Come on in and waste some time!

Because I haven't really made anything much for a while, I've decided to show you some thrifted stuff which I acquired a couple of days ago.  

Can't resist old buttons, of course.   There are some really pretty glass and pearly ones here, for which I sacrificed my (already grim) fingernails to scrabble out of the bottom of an old toffee tin.

A few lengths of fabric.   Top one is wool, I think, judging by the dainty moth-holes nibbled here and there.   Middle one is chiffon-y, and looks like it might be good for nuno felting something summery and delicate.   Bottom one is a Nina Campbell bit, which I lurved the indigo colour of and it had a kind of sashiko embroidered look about it too.   Don't, please, ask me what I'm going to do with it.   The answer will be rather along the lines of:  'take it out and look at it from time to time, daydream about what it could be made into, stroke it fondly for a while and then put it away again till the next time'.   Don't tell me that you haven't got stuff like that     ......    I won't believe you.

Tablecloth:  thought it looked to have a Japanese influence - what do you think?   I'm afraid it will probably be cut up and be used to decorate other things as I am a girl who definitely does not need more tablecloths!

Books:  I always look in the children's book section at the thrift shop and am always astonished that people discard some beautifully-illustrated ones.   Perhaps the stories are a bit old-hat for today's enfants, but it does seem a shame all the same.  

This one really caught my eye.   It had a real Edward Bawden look about it and, lo-and-behold, I discovered that David Gentleman studied under him at the Royal College of Art.

Astrid Lindgren is best known for her Pippi Longstocking stories, but this is an illustration by Svend Otto S.(orenson),  from a very sad tale called My Nightingale is Singing, about a destitute girl living in a workhouse.  I love the crispbreads drying in the rafters above the fireplace.

Nearly lastly, the adventures of Harriet an escapee hamster who falls into the garden pond.   The story and illustrations are by Deborah Inkpen.  This appealed because my godson (now in his 30's) had a hamster called Harriet, who disappeared under the upstairs floorboards somehow and was never seen again.  

And finally, (to the sound of a trumpet fanfare), I have actually made a few things, just small scraps of nuno felting which I've attached to the covers of some sketch books.   There are some others in teal and lime green, but I can't get good photos in this horrible grey light we've got in the East of England.

Oh crikey I ought to be doing much more useful things than blogging .... so hope you've not been reading this when you should have been doing the ironing/washing the kitchen floor/knitting socks/bathing the baby, or other worthy and honourable tasks!