Spring Cleaning....shawls

As spring is in the air....at least, in my imagination,

I pulled out my collection of old wool shawls and pashminas that I have collected over the years, planning to freshen them up and put some away for the winter.
All bought ( I hate the word 'sourced', so pretentious ) at thrift stores or church bazaars.

Some are nicer and/or older than others.    

Embroidered.

 and woven.

Seems I have about 30 or so by now.

But this pashmina has been my favorite for  20 plus years. Bought at a church rummage sale, I wear it constantly.


There was a little surprise for me at the back of the drawer, but I published it earlier, by mistake.

Scarf of the month for April

  Lets forget about the bloody weather and get back to the important things......textiles.

A new series..... Scarf of the Month.  We will see if I can keep it going for a year..

April's scarf from my personal collection.

 I chose this because it is/has
* 1950s
* nice heavy silk crepe
*script
* French script
*hand rolled hem
*romantic
* I have had it for decades
* a Jacqmar

If you like this you may like some other 1950s romantic scarves in my etsy shop.

Tempting fate

The previous post, the day before yesterday,

                                        tempted fate.
I bought this upon myself,

Its April 15th.......unbelievable!!

At last

At last the snow and ice is starting to melt.

These poor little things in the back yard are struggling, but optimistic and hopeful.

 Not a leaf or even a hint of green on the trees yet

 and there is still plenty of this around.

Back to textiles next week.

Spring cleaning....mittens

Whilst sorting out my vintage shawl drawer

 I came across these hand knitted mittens.I must have bought them at least 20 years ago (see price!!)

 at an Estonian church bazaar.  Memo, must telephone to see if they still hold bazaars

Now there is a great, well deserved revival in Baltic knitting so I shall be just in style next winter.


Whoops, pressed publish by mistake,  don't know how to get back into draft......ah well.

My new Liberty scarves

The collection has grown.

This vivid deep gold/chartreuse paisley is a favorite colour of mine, in fact, I am wearing this colour in a small floral print as I type.

 Art Nouveau large print....unusually it is hand rolled and 34" square. Mint condition. Some how it just does not 'do' it for me, although it has all the right ingredients.

.

 Now, this one does ring all the bells , how 50s can you get! (maybe 1960s) . The  grey and yellow rose print is my latest favorite.

Difficult to date the polka dot scarf, not too old I would guess.

Not sure how many Liberty scarves I have now, its been a few years since I did a little stocktaking.....800??? 

Coming and Going

The shipping activity in Port Nelson is a never ending ( if somewhat noisy) delight.

  

Constantly changing, coming and going.

cargos of logs, containers of apples

 and cars.

The Merlion at 20,928 tons and The Trans Future car carrier is 60,414 tons....I know this as I read the shipping news in the Nelson Mail everyday.

How these sea monsters navigate the cut I will never know, they even back into some berths.

I can barely back  a Toyota into the supermarket parking lot.

Sunday market

Nelson has a Sunday second hand market too.....

I would have bought this old Elna sewing machine ( $20 ) in a heartbeat had I been at home ,

 and one can never have too many bagpipes.

Over the 6 or 7 years I have been poking around this market it seems to be changing from bric a brac to mainly second hand clothes. My other complaint is that many pitches display their goods on the ground....fine if you are just looking, but for me, if I bend over to pick up an item I can barely get up again!

 However, I was very pleased with the hand smocked baby clothes I scored.