

I was over half way around today before I made my first purchase. I spotted just a little bit of some really fabulous 1970's fabric on a stall, completely covered over with over items for sale. Having carefully pulled it out, the fabric turned out to be a floor length curtain, so quite a bit of fabric. All she wanted was £1.00. (For the benefit of my friend Michelle in the US that is about $1.55!). An absolute bargain!

Next, just as I reached her stall, a lady reached into her car and pulled out a bag of 43 assorted zips and another bag of bias binding. All she wanted was £1.00 for each bag. Another bargain.

My final purchase was 3 metres of white curtain lining fabric which is always useful for using behind thinner fabrics fore strength. Cost? Well in comparison to my other finds I was positively ripped off, it was £3.00 but that's still a lot cheaper than the shops where it would be at least 3 or 4 times the price.

From Small Acorns ....

I have to admit, I really like oak trees. I love their size and majesty, the shape of the leaves and even the acorns. I don't know why, it's just one of those things. Thinking back, I guess it started in junior school. The school was split into four "houses" for school games competitions, with each house named after a tree; oak, larch, beech and fir. Needless to say, I was in oak.

In recent years, the oak leaf in particular seems to have crept into my arts and crafts. A few years ago I collected some fallen oak leaves from a tree near my house and scanned them into my computer. I used them as templates for pottery oak leaves which I sponge glazed and gilded. They were sold at a local craft exhibition a couple of years ago.

Last year, I used the same scanned templates to make felt leaves which I wired together with felt acorns that I needle felted. The felt oak twig was exhibited at the local art society exhibition last year and promptly sold. Have to admit I slightly wish I had kept it now.

A few weeks ago, I came across an old pair of curtains in a local charity shop which were made from the most fabulous oak leaf and acorn fabric. I'm not sure I would actually want curtains in the fabric but they were soon dismantled and washed. I have just finished sewing a peg bag in the fabric and a door stop will be following shortly. Have to say, I really like the peg bag. Hopefully it will be a good seller.

If I was to use from small acorns do mighty oak trees grow for From Rags To Bags, it certainly started as a small acorn and definitely isn't a mighty oak yet. I think at the moment, From Rags To Bags is still at the sapling stage but it has definitely put down strong roots, so who knows how it will grow in the future.