Mid-August at Nostalgia at No.1

I've been working on all sorts of craft projects recently...making lots of new items for the fair I mentioned on my previous post, which is fast approaching, as well as stocking up my shop...

At first I wasn't sure how best to utilise this old hand embroidered tablecloth, that sadly was torn and stained...

The best thing about it was the neatly stitched flowers, so I thought I'd carefully cut them all out to use for a flower garland.

Lots of lovely flower motifs.

I supplemented them with some others I had saved from past projects.

Taking a reel of cotton tape from my supplies, I then stitched the flowers randomly down the length of the tape using my sewing machine.

Pretty garlands to add a decorative vintage touch to the home...

Or shop!
I made this longer length to decorate the shop, using some pretty hand embroidered pansies...

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I bought a large array of country style pieces from a friend, so set about revamping them last week. I wax polished the lovely old trug/wooden basket and painted some of the other pieces in a soft cream eggshell. 

A willow basket with damaged handle was made new again with a binding of cheerful gingham fabric glued in place. 

This large laundry type basket had a lining made to fit, which I fashioned from an old coffee bean sack. I carefully hand stitched it in place around the top. Perfect for storing fresh vegetables perhaps, in the farmhouse kitchen?

I've put together another collection of garden gift sets, containing vintage garden tools, clay pots and useful gardening books.

This rather sad copy of Beatrix Potter's Flopsy Bunnies was damp, tattered and torn when I discovered it at a flea market - Consequently, I felt OK about cutting it up to make a collection of greetings cards.  

I was able to rescue quite a few of the illustrations inside, trimming where necessary to avoid any watermarks. 

I made a second collection from a damaged Peter Rabbit book, too. 

The 'waste-not, want-not' philosophy also had me salvaging scraps of antique fabrics in my workroom to make this final selection of cards...

 - Each trimmed with a tiny dried rose bud. 

I may save these for the Devises Fair...I've been finishing off a collection of fairy dolls for that fair too, as well as a few other one-off pieces. I shall show these on a later post. 

Otherwise, everything else has slowly been making its way into my little shop. There is barely a square inch left free there at the moment (Having said that, I'll be delivering yet more pieces as from Thursday, as -and-when I complete a few more projects!) - I feel happy to have had some time away from my PC in order to catch up with all of these make-overs and to get my shop looking just the way I wanted...

Please keep going if you'd like a short tour in pictures of my nostalgic space...

 

Lots more photos of my latest handmade items can be seen on my other blog, which I have been keeping updated. 

Thanks for stopping-by.

Have a great week,

Niki x