Vintage Silver and Greenery

 I asked my daughter Natalie to help me jazz things up around the house the other day.  

I just love all the vintage silver and random green ornaments she found and how she covered the sideboard with them in a symmetrical way.  She has such a good eye.  

I keep promising to photograph her home one day soon - It's full of her clever style.

Rescued and Revived!

This unfinished work of craft was a pleasure to transform into a delightful cushion cover. 

The embroidered natural textured linen is so pleasing. 

 

It comes with a separate silky sari inner and buttons closed on top.

Available online here or at local markets!

Collar Cushion

When I came across this delightful retro shirt I fell in love with it.  I enjoy the clear pleasing fabric pattern.  It's been up cycled into a lovely Autumn collar cushion!

Available online here and I'll probably take it to the markets too!

White Goblets and Green Ducks...

 ...Help to draw attention away from the unremarkable old window frames in our second bathroom.

Just love my collection of vintage white!

A Sweet Surprise

My mom popped round to help me a bit last week.  I had some crochet samples that needed the threads finished off, which she offered to do.  

 

I just love how she left them on the table for me to find!

Thanks for your help mom!

Golden Hands Covered

This week I used some old posters to freshen up my much-loved vintage set of Golden Hands Books.  The reference books were faded, and - although I am a lover of orange in small doses, they looked overwhelmingly orange in my bookshelf.  

I used the wrong [white] side of the posters on the outside and made dustcovers for the set of 18.

 

I just love the 70s drawings that appear all the way through!
Golden Hands 

Everybody's Darning Cotton!

A collection of vintage darning cottons - mostly for socks and some for stockings too! 

Delightful typography on the label - Everybody's Linen Finish! Extra strong too! 

Available in the Freshly Found online store.   

Bedroom +

I thought I would show you some pics from my bedroom.  It's a really large one compared to the other rooms in my house, and so it has to absorb quite a bit of  Freshly Found-ness.  Things were quite out of control over Christmas, but have been taken into hand now and are looking a lot neater.  I have the challenge of working and living at home and so have to integrate both as best I can.  

The stands that I use for the i♥market flank my dressing table when they are off duty.  They are draped with some vintage finds - tablecloths and clothing - most of which is also for sale. 

You can see my work space reflected in my dressing table mirror! 

On the right hand side of my dressing table you will see an Umbra jewellery hanger I bought on my recent trip to Israel.  It comes from Soho 100% Design. in the Mamilla Mall Jerusalem.  A very inspiring design store.  

If you would like to browse their catalogue, you can see it here, but remember to page through from the back, because it's Hebrew. 

It's one of the few 'new' things that come into my home.  Most of my home is filled with products-with-a-story.  The dressing table belonged to my gran, the lamp you see reflected in the mirror is a dated green jade one, which has taken a coat of white paint very well!  The stool at my dressing table was part of a set of 4 director's chairs sourced from the hospice years ago.  I remade the seat from linen.  The jug reflected in the mirror was a copper one, which has also been rejuvenated with white paint!

Hope you've had a lovely Easter Weekend and are ready to face life again!

I've enjoyed my market break.  I visited the i♥market this Saturday, but will be back as an stall holder again next month!

Travel Patterns

We have settled back into normal life after our wonderful holiday.  Before the memories fade too much, I just wanted to share some of the pleasing pics we took in the Whitby area.  

I love rhythm or repetition of shapes and that's what I found in:

The Crab Pots on Whitby Harbour

 The Smoking Kippers

 The arches of the Whitby Abbey

 And the Daffodil shapes that were everywhere !

Cabled Jerseys, Ganseys and Bobbins

On our travels in the UK, we came across a wonderful wool shop in Whitby.  It was called Bobbins and was brimful of all sorts of wool and handcraft products.

 

The Bobbins shop had wooden bobbins for sale and bobbins made into skipping ropes!  

It also had some boards detailing the history of Ganseys [Jerseys]. Patterned jersies were knitted for Fishermen by their ladies back home.  The jersies were thick and warm and pretty waterproof. 

 

Patterns were specific to local villages. [helping to identify the bodies of men washed up on the beach. A sobering, but practical application]

If you click on this pic you may be able to read the typewritten poem about these jersies.

 

There's a lovely article on this interesting history over here.